It's a trick

One of the oldest jokes I can remember was one I heard from a relative at a family dinner. I was very young, but the joke made sense to me then just as it still does today.

Here is the joke as I remember it. There were two fellows who went to see a parade in their town. In the front of the parade was a marching band. In the first row of the marching band was a fellow playing a trombone. Neither of these two fellows had ever seen a trombone before.

One of the fellows turns to the other and asks, "How is he doing that?" The second fellow looks closely again at the trombone player as he moves the slide back and forth while loudly bellowing out notes. "I don't know how he is doing it, it must be a trick 'cause' I know he ain't swallowing that darn thing!"

I admit here that this is not the greatest of jokes, but it made sense to a young kid back then. Sometimes the simplest things in life make the most sense to us. It's when we are offered a lot of information that is confusing, that we get into trouble.

I read most of the Nevada Daily Mail each day. I also try to follow local news by listening to "Russ" on the radio. Some of my very best information comes to me by way of "local color."

"Local color" is a literary term. It is defined as, "a term applied to fiction or poetry, which tends to place special emphasis on a particular setting, including its customs, clothing, dialect, and landscape."

Like the name of our town which we pronounce using a "long A" which gives good old Nevada a definite distinction from the state of the same name, we are just a little different here.

I for one am quite comfortable with this practical local way of living our lives. While I have lived a few other places in my life, good old Vernon County still holds for me the pace and setting that makes me most comfortable in life.

I love my community enough to try my best to keep informed on what is happening locally. After reading last Wednesday's front page column covering the city council meeting, I discovered my sense of "local color" to be quite disturbed.

Over the past few years, our city has faced some well documented financial shortcomings. The "local color" on the streets that I listen to regularly, all feel that there have been some "shenanigans" at work in our fair city's bookwork. The facts may not back up these conclusions by the average citizen, but I can assure you that they are widely held assumptions.

As I read the notes from the council meeting in the paper, I felt a lot like the fellows in the joke at the beginning of this column. I know there is a trick to this, I just can't see it!

In a time when our city is still facing ongoing budget issues, we had a unanimous vote by the council to hire the firm of Shafer, Kline, & Warren to update the city's comprehensive plan. Oh and by the way, we agreed to pay them $76,000 plus expenses to complete this update.

The council also voted to begin the process to raise the fees at the Frank E. Peters Municipal Golf Course. One of the stated reasons for doing this was to try and offset the annual losses the course is experiencing. These losses are reported to be in excess of $100,000 per year.

Like the fellows at the parade viewing their first trombone, I need to make sure if I have this straight. Our council has hired a firm to write a plan which will tell us how to have something called a "comprehensive plan," at a cost that will most certainly go over $80,000.

At the same time we are going to raise fees at the golf course that would generate somewhere between $4,000 and $5,000 each year. These raises in comparison to the losses each year are minuscule at best.

Now there may be some really good reasons that we need to have a new "comprehensive plan." If there is, would someone on the council be willing to tell us taxpayers what those reasons are in a "comprehensive" and exact way?

What exactly is the substance of this firms offering? Are they going to tell us how to bring the Nevada Square back to its former glory? Are they going to tell us how to prevent the local government from raising our sewer and water rates every year or so to pay for all of our budget overruns?

Like most of our local citizens, I am not opposed to paying taxes for the services we receive, but like many us who make up the "local color," I like to see what I am paying for.

We have had other plans in the past. I can remember when the city was going to put lights downtown to improve the looks. Have you seen the lights there this Christmas season?

I can remember when we paved the sidewalks with bricks to make the downtown look more quaint. Have you seen the condition of those sidewalks lately?

I know how a trombone works. What I and many of the other citizens in town don't know is what is this "comprehensive plan," and how is it going to make us better?

All we want to have from our city leaders is good responsible management of our tax dollars. Like the trombone that appears to slide in and out of nowhere, this current expenditure plan has me completely "tricked!" How about you?