Policy plus Relief

Tricia Neal's column in the Sunday paper was quite good in revealing the emotions that can surround us when a desperate issue facing our fellow humans is brought into our sphere of awareness. The reporting on the cardboard village peopled by students in order to raise awareness was also purposeful in that for a brief time it made it just a little harder to ignore that there are people hidden from our sight who daily run the risk of not seeing tomorrow. People who are normally outside the normal community structures that provide physical and emotional support that enables us to have a lifestyle that is free from fear of hunger or fear of being subject to the elements or fear that some medical issue that would be a minor inconvenience to us may become a life threatening illness to them. We picture these people as living under bridges or in cardboard campgrounds and all that is true but there are many more who leave an impression of normality when medical, nutritional and emotional insecurity are a way of life. People who gain access to what we think of as basic requirements outside the normal systems that most people have to ensure that they do not fall through the cracks and disappear. The fact is that many more of our brothers and sisters than we realize are barely hanging on. Many more are a paycheck or two away from that fate and this is either ignored or, as is often the case, blamed on their own failures and lack of industriousness.

The report in the paper said that the cardboard village project hoped to raise $10,000 for Somerset Community Mission to help them with their wonderful calling to serve the least of us. It is a very admirable project just as is God's Food Pantry and the numerous other private agencies that have sprung up to meet the desperate need. These entities can never have enough resources to provide for their clients needs because their needs go beyond food, medicine and bedding. Their needs extend to once again including them in our society as useful and valuable members. Should it ever be acceptable for us to ignore our fellows for any of these reasons? I think not. I am not so delusional as to think that each and every person can be given a life free from want but I am also not so delusional so as to think that we are doing anything close to what we can to alleviate the needs.

We have a perception problem of what the causes are of poverty and homelessness and it results in mistaken solutions. While the immediate needs mentioned must be addressed there also must be solutions that reach over the longer term with the goal of eradicating poverty and homelessness. You say it can't be done? I say it can.

What I would like to see is for these efforts of our kids and Somerset Community Mission and all the others who try to fill the gap result in larger efforts to change the governmental policies that hold the real solutions over the long term. What I would like to see are people coming together to be educated on the root causes of these things and trying to create solutions that would result in long term and permanent change. Relief is wonderful and doing it is at the heart of every faith that we have but the ideal must be to eliminate the need. Scripture says “the poor are with us always” and that is likely true but being poor is a relative thing. In a society that is so rich, just as Tricia realizes, there is no need for so many to live outside of the protection of society's structures. This is where the real service can be used and our children can be taught how to be effective in running their own government. Maybe us old fogies could learn a thing or two ourselves. So, the real question is twofold. Do we want to do it and how can it be done? Let's face it. There are a lot of folks who just don't want to do it. Those unfortunate people we are talking about are out of sight, out of mind. We can give to the offering at church and donate to God's Food Pantry and we feel all better about ourselves. I still have not become so cynical that I don't believe that we can do better. We can because we must.

What needs to be done? Policy. This means that we need to be able to change government policy independent of political ideology. In political speak that is “reaching across the aisle.” There are any number of studies that indicate that if we invest in solutions to prevent catastrophes that we will save money in the long run dealing with emergencies. Some people are just afraid that we will give something to someone that hasn't been earned. Keep in mind, that is not the focus. The focus is long term savings and gaining productive citizens. One of the projects that is being tried, successfully I might add, is providing housing to homeless people before requiring that they have a job. Those who have tried this have found that emergency medical expenses have fallen dramatically just by doing this. In addition, those people gain enough security to be able to work and be productive even if they don't cover all of the costs of the housing. Society still realizes a savings because of the decrease in other categories.

Another part of policy that needs to be addressed is short-sightedness. We have been guilty of not giving projects enough time to become profitable. And, while we are at it we should redefine exactly what profitable is. It may not be a matter of dollars and cents. We need to be able to see ten or twenty years down the road.

I am happy to say that as far as medical care goes we have begun the journey with the Affordable Care Act. I am acutely aware this is a contentious subject and I will freely admit that there are kinks that need to be worked out but emergency rooms are seeing dramatic reductions in patients that cannot pay. What this should do, if those savings are passed on to consumers (which is by no means certain) is reduce hospital charges and lower insurance rates. That is simple capitalism.

