It appears that the US Attorney’s probe into racism here will have cost the city about $750,000 by June.
On the School Committee side, add another $690,000.
Add those two up and its almost $1.4 million and rising nearly every day.
That’s an awful lot of money for an expensive probe that some say will lead from nothing to nowhere.
There are many imponderables about this probe.
If it is about nothing why is it so expensive?
If it is so expensive, then why would we ever believe it is about nothing?
The government doesn’t reveal its hand when conducting a probe or an investigation.
To expect the government to tell some Everett city councilors what is going on behind the curtain of secrecy that shrouds every probe and investigation is pure folly mixed with naivete. Asking the city’s lawyers for some sort of indemnification as to what they are doing is an impossible request.
All probes are fluid. All investigations go at their own pace. So it is with this Everett probe.
Legal entanglements are expensive.
When the stakes are high, as they are here in this majority minority city, the cost for legal representation is a reflection of the dangers such probes can cause and of the caution a municipality like Everett wants to exercise.
Much is at stake.
Yet we have no insight really into what is going on. That’s the nature of the beast.
You can’t change the beast’s nature.