City needs Chamber of Commerce

The Clarendon Board of Aldermen last week lowered the boom on the Chamber of Commerce, cutting off $20,000 in annual funding for the organization.

Clarendon has for many years given the Chamber a share of the Motel Bed Tax revenue collected by the city, and in recent years has occasionally questioned how that money was spent. Three months ago the Chamber didn’t answer that question satisfactorily, and the city gave the Chamber 90 days to produce accurate financial records. The city never really accused the Chamber of misspending the Motel Bed Tax funds, but they did say that the Chamber’s record keeping was inadequate.

The Chamber has had its critics – including your editor from time to time, but it is an important asset to our community. And Judy Burlin has done a lot of good work for Clarendon as the head of the chamber. She did her best to present a positive image of her community and was always enthusiastic in her support of the town and its people. Clarendon owes her a sincere “thank you” for her service.

But now the city has cut of the funds, and Chamber Executive Director Judy Burlin has resigned. So what’s next?

City officials all seem to agree that they want the Chamber of Commerce to have funds from the Motel Bed Tax, but they want clear record keeping, which isn’t too much to ask when you’re giving someone $20,000 a year.

Our community needs and deserves a good Chamber of Commerce – one that promotes tourism, encourages support and growth of local businesses, and can answer any question about our community when a prospective business or family considers moving here.

The Chamber board now must act quickly but judiciously to hire a new Executive Director and set a positive course for the organization. In other words, the board must lead and show the city that the Chamber is worthy of their money. To do that the board needs to step up and show that the Chamber can be run effectively, efficiently, and professionally.

Like so many great tasks, it will take everyone pulling together to get the Chamber back on its feet. The board, the members, the community, and city officials will have to make an effort to give Clarendon the Chamber of Commerce it deserves and needs.

Meanwhile…
This weekend could be the beginning of the end for many things… this newspaper, your way of life, or perhaps the planet itself.

About a year ago, the Enterprise received a postcard which proclaimed that Jesus Christ would return on May 21, 2011, and that the earth will be destroyed five months later. Now a lot of interesting mail comes through our place, but rarely does it predict the end of the world, at least not with such a specific date.

I generally shy away from religious topics in this column, but I find it curious when someone predicts the world’s end with such certainty. Don’t they fear ending up with egg on their face like has happened to so many “Chicken Littles” in the past? I’ve been witnessing the signs of the end times for many years, but so far the end hasn’t come. I’ve seen several people confidently labeled as the “anti-christ.” Mohamar Khadafi, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden, or Barack Obama – just pick your favorite.

The problem with knowing the exact date of the end of the world is that it makes everything else pointless. Your mortgage is due on Thursday, but you expect the world to end on Friday, so why bother? If this postcard is correct, then our senior high school students are wasting their time with finals, and you and I shouldn’t worry about the interest rate on those credit cards. In fact, now is the ideal time to take advantage of 18 months with no interest anywhere you can get it.

The prediction also creates practical dilemmas. Jesus is coming Saturday, but I have to be at a cousin’s wedding all day that day and the house is not anywhere near clean enough for the Lord’s arrival. And besides all that, I’m a little perturbed that the world is supposed to end two days short of my birthday. That’s not fair at all.

I’m going to go out on a spiritual limb here and say that no man – or postcard – knows when Jesus is coming or when the world will end and that we’ll still be printing this newspaper in a week, in a year, and beyond. In fact, if the world ends on October 21, 2011, we will offer full refunds to all subscribers on October 22.