Saturday, March 21, 2009
Neighborly concern or political grand-standing?
At the March 2nd BOC meeting, Commissioner Nelms volunteered to sacrifice $5000 of his (as well as his fellow commissioner's) yearly stipend in a valiant effort to prevent layoffs of county employees. What a guy... The thing is, according to County Manager Dan Scanlon, no county jobs are currently in jeopardy. Nor are there any plans to raise taxes.
In another statement, Nelms declared that members of the Board are "seven of the best paid commissioners" in the state. Well, not exactly. In fact, Chairman Etheridge later noted that some commissioners in other parts of the state are paid upwards of $30k per year.
In the spirit of unity and cohesion, one can assume that Mr. Nelms' suggestion was simply a misguided attempt to save the day and, in truth, it IS important that our represenatives on the BOC remain open to new means of saving our tax dollars and improving our community. However, one can't help but feel as though this was simply a public relations move and the cynic in me has to wonder if it was a round-about attempt to make a $5k personal donation to the commissioner's reelection campaign fund.
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Definitely sounds like there was something else going on behind the proposed concern. Since Nelms obviously doesn’t need his additional commissioner income, or at least $5,000 of it, what’s preventing him from donating it back into the community, especially during this time. $5,000 could help pay for free trade school classes to help people build job skills, or it could also be used by area food pantry’s to help support the growing need for community programs as well as countless other programs. Definitely sounds like he was angling for a headline, guess he wasn’t counting on the county being sufficient enough to prevent lay-offs…I think that may be even more disappointing coming from a commissioner.
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