A budgetary ‘makeover’

It’s understandable that people are excited about the ABC-TV show ‘Extreme Makeover: Home Editioncoming to our hometown on the heels of another home built in Sussex County, Delaware. But this excitement comes at a time when Wicomico County is strapped for cash, much as it’s likely the family selected for the new house has their own financial issues to deal with.

According to a resolution passed by Wicomico County Council last week, the county could be holding the bag on over $30,000 worth of fixed and estimated expenses – a far cry from the numbers claimed elsewhere in the local blogosphere, but quite in line with what other communities have experienced. The proof is after the jump.

Continue reading “A budgetary ‘makeover’”

Tired of the argument?

You know, once in awhile I have to take my fellows to task.

Perhaps it’s because I have such convincing arguments or maybe I have scared all the liberals away, but I don’t get a high number of comments on my website. (Well, I get a lot of comments but 99% are of the spam variety, which Akismet takes care of.)

So once in awhile I feel I have to give feedback to others. Included in this was a comment I sent in to the newly rechristened Lower Eastern Shore News regarding Jonathan Taylor’s criticism of the two dissenting voters in a recent County Council vote to allow overtime for building inspectors and other county employees in order to approve work on the rolling 4 1/2 day ‘Extreme Makeover‘ project.

My comment addressed three premises in playing devil’s advocate:

  1. The idea that the county’s FY2012 budget is approved, and a general query as to where he would suggest cutting to make up this expense.
  2. What sort of lasting impact this national exposure would have, as in if someone could name other cities which have had ‘Extreme Makeover’ homes without Googling it. (I don’t watch the show, so I wouldn’t know.)
  3. The hypocricy of Taylor complaining about a $10,000 annual expense to the city to provide health insurance for part-time employees but feeling just fine about spending this $7,000 of county money.

I placed none of the seven words which cannot be said on television in the comment, and thought I had legitimate questions. Yet Taylor rejected it, saying he was “tired of having the argument…when you get on this Republican high horse is when you lose reason.”

But I think Culver and Holloway have a legitimate reason for voting their way – citing the fact ‘Extreme Makeover’ is a for-profit enterprise while the county denies taxpayer funds to non-profits – while the other five had their reasons for voting yes, primarily as a boost to the local economy and tourism. (That may be a stretch.) In the end, Taylor got his wish and I said as much. Personally, I would have tried to take the money from somewhere else to make it a zero-sum game so I’m not going to criticize Culver and Holloway for their vote. Nor do I think the other five are off base, since there’s a simple difference of opinion here and we may find the $7,000 is well-spent. Or we may not.

Ultimately Jonathan can run his website as he sees fit, and if rejecting comments because he’s “tired of the argument” is his best defense, well, I suppose I don’t have recourse there. I’d reprint the comment I sent in here on my site but it’s vanished into the ether of the internet like the thousands of spam comments I’ve sent packing have been. (There’s still 4,815 comments here, so that’s plenty of feedback over the years.)

The point is, though, had I been someone who didn’t have his own bully pulpit and decided to use it you would have never known the gist of what I said. I’m not saying I accept every comment I get, because obviously I don’t or there wouldn’t be 375,529 spam comments to my site now vanished.

Instead, my policy has always been that good comments help move the narrative along, so I reject as few as possible. In fact I like the ones which disagree with me because then I have to sharpen my arguments. So if you think Taylor was right, by all means tell me why.

My contention is that if you truly want to add to the discourse, you don’t get tired of the argument. Just ask yourself what else is missing when comments which are otherwise legitimate don’t get through.