ALL THE CIVIL DEFENSE NEEDS IS LEADERSHIP

Doom and Madness in Emergency Management

By Jimmy Joe Meeker

Originally published in The Wilson County Advocate, Vol. 3, No. 10 ©March 16, 1993 by Donald W. Gillette

Several of our county commissioners and a few public servants violated the Tennessee Sunshine Law last week because they don’t give a shit what they’re supposed to do; they only care about what they want to do.

Their little secret meeting was held in the elaborately furnished Ponderosa Steak House located in the heart of the blooming metropolis of Lebanon which proves, among other things, that these clowns wouldn’t’ know a real piece of meat if you hit them upside the head with one.

“They’ve got real class—they’re having hamburger steak.”

-Christopher Walken in At Close Range

In keeping with my policy of not naming names, in attendance were Wilson County Commissioners Graves, McCluskey, Arnold, and Phillips, which makes it sound like they had the beginnings of a good hockey team or third grade English class, but could not be judged a political brain trust by any stretch of the imagination. The leader of the Wilson County Emergency Management Agency, Bedford Johnson, was also there kissing ass and, I suppose, waiting on tables, shining shoes, filling water glasses, or anything else the commissioners snapped their fingers for. And that’s a damned shame. Bedford Johnson really is a nice guy and it’s too bad he has to cow-tow to these morons in private to get what he wants, but as anyone who has ever heard him address the county commission in public knows, he acts about as bright as a two-watt light bulb and speaks with all the authority of a freshly-clipped French poodle. That’s where Sheriff Terry Ashe has it all over Beford. Terry has the gift of gab—if he’s talking to morons, he can talk like a moron and if he’s talking to anyone half-bright, he can adapt to that, too. That’s also why Terry gets whatever he wants from the commission—they all know that on his worst day, he’s smarter than they are on their best day. So they don’t cross him.

Bedford, on the other hand, is either equal or a bit below the county commission in the smarts department. They know it and they walk all over him. That’s how they get their kicks.

Anyway, as well as I can figure it, the secret meeting had something to do with the fire zones in Wilson County and Commissioner Debra Alsup’s idiotic plan to establish volunteer fire departments throughout the county.

Alsup’s plan, on the surface, sounds pretty good. Instead of putting Wilson County Emergency Management Agency outposts all over the place and paying them to man fire and ambulance stations, she wants volunteers to do it. I personally don’t want some toothless shitheel whose only claim to fame is a red bubble light on his station wagon to put out a fire at my house, but that’s her plan. I’d rather two trained fire fighters show up at the Meeker spread than a hundred volunteer warriors without a clue as to what they’re doing.

The problem here is that establishing WCEMA fire stations all over Wilson County will probably require a tax increase of somewhere between $1.65 and $1.75 per $100 of property value. There isn’t an overabundance of things we have in Wilson County that are worth what we pay for them in tax dollars…as a matter of fact, I can’t think of even one. But I’ll pay another couple of hundred bucks in property tax if it means there’ll be a WCEMA fire station manned by professionals right down the road. Hell, maybe my fire insurance rates will go down if that happens…although with those lying, cheating, bastard-scum at State Farm, you can never tell.

The Wilson County Emergency Management Agency has its problems, to be sure. They’ve got a director who, from all reports, isn’t much of a leader; they’ve got nepotism running rampant throughout their ranks; they’ve got some shift leaders who are certifiably crazy; and they’ve got dissension in their ranks.

But, for the most part, the people who work “where the rubber meets the road” are trained and qualified.

And I’ll feel a lot better having my dying ass put on a gurney and loaded into a real ambulance that’s only a mile or two from the house instead of being tossed up into the bed of a ’72 Chevy pickup covered with cow flop and hay.

No one here gets out alive.

XXX