I strongly urge kids, young people, to become engaged in the political process. I can assure you that you can make enough noise to be heard. Become educated, educate those around you. I would like to see adults throw off the cynicism and be optimistic again that we can have a more egalitarian society.

My Take is this. It can be done. Cynicism is the way of the past and has nothing to do with youth. The youth have taken up causes before and managed to change the way things are done. Go for it.

Just Put It On the Line

The almost proposed annexation by Burnside of the Lake Cumberland shoreline around to Pulaski County Park for the express purposes of allowing alcohol sales for special events has created quite a furor. As could be expected the anti-alcohol sales crowd vociferously opposes such an effort in keeping with long-held tradition of prohibition. A meeting was held last week to allow citizens to voice their preferences and it was a sell-out with people from all over the county taking part. Judge-Executive Steve Kelly spoke to the crowd reiterating his opposition to alcohol sales but then he seemed to favor them as a means of funding an endangered budget. I have not had much to be concerned with about the new Judge-Executive but I find something here to disagree with but it is not with him alone. It is with nearly the entire fiscal court and some of the other officers of county government.

A few issues are at play here. One is Somerset's declared intention to take its share of the occupational tax to fund city projects which leaves perhaps a $4,000,000 hole in the county's budget. Now, I want to be clear that the city is well within its rights to take this money. In the past it had been allowed to accrue to the county for industrial development and other efforts that the city and county jointly pursued. From what I understand the city says it has not received its money's worth and proposes to undertake those missions itself. I think I am correct on that but correct me if I am in error.

The other issue is the hole in the county budget and the attempts to bring the economic development of the county proper more in line with the development efforts of Somerset and Burnside. The biggest thing the county has to offer is tourism but it lacks ways to take advantage of that industry to generate income. The proposal for Pulaski County Park would be one way to access the profitability generated by Lake Cumberland.

Finally, there is the process of annexation that circumvents the will of the people and allows annexation of public rights-of-way in order to be able to extend city services to distant areas. In this case, sales of alcohol. I am on record as opposing this strange way to accomplish annexation. It just does not make any kind of sense in the administration of public affairs.

I do not oppose sales of alcohol anywhere and I view it as prohibition and restraint of trade but from the viewpoint of public administration the people have the final say here. That brings me to one of the points which is economic development of the county's resources. As I said earlier, Judge-Executive Kelly opposes alcohol sales but approves of the revenue they generate. Well, you can't have it both ways. One of my pet peeves about politicians is their unwillingness to place their jobs on the line to stand for something. If the Judge-Executive wants to raise the revenue then he needs to propose ways to raise it. If he can't go along with the alcohol sales he needs to accept the results. The same goes for fiscal court and the voters at large. If the court and interested parties want to allow those sales then go to the voters and make the case. Put some political capital on the line and risk losing that taxpayer funded job. If it is good for the county then stand up. If the will of the people is avoided there will be a price to pay. Both Somerset and Burnside have approved sales and they are reaping the rewards of that boldness.

If Pulaski County residents desire to continue the level of services that they receive then the people and their elected representatives need to bite the bullet and accept solutions. Make the case for higher taxes. That is where revenue comes from. I point to the example of Burnside which has been able to fund services without raising taxes to its residents. If Pulaski County wants to exist without the many services provided then don't give government enough to operate. This is not a hard thing to understand. Now, a lot of people will go on about governmental waste and high salaries but that is, for the most part, not true. Over the past several years, especially since the Great Recession, governments have cut budgets to the bone, often to the detriment of its citizens and that needs to stop.

On the other hand, the Great Recession has been hard on the average wage earner in Pulaski County. While taxes are the lifeblood of governmental services there are other ways to generate that revenue and that is by encouraging industries, chiefly tourism in our case, to better access the wealth that tourists bring to our area. Only a fraction of that potential is being tapped at present. Our area has the potential to become a local Gatlinburg with water instead of mountains. If you have been to Gatlinburg then you have seen how tourism has been harnessed there. It can be done here. Even Burnside, the only town on Lake Cumberland, has not even begun to tap that unrealized potential.

Somerset needs to annex to the lake wherever Burnside has left a shoreline to be claimed and provide services and opportunities to those residents. Lake Cumberland is the most available resource we have. The case needs to be made to the voters for areas of Pulaski County adjacent to the lake to be opened for tourism development. We just can't continue to elect representatives who seek to avoid tough decisions that would benefit large numbers of people.

