Editor's Commentary

 Lambert Little is gone from City Hall, and Clarendon must now figure out the best way to move forward as 2013 gets underway.

The Board of Aldermen is faced with several decisions. First and foremost, they have a vacancy to fill on the board since former alderman Terry Noble’s November 27 resignation. The name of Sandy Skeltonwas put forward at the board’s December 11 meeting, but aldermen tabled consideration of making an appointment until next week’s meeting on January 8.

Who the board picks will say a lot about how it intends to govern from this point forward. The appointment of someone with an ax to grind or with a personal agenda will spur further dissension among citizens, but the thoughtful appointment of someone who truly has only the city’s best interests at heart could go a long ways toward bringing people back together.

The board must also consider what process it will undertake to find a replacement for Little. Even those who voted to terminate the former administrator have said they believe Clarendon needs someone in that position. But before we go down the path of making that selection, it would be in the best interest of all involved for Alderman Tommy Hill to step down.

Hill has exhibited an extremely adversarial attitude toward each of the last three city administrators and has voted to fire the last two. No matter who holds the title, Hill takes it upon himself to attempt to micromanage the city’s affairs, injects himself into personnel matters, and repeatedly takes issue with the administrator’s authority. Jesus Christ might be the only one who could do the job to Hill’s liking and then only with the board retaining the right to hire and fire.

In several open meetings, Hill has stated that he sees it as his job to keep an eye on the city employees’ daily activities. No one would think it was a school board member’s job to see that the janitor is sweeping the floor at the Bronco Gym, but Hill thinks being an elected official makes it his responsibility to know what each employee is doing every minute of the day. Aldermen are supposed to set policy. The administrator and supervisors then manage the city just like the superintendent and principals manage the school.

Alderman Hill no doubt means well and he certainly loves his hometown. But unfortunately his personality is creating disharmony at a time when this community needs to find a way to set aside differences and move forward. Now that he has accomplished his latest goal, it would be a good time for him to bow out. Is there any chance of him resigning? No. But his absence would bring a more civil tone to city meetings and create a situation where a good applicant might consider applying for the job of administrator.

The next steps that must be taken are the responsibility of the citizens of this town. Your editor has heard some grumbling about people not doing business at this or that establishment following the dismissal of Mr. Little. That is an intolerable attitude. One of our biggest problems is that qualified businessmen and businesswomen don’t run for local offices for fear the decisions they might make would negatively impact their business.

History is full of stories of local merchants who got hit in the pocketbook after they made tough decisions on an elected board. But as friends and neighbors we need to take strides to see that doesn’t happen. It is no secret that this column disagreed with the city aldermen’s recent decision, but our families have not changed their purchasing or dining habits because of it. It’s politics. You agree or disagree and move on.

In a small town we can’t afford to start lobbying against any business in town. If you support this community, you need to support your local merchants. If you don’t, well then you don’t really support the town.

And finally, it’s time for good people to start thinking about running for office. We’re still several weeks away from the filing time, but we need folks to put some careful thought into serving their community. The situation at the city, in part, has been caused by a lack of participation by the people.

There soon will be opportunities to run for not just the city council but also for the school board, the hospital board, and the college board. If you think you might be a good fit for one of those, then make it a point to attend that board’s meeting or meetings before you file. Educate yourself about that position, what the issues are, and how that entity operates. And then, if you’re willing, throw your hat in the ring and prepare to get your hands dirty and your feelings hurt. Public service, as former mayor Tex Selvidge recently pointed out, is a thankless job, but it is necessary.

And if you can’t run for office or don’t want to, then at least make some time in your busy schedule to attend some of these public meetings. We can’t print a complete transcript of every meeting that occurs in Donley County. (It would take up a lot of space, and frankly you wouldn’t want to read it anyway.) We do, however, make great efforts to keep you abreast of what’s happening. But there can be no substitute for sitting through these meetings yourself, to see how board members interact with each other, to see the tough issues they have to deal with, and for wanting to scream after two hours of pointless debate, “Make a motion already!”

Resolve to get involved in 2013, and our community will be better for it.

The Clarendon Board of Aldermen fired a good man last week. He wasn’t always popular, he wasn’t always right, but he was a good man, and our city is worse off without him.

