weissblog

Well, the sales tax that was to be our savior turned out to be a flop. So now all the employees of Helena-West Helena are wondering, now what? We’d been told by Mayor Valley that if the tax passed we’d be fine, but that if it didn’t we’d lose a few people and take a pay cut.
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The new year is here. The town of Helena, Arkansas no longer exists. Consolidation has taken place and the town of West Helena has consumed the town of Helena. The voters have chose the the name Helena-West Helena for the new city. Something along the lines of New Helena would have been better in my opinion, but that matters little now.

The last several weeks have been filled with political goings on to the point to where everyone is getting sick of it. The new mayor, James Valley, is promising no job loses, but one of the main points in the consolidation campaign was to do away with duplicate positions to save the city money. All I’m hearing is money being spent. And then they’re talking about a 2% sales tax? 2%! That would put us at a 10% sales tax once you add in county and state. It’s nuts. If that manages to pass, it would be just as cheap for my family to drive to Forest City or even Clarksdale and buy groceries… even with the price of gas as high as it is.

Then there’s the whole rank structure at the police department (and all the other departments for that matter). Helena officers want to keep their rank, West Helena officers want to keep theirs. It’s all a bunch of crap. What it comes down to is this. Helena no longer exists. West Helena continues to exist under the new name of Helena-West Helena. When this was brought up in the meeting between the officers and the mayor, Mayor Valley tried to say that if you interpret the law this way you were using tunnel vision and that both cities really cease to exist. But, after reading the law for myself (14-40-1201 through 14-40-1213 of AR Code) I fail to see how anyone could interpret the law as saying both cities cease to exist. Take a look at 14-40-1203(C)(i)

Upon the making of the order, the smaller municipal corporation and the territory comprising it shall, in law, be deemed and be taken to be included and shall be a part of the larger municipal corporation.

Now, it seems pretty plain to me that it says the smaller city becomes part of the larger city, not that they both become part of a new city. With this being the case then, by law, all the officers, fire man, sanitation workers, etc. from Helena should be new hires; meaning no seniority. Now I understand this upsets some people, but the law is like that, it tends to make people mad. When was the last time any of you reading this thanked an officer for writing you a ticket? See my point?

Needless to say, I now wonder if my faith in Mayor Valley was misplaced. In all fairness to Mayor Valley, it really is too soon to say. And it probably won’t affect me much anyway. I don’t expect anything to change in the way of my duties at work. I’ll keep on patrolling and continue to keep all the computers working. The only difference between 2005 and 2006 is I’ve got more land to patrol and more computers to fix.

Here the last two days it seems that all everyone on TV is wanting to do is point fingers. There’s still months of work left to been done along the Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama coastline and instead of focusing on getting it done certain people would rather spend time pointing fingers. Most of it is typical human nature, not wanting to take the blame themselves. Some of the comments made are outright racist. Others show their own ignorance by choosing to speak out. So, I offer this layman’s view of the situation.
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Well, it is Independence Day once again. Children everywhere are playing with sparklers and scaring the old lady next door with M-80 firecrackers. Families are eating hot dogs and tossing a football around. All is well in their world.

For this I am thankful. But as most people know, nothing comes without a cost. This independence wasn’t given to the USA. No, it was fought for. And, as one can imagine, many people died for the independence that we enjoy and, probably, take for granted.

So, I took it upon myself to do a little digging and see how many deaths it took to get us here. If you disagree with something, please let me know. I am by no means a history buff, thus I’m bound to make an error.
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The results are in and the cities are going to merge. Here’s the unofficial results:

In favor of consolidation- 1860
Against consolidation- 1168

In West Helena
In favor- 993
Against- 609

In Helena
In favor- 867
Against- 559

On the Question of the Name-Helena-West Helena
For- 1685
Against- 1200

So, now we get to spend the next 9 months planning, cussing, and discussing how to actually merge the two cities. To assist with this, I’ve setup a website for those interested. You can find it at Helena-WestHelena.com.

It’ll also be interesting to see how the politicians from each city reacts and see if they are going to cooperate with the new politicians that will be elected come June (I say new because I doubt any of the existing ones will be re-elected).