Editorial: Home grown products can boost town

Clarendon has great potential that is just waiting to be tapped by the right people. It’s been this way for many years, with our community just flirting with what it could become. As we continue to resolve to get involved in 2013, we need to constantly look for ways to improve our town, to capitalize on the opportunities here, and improve the quality of life for those of us who already live here as well as those folks who might consider this as a place to “stay all night… or stay a little longer.”

Last week’s column describing potential businesses that might prosper in Clarendon was well received and leads us into another discussion about tapping our natural resources.

The best example of this is Monroe’s Peach Ranch near Hedley and Howard’s Pumpkin Patch east of Clarendon. Here are two businesses that capitalize on fresh products grown right here in Donley County, but this is an area that could be expanded in local and area stores.

Fredericksburg Farms has done very well with an assortment of jams, jellies, and other products, and God has blessed Donley County with many native plants that could lead to our own niche products. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to buy Donley County Wild Plum Jelly or Mustang Grape Jelly? You wouldn’t try to compete with Smucker’s, but some homemade jellies could make great gift items.

Since grapes grow wild here, maybe that’s God’s way of telling us that we need a winery here? It’s something to think about. They are making them grow on the South Plains, but they seem to do very well on their own here in the Green Belt on the Rolling Plains. Just think of it… Saints’ Roost Winery featuring the Clara Cabernet in an ironic salute to the old prohibitionist herself. My mind runs wild with the marketing ideas for this one.

Along those same lines, we should be able to buy some roasted Donley County peanuts in bags somewhere. What a great gift for the holidays! And it would be a terrific give-away for visitors to the Economic Development & Tourism Office in the Mulkey Theatre. Or heck, sell them in the concession stand at the theatre someday! Local peanuts could also be put into candies and chocolates for even more local flavor.

And here’s something you probably didn’t know. Super Bowl legend and former Clarendon Broncho Kenny King has his own brand of barbecue sauce! Kings Q Sauce boasts a “woo…aah” taste, and it would be terrific to have it for sale in his hometown. There are Kenny King friends and fans right here who would love to “woo” and “aah” for ourselves.

These products would fit very nicely into the already available market of homemade boots, saddles, and leather goods and bring even more notoriety to our fair town. And every locally made product we come up with just further enhances what we have and our prospects for the future.

Meanwhile…

33,802 reasons Hill should quit

Two weeks ago, this column did something it had never done before in calling for a local official to resign from his position for the good of the city. We cited Clarendon Alderman Tommy Hill’s adversarial attitude toward each of the last three city administrators – including voting to fire the last two, his tendency to micromanage city affairs, and his burning need to know what city employees are doing every minute of every day. Now to that list we add official recklessness and apparent incompetence.

Hill’s hasty and emotionally driven motion to fire City Administrator Lambert Little at the December 11, 2012, city meeting called for paying the man’s accrued vacation and sick time. But according to city policy, an employee who is terminated shall not receive compensation for sick leave or vacation time. That money should have never been paid… except that the board, by Hill’s motion, voted to do it.

Alderman Hill served on the board of aldermen for eight years from 2002 to 2010 before choosing not to run for reelection that year. He jumped back into the fray running for election in 2011 and now has nearly ten years of experience on the board… more than any other member. He makes it a habit of nitpicking the city’s employee policies and he constantly harps on saving the taxpayers money, worrying most recently over expenditures by the administrator of 60-something dollars at a conference and a 45-dollar Sam’s Club membership. And yet his motion cost this city an unnecessary $6,609.80.

And to add insult to the taxpayers’ injury, Hill’s motion dismissed the administrator without cause, triggering a provision in Little’s employment agreement that cost this city $25,000 cash plus $2,192.76 in continued health and life insurance benefits. Total cost to fire the administrator: $33,802.56.

Hill wasn’t alone in voting for Little’s termination, but Hill’s experience and obvious roll as a leader on the board puts an added burden on him to do what is right for this city and not make a rash decision that wastes tens of thousands of tax dollars.

“I represent the taxpayers,” Hill has said at city meetings on numerous occasions. But now we have 33,802 very specific reasons why he doesn’t represent the taxpayers and should step down. And that doesn’t include the bill from the city attorney.