Lambert Little came to Clarendon two years ago, and he inherited a mess. He did the best he could to work his way through that; and despite what you may hear on the street, he was making progress. No man – or woman – could solve all of this city’s problems in a year or two, but Lambert was trying to do what he could with what he was given.

Over the past several months I’ve heard a lot of scurrilous comments and baseless accusations about Lambert, many of those from people who haven’t spent much time with the man. People love to talk. There’s no doubt about that. But you’d be surprised about what you can learn if you take the time to get to know someone.

In my position, I strive to learn the facts. Not what the folks on Facebook or at the coffee shop claim to know, but the facts as they are. When I hear a rumor about the city or county or school, I pick up the phone or go by the appropriate administrative office and find out the facts.

As such, I have had cause to go visit with Lambert in his office to find out the facts on different issues. I’ve also visited with him in my position with the Clarendon Economic Development Board and as a citizen. Lambert and I have not always agreed on everything, and, in fact, strongly disagreed about some things. But at the end of the day, we parted on friendly terms.

After the terrible way he was let go 12 days before Christmas, I think it is important for you to know what kind of city administrator you did have and some of the things that he accomplished while he was here. I write this knowing full well that I probably will forget something, but here it goes in no particular order.

Lambert got this city to set goals. This is huge, as he would say, because it hadn’t really be done before. The board met in a called session one Saturday (I believe it was in 2010) and talked about what they wanted for Clarendon and how they were going to get there. I was the only member of the public to attend the meeting, and it was truly a high point for our Board of Aldermen. After a list of short and long term goals were set, Lambert started trying to make them happen.

He hired a code compliance officer to try to improve our city by cleaning it up and making people aware of the rules that we are to live by. The first one didn’t work out, he was let go, and a new one was hired amidst some controversy. But regardless, last week the board was presented with an impressive list of activities that the code officer and the municipal court has undertaken in the last month. Things are moving, and we are beginning to see the results of that.

Early on Lambert thought the city needed a new professional look, so he commissioned my wife, Ashlee, to design a new city logo at no cost to the city. The board adopted the logo, and it has come into common use now. Most people may not realize the significance of that, but branding and marketing is an important part of growing a community. Lambert knew that, and he understood that image and perception is a reality in a many people’s minds.

Along those same lines, Lambert conceived the idea of combining the city’s tourism efforts and the EDC’s work by creating a new position. The city and EDC boards embraced the idea, and Lambert led the search that resulted in Chandra Eggemeyer being hired this year to head up a new tourism and economic development office that is housed in the old Mulkey barbershop.

Lambert worked on a grant that got us a new (to us) trash truck, and he worked every day to try to find ways to spend the city’s money wisely.

He undertook a paving project on Fourth Street that was universally declared a flop, but the citizens still trusted him enough to approve a bond election for $700,000 to take on a new street paving project. That was later doubled when the board approved adding another $700,000 worth of water and sewer improvements to the project.

The city has had cordial relations with the Donley County Sheriff’s Office under Little, which is something that was soured by the previous administrator.

Responding to complaints about brown water, Little, with the board’s permission, contracted an engineer to study the city’s water system and make recommendations for improvements over the long term. The final report of that $25,000 investment isn’t even done yet, but it should show the way forward to address the problems that so many citizens have had for years.

Lambert was involved in our community like no other city administrator has been. He joined the Lions Club and volunteered for a vacant third vice president’s position and was to be our Boss Lion next summer. In fact, he volunteered every chance he got, putting out flags when other members couldn’t and providing programs for our weekly meetings.

Lambert, above all, was a gentleman, and those are in short supply these days. He was the type who would remove his hat when he met a lady, and he was always pleasant to be around. And with 20 years of municipal experience, he was a bargain for his salary of $50,000 plus benefits.

There is more that Lambert did, but I’m short on space. Suffice it to say, that I believe he was just hitting his stride in Clarendon, and if we could have only held on to him, we could have accomplished many great things.

But now we are set back… again.

For better or worse, the City of Clarendon was the talk of the town again last week. But this time it was not so much for the Board of Aldermen. This time it was breakdowns in our public waterworks.

