First, Stabilize The Patient

My wife loves TV medical dramas, from ER to House to most recently The Pitt.  If it’s an hour long show that takes place in a hospital, chances are she’s seen every episode.  These TV shows more often than not begin with some poor shlep being wheeled into the ER, afflicted with some sort of massive physical trauma that the main characters have to spend the remainder of the episode trying to save.

I think our Bourbon County government is like one of those patients right now, more specifically I liken it to someone who has been sprayed with machine gun fire and is bleeding out from a million different holes.  I know a small minority might dispute this fact, but our County now has an independent board made up of bankers, CPAs, and other financial pros, and they’ve all pored over the numbers and come to the same conclusion – Bourbon County is just about broke.

Now, in all of these TV shows, the first thing the nurses and doctors try to do is stabilize the patient.  If they don’t do that, and some well meaning but young, inexperienced doc or nurse tries some invasive procedure on the patient before stabilizing them, then the patient “crashes” and dies.  From watching recent County Commission meetings, I fear that in their rush to “fix” the bleeding, our new Commissioners, who I think have nothing but the best intentions, may end up crashing the patient.  To take the medical analogy a step further, when I watch the Commission meetings, I keep waiting to hear the word “stabilize”, but more often than not I get the feeling they’re gearing up for mass amputation, which I believe would be a fatal mistake.

The learning curve of a County Commissioner is a pretty steep one.  It’s a unique job and it takes time to learn the ins and outs of each department, what they do, and who does what.  This is not something that can be accomplished in six or eight months – it’s just not.  Trust has to be built, relationships have to be built, and only then can you get a good feel for how the machine operates, and in turn how it might operate better and more efficiently.

At the beginning of this year, morale in our County government was pretty much in the toilet.  Events I won’t get into here, along with talk of doom and gloom, outsourcing, and cuts have sunk that morale even further, and at this point we’re gonna need to call Roto-Rooter to get it back up.  That’s not to say these things shouldn’t be discussed – every rural county with a declining population is, and these are conversations that need to be had, but not as topics sprung with a few days notice on an unsuspecting workforce.  I genuinely believe all three of our County Commissioners are acting in good faith on what they think is best for Bourbon County, but change is a slow and tedious process in local government, and trying to rush change usually leads to disaster.

There is a LOT to fix, and by the time all is said and done, Bourbon County may come out looking more like Robocop than the county it first entered the ER as, but that process has to be given time.  To our Commissioners, I say this – go slow.  I’m not saying rubber stamp every budget request that comes through this year, I’m just saying get the lay of the land, give yourselves some time to learn the job and build relationships, and then make the process of improving efficiency a bottom-up effort instead of a top down mandate.

You won’t accomplish this by Christmas – it’s not humanly possible, and it’s going to be a multi-year process.  Study our neighboring counties that are doing well and see how their offices are staffed and run – the beautiful thing about local government is that there is no problem out there that somebody hasn’t run into before and learned how to solve.  That being said, there are no quick fixes, at least ones that won’t leave the patient worse off than they were when they first got wheeled into your Operating Room.  Right now that patient is in a precarious state – what you do next will determine whether we’re headed for recovery or a crash.  The good news is that, contrary to what you might read on Facebook, you have time.

Nick Graham
Uniontown, KS

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Last Monday, the commission voted to put together a resolution to create a planning committee with the idea that it could eventually become the zoning committee when they implement zoning. It sounds like they want to try to vote to approve it today on August 11th.

After listening to all the zoning discussions in the community meetings, I am convinced that there is a potential future where zoning could be implemented in the county that would not be harmful and might even provide some benefits. Even with perfect execution, I’m not sure it is worth it. But either way, just because something is possible does not necessarily mean it is probable. So the real question is, how likely is Bourbon County to end up with zoning that is not harmful if implemented today? The answer for today is very near 0%. It might be different in the future, but right now, every piece of evidence we have indicates that implementing zoning would be a fiasco.

Does that sound like a bold statement? Not really. All we have to do is look at a few recent situations that are much less complex than zoning and use the outcome of those situations to project what would happen if zoning is implemented today.

First, let’s consider the recent lawsuit where the county lost by default. When a lawsuit comes to the county, it is supposed to make its way to the county counselor, and they will show up for the hearing date and defend the county.  Despite receiving a summons, despite knowing that the lawsuit was in process, and despite the hearing date being clearly posted to kscourts.gov, no one showed up to represent the county. It isn’t exactly clear why, and for the purposes of my argument here, it doesn’t matter. The point is that the county is struggling to function in what should be a very trivial matter of showing up to defend against a lawsuit when the judge schedules a hearing.

But maybe that was just a fluke. Do we have any other similar situations?

Let’s consider a second example: the issue of the Southeast Kansas Regional Juvenile Detention Center.  In June, the Sheriff’s department suggested that the county could save money by switching to a different provider. Later in June, the county learned that it owns 1/10th of the detention center—ownership that would be forfeited if they pull out of the contract. Not only does the county own part of the detention center, but one of the commissioners is on the board that sets the prices. Unfortunately, he has never attended any of the board meetings.

