Editor, The News:

The Catholic Church sets the age of reason at 12.

The federal government sets the age of 18 to serve in the military and 21 to drink alcohol. Both assume at those ages, one knows the difference between right and wrong.

I was sickened when I read the grand jury presentment in the state bonus scandal. Our tax dollar was used for anything from girlfriends, vacations and running Chet Orelli’s campaign for New Castle city council.

I was even more sickened when I read Orelli’s comments to The News. Here’s a man who whines he really didn’t know the difference between right and wrong. That is not until he took a class on ethics and had a great revelation.

It gets better; he was doing only what superiors told him to do. Don’t blame him; he didn’t know better. To follow that line of reasoning, taxpayers should be grateful he was not told to commit murder or blow up city hall.

One must negotiate a grant of immunity. One must know he could be indicted without it. One must know he committed acts that could be considered illegal.

If one knows that, then one knows what he did.

Then there is state Rep. Jaret Gibbons. He is holding his finger in the air to see which way the winds blows, to decide if he should fire Orelli. Gibbons should fire Orelli immediately to maintain his credibility.

Orelli needs to answer some questions:

Why did he need a grant of immunity to testify? Why didn’t he testify without immunity like a man and take his punishment?

Why did his sense of newfound ethics not prompt him to return the bonus? I assume that might occur in his second class on ethics.

He should resign and return his ill-gotten gains.

Patricia May

New Castle