A contractor damaged a waterline last Tuesday evening and, without going into all the gory details, the repair was fixed in a prompt and professional matter. The loss of pressure, however, meant that City Administrator Lambert Little had to follow proper procedure and issue a Boil Water Notice, something that was a bit of an inconvenience for folks until Thursday afternoon… but not as much of an inconvenience as having no water at all would have been.

There was a bit of hoopla over the boiling of the water, but for the most part people just went along and made the best of it.

Then over the weekend there were a couple of other water line breaks that affected people’s service and were repaired by our dedicated city workers. Those seemed to elicit more chatter from armchair experts who took to social media to criticize not just the speed of the repairs but also city government in general and the city’s sale of groundwater to Greenbelt Water Authority in particular. All of this over a couple of leaks that were repaired by guys working in cold, wet holes in the ground.

Perhaps it’s time we all learned something from those guys.

Despite adverse conditions, our public works department jumped in – literally – and did what had to be done to get things fixed. They did it because it is their jobs, and it’s what they do. Public Works Director John Molder’s crew seems to be a hardworking bunch of guys, and they clearly demonstrated that he has trained the well enough, they can get the job done without him looking over their shoulders. (Molder was on medical leave when all this static was going on.)

Molder’s men – like other city employees from the top down – don’t need microscopic oversight from the board of aldermen and they certainly don’t need second guessing from folks on Facebook who don’t have a clue what challenges they are facing in the field. They need support – from the board and from the citizens.

As we close out this year, it is a good time to put aside the bitterness that seems to permeate our community and focus on what we can do to support the men in the trenches who make this city work and what steps can be taken to move Clarendon forward.

The Board of Aldermen has an excellent opportunity to set that tone Thursday night, December 13, when they will meet in a re-scheduled regular meeting. They have a vacancy to fill with the resignation of Alderman Terry Noble, and that will be as good a time as any to begin unifying our community, which they can do with careful consideration of who they choose to appoint.

From there it is a matter of learning to all work together, to respect each other, and move forward… together. The members of our Board of Aldermen have it within themselves to do what is in the best interests of the city and to put aside any hard feelings or personal agendas.

And as citizens we must all do that as well. There are problems to be fixed if Clarendon is to be prosperous. Aging waterlines need to be replaced, other infrastructure issues must be addressed, and hardworking employees deserve respect, fair treatment, and wages commensurate with the value of their positions to this city.

All of that costs money, and we need to be willing to pony up some of it when it’s time to set the budget next fall. We have to invest in this city to make it prosper. But first we need to invest some faith in each other and learn to get along.

What do you expect from your city? Stop and think about that for a moment. As a community, where do we really want our elected officials to focus their energies?

The Clarendon Board of Aldermen last week spent a lot of time arguing over the authority of the city administrator – something we went through nearly a decade ago – and delving into the minutia of city business, discussing the finer points of when employees should take breaks and whether employees should be allowed to smoke on the job.

Considerable attention was given over to the per diem allowance that regular employees are allowed compared to the administrator’s expense account when he travels. In short, employees get $40 per day and Mr. Little had a receipt for $65 that covered two meals at a conference. (Of course, if you’ve been to a professional conference or convention, you know that meals of $20 to $35 are the order of the day and not at all unusual). But nevertheless, the aldermen found themselves caught up in a discussion over a tiny amount in a million dollar budget.

Attention to detail is one thing, micro-managing and second-guessing every decision that the administrator is making is quite another. No one can work efficiently if someone is breathing down his or her neck all the time.

The board also got into a discussion about a perception in the community that the city is broke. How can this be, they wondered aloud, when we have money in reserves? Perhaps it is because during the recent budget workshops, members of the board acted like the city was spending way too much money and just cut and cut and cut instead of making investments to improve our town.

They turned down a modest tax increase after public comments about what such an increase might do to senior citizens and the disabled, and yet both of those groups have their taxes frozen. Instead they raised sanitation rates on everyone in the city – including churches and non-profits. How much sense does that make?

The City of Clarendon has some very real issues, and they haven’t changed much in two decades. We need serious street repairs and our aging water and sewer system needs to be largely replaced. Pot holes and brown water – not the administrator’s expense account – are the recurring top complaints of citizens. We have dilapidated buildings and code violations and a whole host of other issues facing us, but we are focused on trivial issues and making no progress on the big picture.

