Eggs à la Bisbee

Scrambling for credibility

By The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Posted: August 4, 2009 at 6:25 a.m.

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LITTLE ROCK — DAVE BISBEE isn't a state senator any more, and he's learning the hard way how different an executive office in government can be. Especially on the county level close to the people-the highly opinionated, if not downright rambunctious people. Especially the 13 of them that serve on Benton County's quorum court.

With 13 pairs of eyes watching his every move, and slip, Judge Bisbee can hardly get away with anything. Especiallya mistake. And he's now manfully owned up to an impressive number of them:

Leading his parade of bad moves was the way the county judge insulted his immediate predecessor, Gary Black. With no basis in fact, it turns out. Then he shook the quorum court's trust by, on his own, reversing its approval last year of a countywide Reverse 911 emergency warning system.

Result: The beleaguered county judge has had to spend the last few weeks, if not longer, mending fences he should never have messed with. To wit:

(1) Judge Bisbee now concedes he erred in using $65,000 from a federal grant to quietly pull a switcheroo. Namely, dropping the Reverse 911 system that the quorum court had approved in order to finance a courthouse surveillance system. And doing so without a word to the quorum court. His excuse: "time constraints." Better he should have offered none, as in the time-tested military expression, "No Excuse, Sir." It tends to clear the air and let everybody start afresh.

(2) Judge Bisbee admits he falsely accused Mr. Black of not consulting the quorum court last year before moving ahead with the Reverse 911 system, a decision the justices of the peace actually okayed. The county judge proceeded to apologize for that blunder, too.

(3) Judge Bisbee has now agreed to reverse his reversal of the Reverse 911 system.Which is good news if he can remember not to reverse himself again. He now says he's going to find a way to move ahead with the orginial warning system with the quorum court's approval. Which is progress. Correcting a mistake always is.

Now let us praise Dave Bisbee: He's shown enough honesty and integrity to apologize for his errors: "I want to publicy apologize to Gary Black. He was a very good [county] judge, and he didn't deserve to be disparaged." It's a refreshingsight to see a politician show some humility and head for the higher ground-even if it's taken him a while. Even if it may take a while longer to regain his credibility, Dave Bisbee's finally on the right track.

It seems that, just after taking office, he didn't think it was such a big deal to ditch a Reverse 911 system in favor of his pet surveillance project. By now, he's recognized that it was "a very big issue."

Judge Bisbee has promised the quorum court that he'll do better from now on, and will even summon the justices to emergency sessions if county funds need to be reallocated.

It's going to take some justices of the peace a while before they start believing Dave Bisbee even after his me a culpa. For they remain mistrustful. As one member of the quorum court, Bob Stephenson, told Tabatha Hunter of the Benton County Daily Record: "It seems to me that sometimes [where Judge Bisbee is concerned] not enough looking is done before the leaping is done. When something like this happens, it not only gets egg on the county judge and his staff, but all of us."

If there is any good news in this, and there is, it's that scrambled apologies are better than none. Now let's see if the rest of us can show the same humility and good faith that a chastened Dave Bisbee has displayed. Who knows, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship between the county and its county judge.

Editorial, Pages 10 on 08/04/2009

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