When the subject of possible epitaphs comes up in discussions with my aging friends, I go with: "Seemed like a good idea at the time."

Let's face it, I've never done anything stupid thinking it was stupid. When that inspiration light bulb clicked on in my mind, I considered my move to be pretty clever.

But as the hand played out, I quite often discovered just how remarkably numbskulled I'd been to think my plan qualified as a smart move.

And that might be the case with St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell.

When Bell decided two weeks ago that he would try to remove Dennis Hancock from his seat on the St. Louis County Council -- on its face a logical one, given that Hancock tried to hire his stepdaughter as an aide -- it might be that he wanted to show his respect for the letter of the law.

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Maybe it had nothing to to do with Hancock being the leading council member when Bell's office was called to task for allowing large amounts of moonlighting -- such as letting former chief of staff Sam Alton earn more at his side gig than his county job -- to continue unabated in his office.

Also, it might not have had anything to do with Hancock's pointed questioning of a Bell staffer during an ethics hearing into the moonlighting making the staffer come off like a "lawyer" talking ever so slowly and deliberately, you know, so that we "common people" would get it.

And maybe it didn't even have anything to do with the fact that Hancock is a Republican and Bell is a Democrat.

Because if any of those reasons were behind the move, then Bell would come off as just another petty politician looking for some payback before he heads off to Washington to take Cori Bush's seat in the U.S. Congress. (Bell is a slam-dunk favorite in the Nov. 5 general election.)

But regardless of Bell's motivation, one would have thought that his six years as a county elected official would have taught him that of all the cans of worms sitting on the shelves at government centers (layoffs, tax hikes, audits) the one labeled "nepotism" might be the wiggliest one of all.

Because it sure didn't take long for this tin can to bust open and pour out all kinds of squirming amongst elected officials and department heads.

Post-Dispatch reporter Kelsey Landis, who first broke the story on the pending Hancock ouster, followed up with some further digging and discovered that several other county honchos had relatives working in their departments.

The most notable is Dr. Kanika Cunningham, head of the public health department. Not only did her daughter work for the department over the summer, Cunningham actually went to bat personally to get her daughter a pay hike.

That brings us back to Bell's statement after making his move against Hancock. He said the state constitution "unambiguously prohibits elected officials from hiring a relative."

That's true. But that very same law (Article 7, Section 6 of the Missouri Constitution) also prohibits any "employee" in the state from hiring or appointing a relative.

In regards to these new relative revelations, Bell spokesperson Chris King said the office is aware of them and they are "under investigation."

Now at this point, let's state the obvious: Nepotism is nothing new in the world of politics; government is littered with the bodies of relatives.

But it seems the power-wielders in St. Louis County have gotten a little sloppy when it comes to padding their families' bank accounts.

Seasoned bureaucrats realized long ago that if you wanted to avoid charges of nepotism, you don't hire your relative to work in your department. It's way better to get a colleague to hire that relative into their department. And then when the time comes, you hire that director's relative into your department.

Sure it's sleazy, but it's legal. Laws written by politicians, most of them lawyers, usually include ways to legally break the rules.

But because some politicians fluffed off the tried-and-true ways of skirting the law, the county has a mess on its hands.

Page's office, which had a hand in prompting the Bell's move against Hancock, says that although it currently has no specific rules prohibiting the hiring of relatives, it will now begin a review of its policies.

Now there's a solution that should soothe the public's concern about ethical governance -- a political office reviewing the hiring policies for political offices:

"So Mr. Fox, could you please share with us your thoughts on how we could make this chicken coop safer?"

Still, the most puzzling aspect of the whole situation is Bell. He simply could have notified Hancock that hiring his relative seems to be illegal and ask him to rescind it, which is what Hancock did when he found out.

But now, instead of getting a head start on boxing up the silverware and summer clothes for the big Washington move, Bell looks like a guy who decided to pull a thread off a sweater that was just hanging in the closet.

Guess it seemed like a good idea at the time.

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