Despite disagreements, your editor believes that we’ve got good people working for us on the city council, but they need to hear from the citizens about what is most important to them. To that end, we need more people to attend our city meetings to see for themselves what the discussion is. We’re stuck in a quagmire of minor issues right now, but with a little nudge the people can re-focus the city on big issues and move us forward.

That is not to say that we want them to pay no attention to the money or give the administrator total control. But we do expect to see the city run professionally and we want to see results on the major problems that are holding our town back. There is no standing still at this point. We either move forward, or we move backward. And we have to trust our city leaders to take us down the right path.

The impact of the President Obama’s re-election has draw some interesting reactions from the right.

On the most extreme side we’ve seen people calling for secession with people in almost every state going to the White House website to petition the president to let their state leave the Union. The petition for Texas has more than 117,000 signatures according to our latest information, which seems like a lot of people but really isn’t.

Texas has a population of more than 25 million people, so the petitioners are less than one-half of one percent of Texans. It’s hard to pin down since polls weren’t around back then, but by contrast it is believed that about 40-45 percent of colonists supported the American Revolution.

The thing that always amuses me about talk of secession is that automatic reactions that range from a) Texas reserved the right to secede as a condition of admission to the Union in 1845, to b) the Civil War and/or the Supreme Court has determined that no state can secede. Neither position is correct.

Owing to its size, the Congressional joint resolution admitting Texas to the Union does allow it the option of dividing into as many as five states, but it nowhere says that Texas can leave. On the other side, the failed War for Southern Independence showed that the north had a greater industrial capacity and military might than did the south, and, as far as the courts go, the federal government is never going to say it is okay for states to break away. But states certainly can secede, and history proves it.

If you read the Declarations of Independence of both the United States and Texas, then it is pretty clear the founding fathers were secessionists. They believed to the death that sometimes people may need to dissolve their political ties with governments that are abusive to their liberties. Indeed, Jefferson wrote that people have not only the right but the duty to throw off their oppressors. However, governments – from London to Mexico City to Washington, DC – never agree that their own subjects can secede.

Of course, just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean you should. A free and independent Texas is fun to contemplate. The Lone Star is big enough to take care of itself, and it would be nice to see “a whole other country” that embraced liberty and limited government. Enshrine personal and economic liberty in law, join NAFTA to enjoy free trade with the US and Mexico, and watch a new national economy take off like a rocket. Unfortunately, with the ideologues we currently have running our state, it is very likely that a new Republic of Texas would be plagued by religious intolerance, a mediocre commitment to higher education, and political agendas in school curriculums. We would, however, have a balanced budget and sport very nice highways in Dallas, Austin, and Houston.

The question is moot though, because without a groundswell of popular support and the backing of prominent statesmen (who are in short supply these days), secession is an idea that is just never going to get traction.

On the opposite end of the spectrum in reaction to the president’s re-election, we see continued calls for “compromise” in Washington as the nation inches toward the so-called “fiscal cliff” – a series of automatic tax increases and spending cuts that will take effect in January and possibly throw the economy back into a recession. To that end, we are beginning to see some Republicans breaking away from the “no tax increase” stance, and the emboldened president continues to demonize the right, saying this week that the GOP will ruin Christmas if it doesn’t back down.

Will it never end? America doesn’t have an income problem; it has an expense problem. The government just flat spends too much money, and the best our “leaders” in Washington can come up with is a plan to save $1 trillion over ten years. How does that help us when we have a $1 trillion annual deficit and total debt of more than $16 trillion? We can’t tax our way out of that mess.

“Compromise,” it seems, is still a one-side proposition. There can be no solution to this disaster without reforming – and cutting – entitlements, namely Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. But Democrats have said those are off limits. The results will be that the Republicans will cave – as they usually do – and America will get a semi-solution that gets us past January. After that, “Dancing with the Stars” will be back for a new season, and politicians will be mostly quiet until 2014.

Meanwhile…

It now appears certain that Barack Obama will go down in history as one of America’s great progressive presidents. Like all presidents who fit in this category, he has expanded entitlements, grown the role of the government, become a savior to the down trodden, and has championed social justice.

Presidents like Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Baines Johnson have occupied similar statuses in the minds of the American public to the extent that they became known just by their initials – T.R., F.D.R., J.F.K., and L.B.J. As such it would seem fitting that, out of reverence, we henceforth refer to President Obama as simply B.O.

