By

Jimmy Joe Meeker

I know, I know. You get it everywhere you go, just like I do. When you tell someone you're from Wilson County, they invariably ask you, "What's wrong with that place?"

My stock answer is, "Hell, I don't know."

And I don't. When the founding fathers started Wilson County, they thought they were doing the right thing. They didn't know Gilbert Graves from Adam and their Sheriff rode around on a white horse and shot guys who busted up fences, stole cattle, and drank too much moonshine.

They're all dead and gone now, but you can tell who there were. Got to the cemetery every Wednesday night around eight and watch the ground. Under every plot of earth you see bubbling like piranha eating a cow, there's a county father spinning in his grave.

It's so much easier to understand city government: There's a mayor and some council members. They laugh, talk, spend money, argue, fight, spend money, make laws, laugh some more, spend some more money, etc.

But county government?

Not on your life.

The problem with county government is commissions, committees, and boards. There are too many of all of them.

The citizens elect a School Superintendent. Now, whether he thinks he's Albert Gore, Jr. or not really doesn't matter. He's elected by the people. Then the county commissioners elect a school board. The School Superintendent always has an advanced degree in education; school board members are required to have a high school diploma or a GED. Who works for whom and why?

Does the Sheriff answer to a Sheriff's Board?

Of course not. And if he had to, he'd tell them all to go to hell anyway.

The Circuit Court Clerk doesn't have a Clerk's Board breathing down his neck, although he probably should but since no one can understand him with that god-awful twang in his voice it wouldn't matter.

I've been trying to follow the twaddle about the school budget since it first happened a couple of years ago and I'm just as lost now as I was then. Between the School Superintendent, the School Board, The Wilson county Education Association, the Tax Rate and Budget Committee, and the Education Commission, me and most of you are as lost as a Muslim at a Requiem Mass.

Frankly, I don't think any of these people could find their ass with both hands at high noon in a hall of mirrors, but that may be beside the point. Or maybe not.

One thing I do know is that the children of today are going to be taking care of me and the rest of you when we get old. And if we don't give them some kind of education now, in thirty or forty years we'll have illiterate dope smokers hooking up our I.V. bottles and giving us our daily morphine injections.

Why is county government so complicated? Well, it's not, really. The Commission has made it that way. The more committees they can come up with, the more power an individual commissioner can hold over certain aspects of government.

All we really need them for is to set a budget. Give the school X number of dollars, the sheriff X number of dollars, and so on. Then let the department heads spend the money as they see fit.

I guarantee if the Sheriff had a hundred grand to spend in a year, he'd make do with the cars he has instead of buying new ones. If he bought new cars with the money, then next election, the Sheriff would be looking for a job.

If you gave the school system a million bucks and they spent it all on popcorn and shoulder pads, after the next election the School Superintendent would be flipping burgers at McDonald's.

The people can take care of any problem you give them.

They don't need sixty committees to take care of business.

All they need is one vote.

No one here gets out alive.

XXX