A few hundred dollars toward reimbursement had also come from individuals and the Harwich Police Relief Association, which now says they thought they were helping a town recreation-league team. He approved the spending on the women's team. The pitfalls of the arrangement are now abundantly clear. Yet he now maintains Schweizer did nothing wrong. Schweizer admits she may have been guilty of bad judgment.
Bad judgment involving an easily-accessible store of money is a recurring theme in public life.
We don't know what to make of Schweizer's explanations over the months about business sponsors who dropped out, and players who never paid up - a series of good intentions gone wrong. We just know that parents who paid into the fund thought they were supporting local activities, not a town employee's personal field of dreams. At the very least, the old fund's financial records, including checks and other pertinent documents, should be made public. Wrongdoing comes in many guises. Public employees taking advantage of their positions is wrong.