It has all of the makings of an HBO movie.

Trouble is, a lot of people in Ashtabula County can’t afford HBO.

It is the continuing saga of perhaps the biggest crisis to hit county finances, at least within anyone’s memory.

Who could have predicted a few years ago the gutting of the sheriff’s department, to the point only one cruiser is on the road for the whole county, the detective bureau is gone and there’s only a few floors of the jail open? That elected officials would practically beg for money on bended knee in front of commissioners, whose own employees would have to be laid off because of the sorry state of the economy.

And in the aftermath of these cuts, county offices that are open to serve the public, are forced to reduce their hours, in some cases, to just a few hours a week.

I won’t debate whose fault all of this is. I would suggest it is a combination of factors both internal and external.

But what isn’t debatable is the cinematic way in which our government officials have handled the situation.

First off, there’s the great controversy about the commissioners attempting to boost the county’s share of the state sales tax by a half -percent in an attempt to mitigate part of the financial woes.

Commissioners Daniel Claypool and Peggy Carlo wanted to start levying the tax in April and it is easy to understand why. The faster the tax can be collected, the better chance of salvaging some government jobs and services.

But lone Republican Joseph Moroski wouldn’t go along with the plan, thus placing the issue on the ballot. His contention is the voters should decide if they want to pay the tax to keep government going. Fine.

Claypool and Carlo maintained the county needed to start levying the tax, then let voters decide whether it should continue. The pair filed the ballot issue with the elections board, complete with the April 1 implementation.

Claypool pushed for the early tax collection on several occasions, including in a guest editorial in the Star Beacon. There he writes, “The resolution that was passed starts the long process of enacting the increase, which could start April 1.”

Later, when he saw what they were trying to do would pass legal muster, he announced he had early on decided he didn’t want to impose the tax before the people voted. It is sort of like killing off a character on a TV series and then bringing him back, stating the whole sequence with the death was a dream.

Claypool’s comments, the resolution, his editorial, they were all a dream, an alternate reality.

To further the debacle, the state rejected the sales-tax resolution because of errors by the county prosecutor’s office. Commissioners ended up huddling with the prosecutor’s office in executive session over the matter.

Now how does this, under the Sunshine Law, allow for a closed meeting? They called it pending litigation. Now who was planning to sue? The Star Beacon asked Claypool for which he replied, “I don’t know. We could get sued on this.”

Yeah, well you can get sued for cutting a judge’s budget, too, which was done last summer in public session. So you may as well throw the Sunshine Law out because anybody can meet about anything and call it pending litigation. Designers of the Sunshine Law meant that executive sessions could be called to discuss strategy over a lawsuit that has been filed, so as not to give away the game plan.

Now pending litigation is a catch-all because government people want to meet in secret.

And how did the prosecutor’s office screw up so badly? After all, Prosecutor Tom Sartini made strong remarks supporting the sales tax increase. Surely he would make certain ballot language would be put together correctly.

But Sartini isn’t anywhere around. He is in Mexico on vacation. My understanding is he has been there for awhile and a person in his office says he will be there until the end of the month.

It’s nice when you get older and are able to spend a big chunk of the cold winter months in a warm area. Trouble is, Sartini isn’t retired. And the salaries he and his wife pull down are probably enough to add another sheriff’s cruiser on the road. And in order to continue to receive his salary, and pay those of his staff, he needs this sales tax issue to pass.

So if the prosecutor’s office can afford to have the head honcho gone that long, maybe they don’t need him at all.

Well, maybe they do need him. Maybe the resolution would have read properly if he had been here to tweak it.

Then there’s Sheriff William Johnson, who on Feb. 1 had to lay off 27 employees. His department must live on $4 million for the year. In all seriousness, that had to be tough for him to do. Two deputies in one car covering 27 townships and 720 square miles.

He warned of pending doom and an Old West kind of lawlessness. No doubt, it is a bad situation, one that’s been broadcast like an invitation by media in surrounding counties: Come to Ashtabula County and set up your meth labs, murder your wife. But all these warnings, to me, translates into, "You better be scared enough to vote for this tax increase."

Ah, but then veteran Star Beacon writer Mark Todd got to wondering, in case of a real emergency could the Ohio State Highway Patrol help? So he gives Lt. Mike Harmon, superintendent of the post, a phone call and asks.

Harmon, trying to be a good guy and help, says sure, if his agency can help, it certainly will. The sheriff, you would think, would be gratified to see the OHP was willing to help. Instead, he gets together with Harmon and Todd to stress the OHP is no substitute for the deputies and gets Harmon to agree. Johnson apparently doesn’t want any of the shine taken off his "Old West" analogy.

Part of the sheriff’s department responsibilities (and there are many) is to be the police department for all of the little townships. Not affected nearly so much are people living in the three cities (Ashtabula, Conneaut and Geneva) which have their own police departments, not to mention all of the villages like Jefferson, North Kingsville, etc., which have their own departments, too. Getting people in these high-population areas to vote for the increase to help the sheriff’s department will be a tougher sell.

What truly makes this an HBO movie candidate is within the backdrop of this high drama, with all of the personalities and people with their own agendas, we have Joe Moroski. He’s the commissioner who voted no on instituting the tax hike immediately, forcing the vote.

There appears to be no love lost between Moroski and the two Democrats. So much so, Moroski chose to make public in an interview with the Beacon’s Carl Feather that he is being treated for cancer and is trying to schedule aggressive chemotherapy when it doesn’t interfere with county business.

Adding to the drama are the nearly sobbing youngsters and adults pleading with commissioners to save the 4-H program and Junior Fair by funding the OSU Extension Office, warning them they can either pay up now or later, when those 4-H deprived youngsters end up in the Youth Detention Center because 4-H wasn’t there to keep them off the streets and out of trouble. Who knows? Even the cows could stop giving milk and the grapes stop fermenting in wine.

This is big screen drama from a small county in northeast Ohio.

All we have to do is find the right actors to play these parts. Initially coming to mind is Charlie Sheen as Claypool, Meryl Streep as Carlo and maybe Peter Fonda as Moroski. I can see Fonda in that funky Indian coat Moroski likes to wear.

If HBO showed the film in one theater on the East Coast and one on the West Coast, it would be eligible for the Academy Awards. We all know Streep is always nominated. Imagine on Oscar night: “And the winner of the Oscar for best actress, Meryl Streep as Ashtabula County commissioner Peggy Carlo.” Wow, that would put us on the map, right? Maybe they would do some filming here, boost the economy.

If you have other ideas for actors to play these parts or others, e-mail me with your suggestions. Who would play Tom Sartini (it would have to be someone who could tan well, maybe Warren Beatty.)

Give it some thought, folks.

E-mail Lebzelter, special sections editor, at bobleb@starbeacon.com.