Later in July, the commissioners voted to cancel the contract, but they missed the July 1st deadline by about 20 days, so the county is stuck in the contract until 2027.  Was it a good idea to cancel the contract? I have no idea. But I do know that if you are on the board that sets the price and you don’t like the price, the first thing to do is to show up for the board meetings. And, if for some reason you actually do have enough information to know it is a good idea to cancel, it seems like it would have been a good idea to not miss the date by 20 days so you are committed for another year. And if you do miss the date by 20 days, it might make sense to attend at least one board meeting before you vote to cancel the contract.

The list goes on. Now when I look at these types of situations, I don’t see a commission that is necessarily doing a bad job. I see a commission that is new. There is a huge body of knowledge they are trying to acquire quickly. Based on their past work history, it is unlikely they are going to have much prior experience to draw from. That isn’t criticism, it is just pointing out that there is a lot to do and learn, and it is reasonable to expect some missteps along the way as they find their footing.

However, we can also look at these types of situations and get a pretty good idea of what type of results the county will have to live with if they move forward with creating a planning committee as a step toward implementing zoning. The county commission is struggling with basic functions like showing up for a lawsuit, showing up for board meetings of county-owned entities, and deciding on issues before contracts lock you in for another year. These are things that have a high probability of being handled correctly once the commissioners acquire the experience and knowledge they need to effectively do their jobs. Implementing zoning has a very high probability of doing injury to the county and a small chance of being done in a way that is beneficial—even once they have experience. Without experience, we can easily extrapolate the expected results.

Imagine you are Houdini’s manager and he wants to do a stunt where he is fastened in chains, put in a box, and dumped in the ocean. If many of his attempts to do the stunt on land result in failure, you would be wise to caution him against doing the far more risky version underwater. Once he has a solid track record of escaping his bonds on land, then the underwater version starts having a chance of being successful.

Until the commissioners have a track record of handling the basic functions, they shouldn’t launch a planning committee taking steps toward something that has a high degree of risk. The two examples I listed above give the expected, most probable outcome if they decide to do it before.

Mark Shead

Note: FortScott.biz publishes opinion pieces with a variety of perspectives. If you would like to share your opinion, please send a letter to [email protected]. 

Keys to the Kingdom

By Carolyn Tucker

Two Girls and a Pair of Shoes

On my way home from Missouri I decided to stop at one of my favorite shoe stores. Sometimes I’m just looking, but on this particular day I was shopping for a specific style: dressy black shoes with medium-height heel and open toe. It didn’t take long to find the perfect pair, but my size was AWOL. I grabbed a sample shoe and found Jesslyn, the sweet young clerk, and asked if perhaps a size 6 could be in the storage room. She smiled and courteously responded that everything they had was out on the shelf. We visited for a few minutes about how cute these shoes were and then she said something I’d never heard before from a shoe-store clerk: “They are really pretty shoes, in fact, I have a black pair and a white pair of them at my house that I’ve worn only once for a high school special-occasion evening. I’m pretty sure at least one of them is a size 6. Would you be interested in buying them?” I said, “Yes! If it‘s the black pair — I don‘t need the white ones.” Jesslyn told me it was actually time for her break, so she’d ask the manager if she could run home to get the shoes for me. She got the green light and off she drove.

I meandered around the store waiting and thinking about how this was evolving into a very unusual story. Very shortly, Jesslyn zoomed into the parking lot and walked in toting the size 6 black shoes that I’d set my heart on. We had previously agreed on a price, so I laid the money down and both of us had a win-win for the day! I couldn’t leave without a taking a picture of the three of us smiling, standing behind the counter. I told the girls  they could be sure to find this story in their local newspaper — because it’s just too good and off-the-wall not to share!

I pray about everything, whether it‘s big or little. But I don‘t remember praying for a pair of black shoes. However, they were an insignificant secret desire of my heart. Over the years, the following scripture has proven to be true in my life: “Find your delight in the Lord. Then He will give you everything your heart really wants” (Psalm 37:4 NIRV). After experiencing several weeks of stress associated with totaling a vehicle, I think the odd blessing of finding these shoes was simply God’s way of reminding me that He cares about even the little things in my life.

You may think I’m an oddball; you may think I’m wacky. You may believe in coincidence; I do not. I see God’s fingerprints all over this encounter of the bizarre kind. It started with me simply asking, against all odds, “Do you have a size 6 in the backroom?” I already knew the answer, but something prompted me to ask anyway. And now you know the rest of the story.

There are definite perks that come to believers from delighting ourselves in the Lord. And many times God sends these unique blessings through people. These two girls were sweet as sugarcane but God can cause even grumpy people to give us favor. He knows the number of hairs on our head so He certainly cares about our desires, no matter what size they are. In my case, a 6.

The Key: God used Jesslyn and Donna to bring my heart’s desire to reality! I was still smiling as I drove across the Vernon/Bourbon County line.