When the voters of a community elect leaders through the democratic process, it's fair to assume they're selecting candidates they believe to be best skilled for moving their community in the right direction.

What the "right direction" is can vary widely from town to town. What's right for Winslow won't be right for Gravette. What fits Fayetteville might turn the people of Bentonville on their heads. That is why local residents elect local residents to lead them. As much as we offer criticisms of public policy -- good and bad -- on this page, we hold dear the principle of local governance.

Tontitown challenges our embrace of that ideal, at least lately. In this community along U.S. 412 west of Springdale, one has to wonder what's happening when politics starts to erode the people's confidence in public safety, a fundamental responsibility of government. Worse, one can make a strong argument that it's not just a question of confidence, it's one of reality.

We are, of course, talking about Tontitown's recent journey toward the future that threatens the systems of the past. That in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, if the provisions for the future are an improvement. As circumstances stand, it seems nobody has made the case Tontitown is headed for a better future.

At the center of this most recent clash of ideas in Tontitown is fire protection, and it more than anything else provides a clear indication of how serious the matter is. One of the most basic expectations of municipal government is fire and police protection. If a town cannot meet that essential service, why does it exist at all?

For several years now, Tontitown has met the need by contracting with the Tontitown Area Volunteer Fire Department. City leaders, exercising their right to establish a fire protection service more directly as part of city government, recently decided to kill the city's contract with the volunteer fire department. It created what it calls a public safety department, in which officers serve the dual function of firefighter and police officer.

This all happened in the midst of talks with the volunteer fire department that appeared half-hearted at best and probably were destined to fail due to the demands of the mayor and some members of the City Council. Understandably, the volunteer agency, which also serves areas outside the city limits, had no interest in signing its own death certificate.

City leaders, from Mayor Jack Beckford on down, have simply acted too fast, disrupting the city's fire protection without building the kinds of internal relationships necessary to negotiate a smooth, long-term transition to a new way of doing business. It's not that their goal is out of the question; it's that their approach is destroying what exists and filling the vacuum with a system full of uncertainty.

One could reasonably argue skilled, knowledgeable city leaders could have achieved this transition without creating the disruptions and contentiousness. Reason seems to have gotten lost in Tontitown, and if anyone feels safe in the midst of the chaos, well, it's probably because they're not paying attention.

Surely, nobody would argue Tontitown and her residents are safer today than a year ago. That fact is due to a failure of city leadership.