This week’s legal conclusion to the epoch of Dustin Irwin and Steve Kukowski is a travesty of justice – a travesty for which Ward County taxpayers get to foot the ample bill.

There will be no trial. No one is responsible. No one is accountable. A young man died unnecessarily and the only accountability falls on taxpayers.

Every reaction received by Minot Daily News yesterday was a disgusted taxpayer who, regardless of their individual opinions on the now-dismissed cases against Kukowski, was outraged at the details of the conclusion of this issue. More than a year of paying extra dollars of salary for, effectively, two sheriffs, special prosecutor fees, jail monitor fees and now a final payoff to Kukowski allegedly to stave off lawsuits by the sheriff. (That’s before the open season for lawsuit threats against the county by other defendants.) Add that to the payment to Irwin’s family and this entire affair has cost taxpayers plenty – all to compensate for the lack of competence at the county commission level.

The county fumbled this issue from the beginning when commissioners decided not to suspend Kukowski without pay pending the outcome of the the criminal case. The commission also hired a special prosecutor who – like state officials – came back with a list of offenses. Obviously two state agencies and the special prosecutor’s findings didn’t daunt the commission when, after the prosecutor they hired asked the governor for Kukowski’s removal, the commission later asked the governor to stop the process. It should have been obvious by that point that the commission most wanted this story to be over, as opposed to wanting justice seen. Perhaps that’s because of the county commission’s complicit role in conditions at the jail that contributed to the incident that started all of this.

Those repulsed by the payoff this week have every reason to feel that there is something very disturbing about how all of this unfolded. Who initiated this agreement? What genius negotiator cooked up such a one-sided deal? What “new” math was used to present this as saving taxpayers’ money?

If you feel something is rotten in Ward County (and everyone we’ve heard from claims there is), you’re right. More than one individual with knowledge of this process told Minot Daily News that the newspaper needs to investigate the connections between one Ward County commissioner and Kukowski. That’s just one of multiple irregularities and dubious acts that Minot Daily News is following up on already. The public needs to know what the true story is here. The public needs to know the price tag for this entire affair and the reasoning behind this travesty of justice.

Understand what justice looks like. It is not Steve Kukowski being persecuted or even found guilty of any of the misdemeanors he previously faced. All it takes for justice would have been a jury trial, just like an average citizen would have had long ago.

Something else the public needs to know and might never. Ethically – morally – how does the county commission walk away from the quest for justice in the loss of a human life? How is it that Kukowski became the victim – at least to the commission, which asserts in its official statement, “There has been great personal toll on Sheriff Kukowski.”

Well, that toll is laughable compared to the death of a young person and a cabal of elected officials who demonstrate no interest in accountability. Perhaps it’s because the deceased was in jail at the time and thus his life has no value to the gilded elite. Not exactly what one would characterize as Christian ethics.

Perhaps it’s something even worse, even more reflective of the dark core of some in our community. Perhaps Dustin Irwin’s life meant less to some because he wasn’t a blond haired, blue eyed child of a longtime Minot family. As ugly as it is, it is impossible for the specter of race not to hover over this incident and the rush by the political class to make the whole thing go away.

There is one thing else the public must know. Minot Daily News can investigate and report findings, try to connect the dots in putting together the true story of this outrageously incompetent arrangement. But that is all. Beyond that, you and your friends and neighbors have to decide to stand up and refuse to accept this kind of “representation.” Invariably, we get the government we deserve. The public must decide when enough is enough.

Someone died. No one is accountable. Taxpayers get a bill.

Does Ward County deserve better? You decide.