Never Make ASSumptions

Yesterday, around 11:30 am, I navigated past the road closure signs and avoided a wreckless driving code enforcer that apparently was too distracted by his cell phone conversation to notice the stop sign he bypassed, to drive up to the service window at city hall and noticed the closed for lunch sign. I reached into my pocket to retrieve my cell phone, unlike others, I don't talk/text on my cell phone while driving. As I was posting the picture, while still at city hall, I wondered why the clerks didn't stagger their lunch breaks. Just before going to city hall, I stopped at the drive thru window at the bank. The young lady that generally work the window was gone, probably to lunch, but there was someone else there to assist the customers. Again, I wondered why this didn't happen at city hall. Afterwards, I was headed back home. When I pulled into the driveway, I noticed activity on the photo I posted. One comment suggested something may have happened to cause one clerk to leave; requiring the other clerk to work alone. Honestly, I never thought of that. I then asked someone to gomwith me to city hall. I told her the window was closed and asked her to go inside to pay the water bill. She went in and both clerks were sitting in the office, eating lunch. So, on the busiest collection day of the month, there wad a decision made to close the window so the clerks can enjoy an hour lunch together. Why am I not surprised? The citizens are always put on the back burner when it comes to this administration. There's no need for me to elaborate on their unfriendly disposition and utter lack of professionalism but most have encountered the frigid aura exuded within the clerk's office. After leaving city hall, for the second time in one day, I stopped by the library to take advantage of the free tax preparation services. On the door of the library, there was a notice posted for a special called meeting at 3:00 pm. The agenda included a report from the Army Corp of Engineers, another attempt to have a collection agency collect past due fines owed to the City of Lumberton and to set a date for a citywide clean up.

There was a newstory posted last night on WDAM with the headline, "City of Lumberton offered 2.5 million dollar grant. The operative word being offered not granted. After reading the brief article, it seems that Winston is already spending the grant money, despite the fact that the grant requires 25% matching funds, up front. In case you were wondering, that means the City of Lumberton would need to have $625,000 in order to get this grant. I know Winston has allegedly instructed the city clerk to give misleading budget information so he could, right before the County election, claim to be the "savior" of Lumberton by preventing us from going over the fiscal cliff. Unfortunately, I don't think there was enough bad bookkeeping and erroneous billing mistakes to cover $625,000 in matching funds. But according to Winston, everything is going to work out. Keep in mind, he has been on the news crying broke; he even pleaded with the Lamar County Board of Supervisors, saying we're broke. Somehow, as we enter election season, Winston is optimistic about the fiscal stability of this city. He cried broke to basically eliminate police protection. He cried broke to refuse training for Alderwoman Rogers. He cried broke when he sold our library to Lamar County for $1, when he signed over the deed to Wood-Hinton Park and when he decided to turn a certified, heavy manufacturing industrial park into a watermelon field but now we're in the money. Just as I blogged months ago, the City of Lumberton always had money; otherwise, Winston would have stopped signing checks. Winston has no problem leaving the city without adequate police protection and keeping inept department heads in place as long as it serves his political agenda. Winston is playing Russian Roulette with the citizens of Lumberton and any damages/casualties are nothing more than collateral damage.

The board has considered using another collection agency to collect unpaid fines. Another bad idea. The city has been down this road before; twice. How many more times are we going to go around this mountain? Tne collection agencies get their money upfront and after they collect their fees, Lumberton is left with uncollected fines. The solution to this matter is the amnesty program (especially now that it's tax season) and allowing the court clerk to work 40 hours. The court clerk was doing a great job collecting old fines and to show their appreciation for her hard work, the board made her position a part time job. For some reason, the board felt she could produce the same amount of results with half the hours. They don't realize, by cutting her hours, they're actually losing money. But for some reason, they have no problem with the number of hours wasted by other departments. If they go with this collection agency, they will loose more money but the collection agency will be whistling all the way to the bank.

There's supposed to be a city wide clean up. I don't see the purpose, especially since the mayor has every entrance into the city looking like the set of Sanford and Son. There has been offers to help, but they stipulated that the clean up should begin at city hall. Good luck with that. I'm sure they'll give you a date of the proposed clean up. Unfortunately, the mayor and the majority of the board does not want to share the date with this blog so I'm guessing they're not serious about their efforts. In closing, a member of tbe LEDC told me they're having a meeting on 2/19/2015 and suggested I attend. We shall see.