In what has become a tradition, our family has again set the goal of getting as much of our Christmas shopping done right here at home this Friday and Saturday.

Now certainly, there may be an item or two that we just can’t get here or we order online, but our intention is to make 90 percent or more of our purchases from local merchants – the men and women who support our community and our newspaper.

The Enterprise has always supported the “shop at home” theme and encourages people to “be loyal and buy local” whenever it is possible. And likewise, our local merchants have always gone out of their way to try to make shopping Clarendon attractive and fun.

In the past, we’ve seen Late Night Shopping and Christmas Cash as vehicles to promote our local businesses, but this year, the merchants are playing off the national trend of promoting Black Friday and Small Business Saturday and have prepared some really nice sales and promotions for this weekend.

Why spend the money on gas, the time on the road, and the Tylenol on the big city headaches when you can come to downtown Clarendon this weekend and park right in front of your favorite store, be greeted by the business man or woman who knows your first name, and find great gifts for great prices? Stay home and be pleasantly surprised by the selections, the savings, and the service that you can get right here in Clarendon.

This year, an ad from Courtney Newhouse Monroe at Country Bloomers Flowers & Gifts encourages everyone to shop not necessarily at her store but at all local stores. “Buy Local, or ‘Bye, Bye’ Local” is the theme of her ad, which lays out statistics and logical reasons why shopping close to home is better for our quality of life and our economy. And it also sums up the reality of the situation – if we don’t support our local business, we won’t have any local businesses.

Your local merchants are the ones who pay taxes here to support your city, county, college, school, and ambulance service. They are the ones who pony up every time a kid comes in raising money for the third or fourth “worthy cause” this week, and then when they go to the grocery store, they will dig into their pocket and find money for the cookies or pies at the bake sale of the week.

The money we spend in Amarillo pretty much stays in Amarillo. It doesn’t come home, it doesn’t keep the lights on in our school, and it doesn’t keep our senior citizens centers running.

This is not to say it’s bad to shop in Amarillo, but rather it is to say that we need to think about our purchases. It makes a difference when you shop at home. It is simple economics, and it is common sense. The more you spend in Donley County, the more our local businesses can put right back into the local economy.

We all win when we shop at home.

 

With our heartfelt thanks…

We would like to take this time to thank those of you who make this newspaper possible and therefore keep food on our table and shoes on my kids. (The kids are eating more and going through clothes faster, so we’re perhaps more thankful for you all as time goes by.)

My wife, Ashlee, deserves a huge thanks for all she does to keep me going and for all the behind the scenes things she does for this newspaper. She’s a part-time writer, part-time editor, part-time photographer, part-time ad salesman and designer, and full-time thinker and sounding board. Then in her free time she works full time at the college and does a great job as the mother of two wonderful kids.

Our staff deserves special recognition also. Tara Hogan and Morgan Wheatly keep things humming while juggling their busy college schedules, and our honorary staff member – Fred Gray – fills in wherever needed, keeps us laughing, and does a great job of keeping the Enterprise the talk of the town… and sometimes other towns. Every

Our contributors – Sandy Anderberg, Kari Lindsey, Matt Martinez, Peggy Cockerham, Kathy Spier, and Bob Watson – are our extra hands and help us cover a whole range of subjects that we couldn’t get done without them. We thank each of them for their parts in making this a paper that does its best to cover all of Donley County.

And of course we have a host of volunteers who provide us occasional photos and articles. We can’t mention them all here because we would surely leave one out, but Suzanne Taylor, Alice Cobb, and Melody Hysinger are examples of friends and readers who help us cover the news when we can’t be there. It is these folks who truly put the “community” in our community newspaper.

And last but certainly not least, we salute our readers and advertisers. Without them, there is no Enterprise, and from the bottom of our hearts we thank them for their continued to trust, faith, and support. We will continue to do everything we can to be deserving of all of you who have made it possible for this paper to deliver the news as it has for more than 134 years.

Thank you all very much. We are proud to serve Donley County, and we hope that you continue to enjoy our weekly endeavors.

At a meeting in Amarillo Monday, community leaders from across the Panhandle gathered to discuss the problems facing their towns and ideas for how to raise funds for those programs.

