COLUMN: Health board earns kudos

Column as I see ’em ...

Kudos this week go to the Anderson County Board of Health for listening to the public and doing away with that goofy septic tank pumping ordinance. (See page A1.)

Anderson was the only county in the state with such an ordinance, and with good reason: it was bad policy.

I don’t care how many so-called experts show up with slide rules and calculators when the health board’s subcommittee re-examines this topic. The simple fact is that pumping a septic tank before it’s nearly full is a bad policy and defeats the premise behind how tanks are designed to work.

More kudos go to letter writer Joan Burke, who takes me to task for placing a photo on last week’s front page of a young man and a large elk he harvested during a youth hunt.

She makes some interesting and salient points in what I consider one of the best letter’s I’ve received this year.

I don’t agree with some of what she says, but I love the fact that she stood up and publicly had her say.

There’s too little of that these days, and I’m not sure why.

If you missed it on the front page, go back and check out a piece I wrote on the fiscal court OK’ing a deal to obtain a new building for the sheriff’s department.

There isn’t a public agency in the county (or likely the state) that more sorely needs a bigger, better facility than the sheriff’s department.

Don’t believe me? Stop in some day and ask for a tour. But don’t budget much time because it takes about 15 seconds to see it all.

Certainly the sheriff’s staff doesn’t need a Taj Mahal (that is apparently the province of the health department), but isn’t it a bit much to expect two or sometimes three deputies to share a desk?

As for how the county might obtain that building, it says here if Brad Smith and his architect are able to lock down enough grant money to buy and retrofit that building, those in elected office should be ashamed of themselves.

If that kind of grant money actually exists, no excuse exists for the reason that the city and county do not have someone employed to apply for grants.

Even if Smith isn’t successful, it’s time for city and county officials to consider hiring a grant writer — and I don’t mean someone on a shared basis with Bluegrass Area Development District.

Here’s the idea: we take the money being sent to Bluegrass ADD for a one-day-a-week economic development “liason” and hire our own. Sure, that person would cost more, but he or she would also stick our collective foot in the doors of companies looking for a new home or to expand.

That person should also be a proven grant writer, and paid a commission on each successful grant for which they apply.

Apparently that idea makes too much sense because it doesn’t appear it will happen anytime soon.

Here we go again with the Sunday booze issue, this time with the fiscal court.

Magistrates are going to decide soon if restaurants can sell alcohol by the drink on Sundays, and if the distilleries and winery can sell their products on that day, too.

My best guess is that because it doesn’t allow for package sales, the ordinance will be approved.

I don’t see the logic behind allowing people to sit in a bar and drink their fill on Sundays, but forbidding gas stations, grocery stores and package stores the right to sell booze to people willing to take it home and drink it.

Boozing at a bar generally results in someone driving after drinking. Aren’t we all better off if people doing their driving first?

E-mail Ben Carlson at bcarlson@theandersonnews.com.