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A quorum of fools in Mississippi County
To the editor:
In a surprising development (HA!) reported in the Courier News, the Mississippi County Quorum Court is talking about laying off employees because of a budget shortfall. The members of the Quorum Court said this was due to "an unexpected population decline" in Mississippi County.
In my opinion the members of the Quorum Court need to get their heads out of their ***, because the population in the county has been dropping for years. What they need to do is count up the dollars paid to the hospital system after the Quorum Court encouraged Baptist Hospital systems to go elsewhere. They also need to look at the dollars spent on "industrial development" in the county to provide jobs for people in areas outside Mississippi County. The problem is not with a budget shortfall, it is with a problem of "Quorum Court Stupid" being applied to the budget.
A blind monkey on a rock would be much more capable than this cast of fools in realizing the population has dropped, is dropping, and will continue to drop as long as the "Quorum Court Stupid" and the "Blytheville Accounting Honesty" continues to be applied. The completion of the four-lane Highway 18, when completed, will only exacerbate the population move to Jonesboro and Craighead County. The cities and towns of the Bootheel continue to grow with jobs in Mississippi County and if the Quorum Court members think these people come to Blytheville to spend their money, then the members of the Court have their heads further out of sight than thought possible. There is no benefit to the citizens of Mississippi County from this ridiculous tax rate.
In the early 1970s, the population in both Jonesboro and Blytheville was roughly 25,000. In 2012, the population in Jonesboro is roughly 65,000 and the population in Blytheville is about 15,000 (according to the last census). According to our industrial development guru, Mississippi County is a real competitor in attracting industry. ... Let's see ... very few new houses are being built, many parents who live here are paying a BUNCH to send their kids to school in Cooter, new businesses are few and far between, and many of the employees working in the industries in Mississippi County live outside the county. Blytheville has a crushing regressive sales tax (even higher than Tennessee, which doesn't have an income tax) which may increase if the road tax proposal passes in November. If the payments to the hospital stop, the hospital system, more than likely, will shut down. The murder rate in Blytheville is always a point of contention and then there is the disagreement with the IRS the last sleazebag mayor left us with.
Now, the Quorum Court tells us they are going to have to cut services, lay off people and reduce benefits? Well, look on the bright side, Blytheville has a damn good golf course. To me, Mississippi County is viewed as a place a politician can make a dishonest living and not have to worry about prosecution. I understand that it is called "Quorum Court" because they always have a quorum of incompetent fools when they meet.