Your humble editor represented the Clarendon Economic Development Corporation at the meeting, which was hosted by the Amarillo Area Foundation. To kick off the morning, participants were asked to do a “dreaming” exercise. “What would you do,” the speaker asked, “if I gave you $1 million a year to do anything you wanted to in your community?”

The wheels began turning for 30-plus people in the room, and we soon each had a list that filled an entire page. As participants took turns giving ideas from their lists, it became clear that we all face many of the same problems. From Tulia to Childress to Pampa to Spearman to Chillicothe, towns of all sizes are grappling with the same issues that Clarendon faces. Each community wants more “quality of life” improvements – whether it be youth centers, park facilities, or entertainment venues. Each place has infrastructure needs and must consider how best to use the tax dollars at their disposal, and in almost every town there is a shortage of good, middle-income housing.

One participant blamed part of his town’s problems on previous community leaders who failed to plan for growth and failed to give the present generation the tools necessary to address the problems of today.

And that, dear readers, is where Clarendon now finds itself.

We have been shortchanged, in many ways, by city leaders over the last 20 or 30 or more years who failed to stringently enforce zoning, and codes, and ordinances, who were perhaps too complacent when it came to taking care of infrastructure, and who have left us a city that needs new streets, new water and sewer lines, and a firm hand when it comes to enforcing the rules.

This situation has left Clarendon in a position where it largely tries to just patch things together and hobble along because it doesn’t have the funds to address any one issue. The city is spending about $25,000, for example, on a comprehensive study of its waterworks, but what will we do when it is completed? It’s going to take money and a lot of it before the discolored water experienced by some citizens can be permanently fixed.

Our current city leaders allow themselves to get bogged down in the political nonsense of whether the city administrator should attend professional conferences or other trivial pursuits when they should be focused on what can we do long term to improve our city.

Instead, City Hall is embroiled in the fate of City Administrator Lambert Little and faces the real prospect of losing yet another administrator. Little’s exit would no doubt please some people; but while he has made mistakes, it is unlikely that any man – or woman – can come in here and fix in one or two years the mess that has been created over a couple of generations. And probably no city administrator could ever please some people who essentially want to run this city by committee (the board) instead of letting a professional do what needs to be done.

We need to set all this aside and start looking to the future. We need to put aside the negative attitudes of the complainers and realize that we’re going to have to raise taxes because it takes money to fix problems. We’re going to have to be pro-active in cleaning up this city and every person here has to come to understand that we all have a stake in making things better. Whether it’s a citizen simply cleaning up a vacant lot or a city employee putting up street signs, all the little things that we can do will make a big impact. And we have to dream big to make this the city it ought to be.

Clarendon has a lot of positive things, and this column has talked about all of them in the past. But we need to build on those and actively work to make things better. That should be the focus of the city and its citizens.

Election Day is less than seven days from now, and it’s anybody’s guess who will win – Barack Romney or Mitt Obama. After enduring what has become a $2 billion campaign between the lesser of two Democrats, America will go to the polls Tuesday to decide if the nation will continue on the fast track to self-destruction or take the slow scenic track to the same destination.

To be sure President Barack Obama is the worst of the two choices. Many of his supporters see him as a messianic leader who has been sent to right wrongs, correct historic injustices, and take America off its high horse. Many of his opponents see him as the antichrist whose reelection will hasten the coming apocalypse (either this December or at some undetermined date in the future but definitely soon).

This column thinks Obama is neither of those. Instead, he is quite simply a socialist who prefers a large overseeing government to help manage the affairs of a people too stupid to take care of themselves. He thrives on people being dependent on government and believes that government can solve virtually every problem we face.

So it would seem that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is the better choice, and indeed he is. But do not fool yourself into thinking that electing Romney will solve America’s woes. Hard core Republicans have convinced themselves that Romney is a great man who has a great plan, but after suffering through the three presidential and one vice presidential debate, your humble editor can’t tell you exactly what it is.

Oh yes, the governor got a few good jabs in on the president, but he never went for the jugular or did anything that would convince me that he can turn America around and most importantly reign in this out of control federal government. Time after time, Romney said, “I agree with the president,” before outlining some piddly way that he differed from the president.

