"I can bring it back whenever I want to. I'm in authority to do that."
--Steven Mays, alderman, Pine Bluff
You have to hand it to Alderman Mays. He may be wrong, but he hardly sounds in doubt. And he knows he's a big shot, too, or thinks so. We suppose he does understand he has some power in Pine Bluff, Ark., inasmuch as he can bring up a bad idea again and again and force his colleagues to vote on it.
The latest: He's gonna make people live in Pine Bluff, Ark. Call it forced resettlement.
Pine Bluff, bless its all-Southern heart, is a shrinking city, and has been for a while. In the last 15 years, its population has dropped from around 55,000 to 44,000-some-odd. Downtown buildings are falling in. Programs to remove blight have been shut down. It's bad in Pine Bluff these days. It's LSU 45, Arkansas 3 bad.
Well, maybe not that bad. But good Lord, it isn't good.
So what to do? Attract businesses through hard work, chamber committments, tax incentives and improved education? Make the town so attractive that families want to move there? Improve government, ease tensions and generally help make life pleasant in such a historic small city?
Nah.
Alderman Steven Mays has a better idea: Force people to live in Pine Bluff.
He has (again) proposed an ordinance that would require new city department heads to live inside the city limits.
"The reason that I sponsored that ordinance is we need our department heads within our city, living among the people that are paying their salaries and close to the people they work for. They need to know them on a first-name basis, and we're not getting that now."
Why folks need to be on a first-name basis with any city's sanitation department head he didn't explain. Why folks need to live next door to their city's parks chief he didn't explain. Why folks need to be close to the fire chief he didn't explain.
Mayor Debe Hollingsworth had a better take on the ordinance:
"It just doesn't make sense."
But she does. She says she'll veto the measure.
It seems that a city with as many problems as Pine Bluff would want the best people for any job the city offers, especially department heads. Even if they live in Altheimer or Star City.
This reminds us of the efforts in Little Rock to require police officers to live in the city proper. Shouldn't these governments try to get the best, instead of just the local-est?
With the mayor's veto, this ordinance will be off the table--for now.
Because, as Steven Mays reminds us all, he has the power!
Mayor Hollingsworth's last day on the job is Dec. 31, and a new mayor will take over the next day. Steven Mays hopes a new mayor will sign off on his proposal. Next likely step after that: Require all city employees to live inside the city. (Steven Mays tried to push just such a proposal last year.)
Here's hoping the next mayor of Pine Bluff, Ark., has as much common sense as the current one, and vetoes these things left and right, no matter how many times Steven Mays proposes them. Whether a fire chief or a truck driver, whether a recycling administrator or a jail keeper, cities big and small should hire the best and brightest for any position--not just somebody who lives down the street.
You would think that would just be common sense. But sense isn't as common as it used to be.
Editorial on 09/23/2016