Citizen Journalist: A Series of Unfortunate Decisions

by Mike Martin

September 19,2008

My sister Stephanie stopped walking by the time she was 6 years old.  She weighed 42  pounds the month before her death at 28, a ripe old age for a muscular dystrophy patient.

Stephanie lived at home every year of her short life.  I have memories  of the things my mother and I did to make her days more comfortable-from  moving pillows every few hours to prevent bed sores, to renting a van and taking her to Bowers Mansion State Park, just south of Reno, Nev.

Memories of my sister and the people who moved mountains to help her, like my mother and Muscular Dystrophy Association founder Jerry Lewis make me wonder where our community is headed, morally, ethically and, dare I say, spiritually.

After the unfortunate decisions that forced residents of Paquin Towers to plead or, as my wife called it, “beg” for their recreation program at a recent Columbia City Council meeting, this question seems more valid and timely than ever.

Alternate Universe

Speaking before the City Council, I said that lately I’ve been wondering what “alternate universe” I’ve stumbled into, here in progressive, enlightened Columbia, which has a heartening history of staunchly supporting our community’s most vulnerable citizens.

More recently, though, we’ve taken to staunchly supporting government, apparently in the hope that some of our tax-funded largesse will finally trickle down to us.

Local leaders seem to believe that government works best, not when it’s working for us, but when it’s housed in the largest buildings and led by the highest-paid-a new class of public servants judged not by their abilities or their accomplishments, but by their paychecks and their car allowances. These same leaders, who are now wringing their hands over an $88,000 recreation  program, had been quietly providing a much-needed arts and recreation outlet for nearly four decades.

Now, it’s a bullet in a battle between the City Council, the Columbia Housing Authority, which owns Paquin Towers-and its primary beneficiaries: low-income, mostly disabled citizens.

“To fund the city council’s recent $100,000 increase in its ‘discretionary fund’ from $75,000 to $175,000, City Manager Bill Watkins removed the $88,000 previously allocated for the Paquin program,” wrote Columbia Daily Tribune publisher Hank Waters.

That decision was “cruel and harsh,” local public relations exec Mark Farnen said on CAT TV’s Counterpoint, and Paquin residents overcame all manner of physical immobility to beseech mayor, council and city manager to reverse it, and restore a program that accounts for a mere 0.02% of City Hall’s $397 million budget.

Moral disconnect

Just three months ago, “during the Columbia City Council’s discussion on economic development at its retreat, [City Manager Bill] Watkins suggested using funds from the Columbia Water and Light electric reserves to purchase land that could be competitively priced to attract a major employer,” the Tribune reported.

“Watkins estimated the plan would take $1 million to $2 million out of the electric reserves, which total about $34 million, to buy land and extend the necessary infrastructure to make it ready for manufacturing or industrial uses.” Promoting the economy is a laudable goal, but against the current backdrop of questionable priorities, a suggestion to spend $1-2 million on a land buying speculation only widens a growing moral, ethical and psychological disconnect between our public servants and the public they serve. Our public agencies can fund a $15-plus million parking garage, a $21-plus million City Hall, a $15-plus million county office space expansion, and hefty salary increases for senior staff from the school superintendent, to the football coach, to the water and light director.

Yet those same agencies struggle to fund school resource officers, classroom air conditioning, functional sidewalks, functional sewers, safe streets, mental health care, a clean, sanitary animal control facility, safe, adequate parking for football games and a community swimming pool.

And a program that helps make life worth living for a group of folks who often struggle to live.

Mike Martin

Columbia resident and science journalist Mike Martin earned a master's degree in business administration from the University of Washington, with a concentration in entrepreneurship and innovation. He can be reached at mike.martin@nasw.org.

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