Look at the government’s takeover of the health care industry for example. Romney promises to repeal Obamacare on day one when he takes office, but that is simply not going to happen unless the Republicans win the presidency and both houses of Congress. And even if they pull off that miracle, show me one massive federal entitlement that has ever been repealed.

But let’s assume that somehow all the prayers of everyone on the Religious Right are answered, and the Grand Old Party takes control of Washington. Romney, and indeed many Republican leaders, say they want to keep some of the basic requirements of Obamacare, including the ban on denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. Romney and his party do not get it. You cannot mandate certain levels of coverage and not have the cost of providing insurance go up. The fact of the matter is the more the government mucks around in health care, the more expensive it gets. What America needs is to re-introduce free market principals back into health care and to recognize that it is a business, as horrifying as that may be to some folks.

Likewise on education, the governor agrees that the federal government should have a role in running our local schools, and in one debate he said he wants to “grade” public schools, which sounds like a proposal for another federal standard of perfection. Our local schools are overrun with federal programs and mandates that have made them less about educating students and more about meaningless scores and overbearing social agendas. The best thing that could happen to the federal Department of Education is for it to be abolished.

On taxes, Obama wants to raise taxes on “the rich,” whoever that is. And Romney’s plan, as I understand it, is to cut taxes (or maybe just keep the Bush tax cuts) and “close loopholes” by limiting people to just one “bucket” of tax credits and deductions, whatever the hell that means. Here’s a better idea: repeal the 16th Amendment and institute a national sales tax on every retail transaction. It’s fair, it’s easy, and everyone from the deadbeat on welfare to Donald Trump would have to pay it.

And finally let’s look at the budget. Obama doesn’t do budgets. It’s been about three years since one was passed in Washington. His fiscal plan is simple: tax anyone that works very hard, tax them more if they are successful, and then borrow money from China to keep spending when that’s not enough. Romney, by contrast, promises to balance the budget “in eight to ten years” in part by cutting off funding to PBS. At my house and in my business we don’t have ten years to balance the budget; we have to do it every month of every year. Any presidential candidate with a ten-year plan is worthless. If you can’t get it done in one year, you’re no good to us because the next election cycle starts 12 months after the president is sworn in.

The choices the two major parties have given us in this election are sickening, and it’s stark indication of how far this country has strayed. Perhaps this is a good time to consider voting Libertarian. But if by some miracle the Republicans make a clean sweep next week, then they better, by golly, find a backbone and get serious about limiting government or we are all destined for 21st century serfdom.

Newspapers play a vital role in communities across America, and to raise awareness about the service our industry plays, October 8-12 is dedicated as National Newspaper Week. It is a time when papers across this great nation will remind their readers about what newspapers do and about the rights that we enjoy and help to protect.

For any free society, two things are vitally important – free speech and a free press. While those are two separate freedoms, they go hand in hand, and one really can’t exist without the other. If there is no freedom of speech (or expression), then it really doesn’t matter if you can publish freely. And likewise, if there is no way to disseminate ideas (i.e. via the press), then free speech is pretty much limited to what you can say while standing on a soapbox on the sidewalk.

Newspapers understand the value of the freedom they enjoy, and by and large newspaper men and women use that freedom to not only make a living but also to keep an eye on government and generally make sure that We the People are as informed as we possibly can be.

There are other members of “the media,” namely radio and television stations, which also enjoy many of the rights and responsibilities of “the press,” but there is a major difference. Those outlets are regulated to some degree by the federal government. Since they use the public airwaves, they are compelled to follow the guidelines of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which can sometimes act as a bit of a leash on their freedom.

Newspapers by comparison have pretty much unrestricted freedom to publish as they see fit. Ultimately, the decision to run or not run an article, a photo, or an ad, in our case, comes down to one person – your humble editor. In broad strokes, many community newspapers – whether they realize it or not – follow the rule set down by the longtime editor of the Perryton Herald, Harold Hudson. That rule is simply this: “If I want it run when I want to run it and edited as I see fit, it’s news. If you want to run it the way you want to and when you want to, then it’s an ad and you pay for it.”

