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DAVE’S WORLD
By David Howell
It’s a funny thing — last week’s column about the new Christmas tree at the Howell house generated more feedback than anything I’ve written in a while. Truthfully, I was struggling for words, and the story of that old tree was the first thing that came to mind.
For those who missed it, I wrote that we bought a new Christmas tree after using, for about ten years, an artificial one I found in a box on the side of the road. I poked a little fun at myself — something like, you might be a redneck if your Christmas tree was a roadside discovery — and added that my wife doesn’t read my column anyway.
Well, I got caught.
My sister-in-law had read the column and stopped by the house Sunday afternoon. She asked my wife about her “new Christmas tree,” and my wife gave her that puzzled look — the kind that said, how did you know? Looks like I picked up a new column reader.
While I was eating at a local restaurant Friday, a longtime subscriber mentioned the tree story but told me I needed to get back to the topic of the unit system in Yalobusha County. A day earlier, W.G. Griffin stopped by the office and said the same thing. Mr. Griffin was involved in getting the unit system on the ballot in 2015 — and he’s still for it today.
What’s interesting is that a lot of people have told me they voted against moving to a unit system in the 2015 referendum but now say they’d support it.
You might remember what started this whole conversation a few weeks ago: a bid notice to purchase two dump trucks for District Two at an estimated $160,000 each. If that purchase is made, it will be one of the largest single equipment buys I’ve seen in my 21 years covering Yalobusha County.
The bids came in Monday — three in total. The bids ranged from almost $160,000 to $120,000 per truck, and a decision is expected Friday on which company the trucks will be purchased from. The whole deal was a little wonky, as the bid specifications used for the potential District Two purchase were provided by one of the three companies that bid on it and were seemingly slanted toward a specific vendor and manufacturer.
Even with the low bid we are talking about spending almost a quarter-million dollars. It’s worth asking a few questions.
And that’s exactly why it may be time to take another look at this unit-system-versus-beat-system topic in Yalobusha County. In earlier columns, I laid out the difference between the beat system (where each supervisor runs their own district) and the unit system (where a county road manager oversees everything countywide).
When the 2015 referendum was held, the unit system failed 1,971 to 1,361. But back then, the county didn’t have $1.3 million in use tax money coming in every year — revenue that now exceeds what local taxpayers pay in property and car tag road taxes combined.
That’s a game-changer. Combined with potential savings from consolidating equipment and labor, the county could make major strides in improving its roads. Think about the duplication in the beat system — every district has its own barn, road crew, graders, tractors and, of course, dump trucks. You can see how costs multiply quickly.
Like I wrote before, I’ve always leaned toward the beat system as the best fit for a rural county. Each supervisor knows their constituents and roads personally. But times are changing. Whether you’re for or against the unit system, it’s hard to ignore how much the county has changed since 2015. Growth, inflation, and new funding sources all demand a fresh look at how we manage our resources. The goal isn’t to fix what isn’t broken — it’s to make sure we’re ready for what’s ahead. It’s time to rethink whether we’re getting the best return on those taxpayer dollars.
Let me know what you think…