News yesterday told of the new Marriott Hotel to be built adjacent to the Center for Rural Development. This adds another piece to the vision of Congressman Rogers for which he took a lot of heat from some who called it a boondoggle. It is further evidence of the vision of Somerset to boldly push into the future. The county leaders need to follow the example.

Justice Denied, Justice Belied

The report just completed by the Justice Department has declined to file charges against Officer Darrin Wilson in the death of Michael Brown. I don't think that surprises anyone because the level of proof required to assert that Officer Wilson killed Brown as a result of racial bias is pretty high. However, what the report did deliver was a damning indictment of police practices in Ferguson, Missouri that indicate a long held institutional bias in the police force. Now, there will be a lot of folks that will just not see it that way and will accuse the Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder of being biased itself. I don't believe that the Justice Department is biased but I do believe that policing practices are in dire need of realignment in order to reassert the duty of the police to be servants of the community. In an interview a representative of the Fraternal Order of Police who served on the commission pointed out something that many may consider unimportant but it is a failing that underlies the financial support of police activities.

The report pointed out how the police department in Ferguson had become dependent on fines and court ordered costs to finance the operations of the police. For instance, a person could be fined for a taillight out and be unable to pay the fine. The courts would assess court costs and more fines for failure to pay and the amount due would continue to increase placing undue stress on a family already having difficulty making ends meet. In addition, being required to show up in court takes time and will often place a person's job in jeopardy. The costs can escalate to hundreds or even thousands of dollars and have no comparison to the original fine. The FOP representative said that this practice began to take wing when state and federal dollars for local police began to dry up after the Great Recession. This abomination that was foisted on the American people has had many unseen costs to our society and this is one that impacts citizens that are very often the least able to pay or obtain adequate representation. It is a revenue stream that does not cause negative feedback from sufficient numbers of voters but which perverts the role of law enforcement.

With this model the police are encouraged to write tickets to generate revenue. This was confirmed by messages from the financial offices to the police command in Ferguson. That it is a commonplace method used by police forces everywhere is in little doubt. I myself have been cited for causes that were improper. In one case the officer even admitted that I had not actually committed the offense and wrote the citation anyway. If I had not had knowledge of how the system operates AND had representation I would have been required to pay the fine. In many cases people just find it more convenient to pay the fine than appear in court. In many more cases the alleged offender just goes to court and takes whatever is meted out because he or she is ignorant of how the system works. I am also personally aware of instances where fines have been levied and when the person can't pay that person is either fined more or given court costs which further increase the likelihood of failure to pay and the cycle repeats. I even know of alleged offenders who have been incarcerated because of failure to pay and that only generates more costs since, in many ways, we charge people to be locked up. The original offense is not subject to incarceration but failure to pay is. Our jails are full but not only because supposedly crime is worse but in order to generate income to support those institutions.

Often these are the dregs of society and so they command little compassion. It is unfortunate that we care so little about these people that we can't generate compassion for their plight. After all, they brought it on themselves. They deserve whatever they get. What is most unfortunate is that it allows justice to be perverted and people become inured to it. After all, it happens to someone else. But justice denied is justice belied and all of us suffer for it. When our system that is supposed to mete out justice to all is applied differently to some than it is to others then we are all complicit in the perversion. The worst perversion is to ourselves when we allow our moral compass to drift off true north because we know how or have the resources to work the system. Or because we know that the people that matter to us will be little affected.

This is what the Justice Department report uncovered in Ferguson. Heaven help us, it could have been us or any other local jurisdiction. If there was a racial component to the bias in Ferguson it was due to African Americans often occupying the strata of society with the least resources. However, in at least one instance there was verifiable proof of racial jokes and statements. When these things are allowed to persist in any governmental institution they are like a cancer that eats away at the respect that all citizens are due.

I want to make it clear that I am not singling out police. This is something that permeates the entire law enforcement structure right up through the responsible judicial entities. And it is not just in Ferguson, it is everywhere.

My Take is this. It does not have to be this way. Justice for all can sit at the very top of our governmental system just as it should. How? First, fund law enforcement and courts independently of the fees they generate to remove the profit motive. That is what taxes are for. Second, emphasize the community as the focal point of police service, become a part of that community. Third, never allow bias and discrimination of any sort to enter into loose office talk or in any other aspect of service to the people. I admit to sometimes being cynical having experienced so much of it in daily life but, as the saying goes, hope springs eternal. Without hope we have nothing.