Mayor’s Row………..by Ned Mitchell
One of the first rules a journalism student learns is that people should know better than to argue with anyone who buys their ink in 50 gallon barrels. So I am about to violate one of the first things I was taught on my way to a degree in journalism. It is after much frustration and reading daily the supposedly premier newspaper of our area, The Southern Illinoisan that I arrive at this point in time. I nearly exploded last week when I picked up the paper and read about the absolute glee this publication proclaimed our reformer/unreformer governor had miraculously found $1 million dollars for that little league baseball field in Butlerville, just south of us.
Before you jump to conclusions and say I am anti baseball though, read on. I have no problem with baseball, I happen to like to watch it occasionally. I am not an avid fan but have been known to cheer on the Chicago Cubs from time to time, especially around my brother when his beloved St. Louis Cardinals lost 4 in a row to the Cubs a few days ago. He takes the ribbing just fine and says “you guys go ahead and celebrate now, we’ll celebrate in October.” The problem here is the State of Illinois cannot pay its’ bills! I do have a problem with our government, no matter who is the governor, not paying their bills on time. We have been at this for several years now and the situation is getting much worse. Read any national unbiased financial publication you want and they all report that Illinois is drowning in a sea of red ink and it is getting worse. What happened to they guy who was going to end business as usual?
So in my fuming and ranting I decided to give this latest baseball economic development farce the famous Sesser test. We are in the process of building a little league complex for the youngsters of our area. This idea has been kicked around for decades and we finally could see enough light for us to purchase the acreage for the park this year. We now have a grant application on file now requesting funds to develop the property into a park. We will have to borrow money to do this and we can afford to do that. We cannot pay for this up front, we have to do like most of us who wish to have something nice and that is to trot down to the bank and borrow the funds.
So here is the Sesser test. One of the big differences between Sesser’s ball field and Marion’s is the fact that the taxpayers of Sesser own this property and will own everything that is done to it now and in the future. Grant money from the State of Illinois and local sales tax from Marion’s citizens are being spent on a piece of property that is privately owned by a wealthy trial lawyer from the Metro East with deep ties to democrat politicians and even SIU itself. To continue the Sesser test, how would taxpayers around here and the media, if they were doing their job, feel about one of my best friends owning this property and us paying for part of the improvements? Talk about a sweetheart deal! Folks the same thing is going on right now in Marion with mine and your tax money and we don’t own any part of that complex.
The second part of the Sesser test comes in financing the ball park here. Lets’ say we realize we don’t have enough money to pay for this so we go to the water department and transfer money from there to pay for the ball park. At the end of the month the Rend Lake Conservancy District sends us a bill for water supplied to us. We don’t have the money so we call Rend Lake and say, listen, we have spent our water department revenue on a ball park and we can’t pay you. If you will just hang on for 10 or 12 months we’ll try to get you some money. This is the same thing the state is saying to medical providers, we have spent our money elsewhere, you will have to wait.
Lastly, just say I happen to be sitting in some meeting of a very worthy cause and suddenly I am moved to donate $10 thousand dollars of Sesser’s money to this cause. You know, just like old reformer/unreformer who last week suddenly was moved to give Marion another $1 million dollars for the little league field. First of all, it is not my money to give away and that should also apply to the governor, no matter who it is. We have a city council here and Illinois has a legislature, they should together make those give away decisions, not one individual.
Now to tie this all back into the newspaper that I am upset with. They have the audacity to try and sell this tax payer infusion of cash as economic development and at the same time run a story on the same page about the Carbondale hospital being owed millions of dollars by whom, the same people, the State of Illinois that just gave away another million dollars of mine and your money. Folks this thing in Marion is not economic development. It is recreational and that will bring some people to the area and they will spend some money but do you think for a minute that over 10 people will work there and make enough money to support a family? Don’t confuse love for baseball from buying a pig in the Polk. This is not about baseball, it is about rewarding political cronies and the least the paper could do is tell it like it is and quit white washing things to suit their circle of friends. It is journalism at its worst!
Some good did come out of the story though as several area residents are finally starting to wake up to the fact that doctors are still leaving this state due to problems with being paid on time. They are beginning to ask questions of their legislators and rightfully so. The Carbondale hospital administrator came up with a suggestion that perhaps medical bills should be tied to state payroll. If you cannot pay medical providers on time and continue to throw millions of dollars at pet projects, perhaps those programs should be in the same pot as legislator’s salaries. I’ll bet if pay day came and went and legislators missed their pay, they would soon have a solution. Just some simple advice to this bunch, pay your bills, you know like we have to first, then squander what is left over. There is an election coming up in November and I hate to be the guy with bad news but in most cases there is no choice between the candidates. It is sad!
With the summer heat come the black top experts who roll into town and take advantage of our elderly. Last week we had a crew arrive and immediately start bilking people out of money and scaring folks who ask questions. There are some reputable firms who do this business and like anything else there are some who are crooks. The way to avoid being taken advantage of is to first ask to see the person’s permit to do business in Sesser. If they don’t have one, call the police. We will be happy to come down and check out the company and see if they are legitimate or not. In this case once we arrived and did a criminal background check on the company we soon discovered one of them was wanted on a warrant for fraud from another county. Of course he was cuffed and stuffed in the backseat of the police car and given a free trip to the Franklin County hotel in Benton. We did thank him for coming here and allowing us to catch him! We are here to protect you but first you have to make the call and let us know what is going on in your neighborhood.
School is about to start up again and we hope you have had an enjoyable summer. I am not sure where the time has gone as we have several projects that we need to complete in the next 60 days. Hopefully we will have decent weather to wrap things up for the summer at city hall. Your patience is always appreciated as we strive to keep Sesser the great place that it is. If you need us, call 625-3611 or 625-5322 or write to P. O. Box 277, Sesser, Illinois or nedmitchell@verizon.net or www.sesser.org
| |
|