The Clarendon Enterprise does its level best to keep its eye on local governments and report the news to you as accurately and fairly as possible. Sometimes we fall short, but it’s not for lack of trying. We try very hard to keep bias out of our news reporting (although we admittedly show some favoritism to the Broncos, the Owls, and the Bulldogs). When this newspaper has an opinion, it’s expressed right here with my name on it and on the page labeled “Opinion.” Other opinions expressed by Fred Gray or other guest columnists are those of the authors and may – or may not – be shared by this newspaper.

We welcome Letters to the Editor as a mean to further public debate, but again those thoughts are those of the authors, and they must conform to a few guidelines that we set down regarding length and identification and may be subject to editing for style, grammar, and length. Sometimes we choose not to run a letter for various reasons. That’s my prerogative since I own the paper.

If people especially want a forum for their thoughts and we don’t feel it fits our criteria for a letter, we sometimes allow them to buy an ad to express their view. Again, their viewpoint is their own; they have a right to it; and if someone doesn’t like it, they can send us a letter.

I think I can count on one hand the number of times that we have just outright refused to print something for someone. Usually, we try to err on the side of letting people express their opinions.

Not everyone agrees with this philosophy. To some people, viewpoints that are not politically correct should be squashed and banished. They never want anyone to be offended, and to those ends they attempt to intimidate or stifle anyone who disagrees with them.

It’s easy to defend free speech and free expression when you agree with someone. It’s easy to say someone has the right to put crosses and “the end is near” signs up and down our highway. But how ready would people be to support Islamic verses posted along the same highway. Would our community support statues of Buddha around our town?

Defending free speech means you have to stand up for rights of even those who express views you hate. The pornographer and the flag burner have as much right to free speech as the preacher and the poet, and defending the rights of all those people is not always an easy thing. If we are not all free, then none of us is free.

As newspapers, we have a duty to protect the rights of free speech and a free press. It is not always easy or popular, but it is essential if Liberty is to endure. And if you don’t like it, you are welcome to pen a well thought out letter, sign your name and address to it, and mail it to us. But don’t hide in the darkness behind the anonymity of the Internet or the telephone. Stand up in public for what you believe. We do.

Forty-nine percent of the American public is on the federal teat, and they are sucking the old sow dry.

It is a fact straight from government sources, and it was published long before Mitt Romney was caught on an open microphone. The former Massachusetts Governor found himself in hot water with the leftists last month when he was “exposed” for saying behind closed doors that 47 percent of the American people would never vote for him because they are dependent on government checks.

But months before he said it, an article in October 2011by Brian Faler with Bloomberg News detailed that actually 49 percent of Americans get some kind of government check, and his number came straight from the United States Census… an organization run since 2009 by the Obama Administration. Furthermore, Faler wrote that 63 percent of all federal spending that year “will consist of checks written to individuals for which the government receives no services,” and that fact came from the White House budget office.

By comparison, only 18 percent of Americans were on the government dole in 1940. The number of people getting assistance means it’s hard for either party to enact meaningful reforms to rein in spending, and, as Romney said, it makes it harder for a conservative to get elected. The message of personal responsibility and self reliance rings hollow with nearly half of the populace, most of who are in favor of cutting any program… except the one that benefits them.

Able-bodied, lazy people on welfare is a problem, but there is so much more to it than that. There are Social Security and Medicare recipients who feel they paid into a system that now owes them benefits (even if many will receive far more than they pay in over a lifetime), there are college students receiving federal education grants (the number of which went up 70 percent in five years), and single or low-income parents who qualify for daycare assistance. All of these programs – and dozens and dozens of others – bleed the treasury, none of them are authorized by Constitution, and they all violate the concept put forth by our Founding Fathers that the federal government is supposed to be limited in its size and scope.

However well intentioned the programs were in their origins, we have reached a point where federal assistance – in all its many forms – threatens to bankrupt the government of the United States and the only way to stop it is at the ballot box. But there again, Mr. Romney is correct in his assessment because even the suggestion of reforms brings out the fire-breathing accusations from Democrats that Republicans just want to starve children, kill old people, and stop anyone from going to college.

Americans have to wake up to what’s going on, and all the sacred cows have to be put on the budget altar. Otherwise, the $16 trillion debt this nation has acquired will soon look like peanuts as the costs of retiring Baby Boomers and the mandates of Obamacare gut the treasury in the coming years.

Romney’s problem wasn’t that he wrote off half the electorate; it was that he told the truth. And the truth hurts.