By

Jimmy Joe Meeker

The new mayor gets $40,000 a year. It seems a little high, but it's better than $50,000--at least for us it is.

Fifty grand for the mayor of Lebanon?

Were they serious?

The mayor of Knoxville makes fifty grand. He's got a zoo, mass transit, and the University of Tennessee. During football season, he has to contend with the spectacle of thousands of clowns who never darkened the door of a college. They hop into their orange vans and drive into his city drunk on cheap beer to vent their frustrations on the poor citizens of Knoxville who can't even drive downtown to get a cup of coffee.

I wouldn't touch that guy's job with an eight-foot Pole or a six-foot Hungarian.

But forty grand for the mayor of Lebanon? Well, I can almost buy that.

To be fair, albeit on a smaller scale, Lebanon does have a lot in common with the city of Knoxville and I've considered all of this before making a rash decision.

First of all, Lebanon also has a zoo. We call it the City Council. We feed it meat and it does tricks.

Lebanon also has a mass transit system if you count those guys riding around on the garbage trucks.

Lebanon has Cumberland University. Their football team doesn't quite measure up, but it's a young team. Last season, I enjoyed watching most of the cheerleaders and some of the games. And I don't have to wear orange underwear, plaster my office with orange posters, or drive a couple hundred miles drunk to get in the grandstands.

But from what I've seen, being Lebanon's mayor is not that tough. Forty grand tough? Well…maybe.

He does have to enter the council chamber every other Tuesday without a whip and a chair, but aside from that, all he does is sign his name a couple of times a day, talk on the phone, and keep the city attorney awake.

Prior to becoming the mayor, Bobby Jewell was a councilman. He was also a sign painter. A damned good sign painter. He probably made about as much painting signs as Lebanon pays the mayor now: $27,500 a year. Hell, he probably made more. You won't get rich with a salary like that, but you won't starve, either.

I'd be willing to bet that when the mayor first heard the $50,000 proposal, he damn near died.

But we've got to keep this thing in perspective. The final figure arrived at was $40,000 and it's not specifically for Bobby Jewell. It's for the mayor--the office, not the individual.

Maybe Bobby Jewell isn't worth fifty grand a year. Maybe he's worth eighty grand. He might be worth only eighty bucks. Either way, it doesn't matter.

What does matter is that whoever the mayor is, he or she is going to make $40,000 a year.

Let's do that. Let's open it up for bids. In the next election's campaign, the citizens of Lebanon get to choose a mayor based on qualifications, popularity, and required salary. Remember, this a democracy: we can do anything we want. If we want to, we can pass a law that requires the mayor to dress up in a chicken suit every Thursday.

By the way, I'll take the job for thirty-eight-five. A couple of people I know will do it for a lot less.

Gary Keith might even do it for free. He'll probably wear the chicken suit, too.

No one here gets out alive.

XXX