What is most amazing is not that former Providence City Council President Luis A. Aponte pleaded no contest to a felony count of embezzlement in R.I. Superior Court.
Nor is it that as part of the deal, Mr. Aponte was required to step down from the City Council.
No, what stands out the most in this case is the fact that it has taken this long for Aponte to be pushed off the council, which he was first elected to in 1998.
Mr. Aponte was elected president of the council in January 2015. But two years later he was indicted by a statewide grand jury for allegedly taking campaign funds for personal use.
His recent plea with the state revealed that Mr. Aponte had taken $13,942 from his campaign account and applied it to costs associated with Netflix, Xbox Live and cable bills, among others.
In May 2017 Aponte was indicted for embezzlement. Later that month he resigned from his position of council president. But he was not removed from the council until last month, when he accepted the charge against him.
The question here is, where was the moral backbone of the council for two years? Being elected to public office is not a right. It is a privilege. And as such, someone who has been indicted by a grand jury should not be allowed to continue serving.
If the charges were resolved in the indicted party’s favor later, they are certainly allowed to run for election again.
But really, why should it come to that?