It would be a gross exaggeration to say the house known as the tumultuous Tontitown government is continually burning itself down. But for me, some comparisons are just too, well, hot to pass up.

I’m specifically referring to the latest uproar in Northwest Arkansas’ wine country between Tontitown’s Volunteer Fire Department and, of course, the city’s notoriously inflamed dysfunctional government.

The problem here is that the volunteer firefighters who have contracted with the community to provide such service aren’t crazy about the push to make them part of the city’s continually inflamed and politicized government. Who can blame them? Certainly not I.

Jason Steele, a member of the fire department’s board, was quoted in a news account saying it’s this turmoil at city hall that concerns those who’d rather be fighting fires. “We don’t want the next council or the next mayor to screw it up,” Steele explained.

Should the city assume control over the fire department, that would mean its chief and any paid employees would then be city employees. That means any mayor with political agendas could hire or fire the chief. And any appeal of such a dismissal would be to an equally politicized “good ol’ boys” city council.

Good luck with that. Tontitown’s past proves no municipal official there ever can feel secure in his or her job.

There’s a yawning reality gap between the real job of fighting fires and childishly wading so gleefully in the muck of petty personal politics.

So what to do? Oh wait! I do believe I’ve visualized a rather elegant plan that might just help resolve the town’s dysfunction.

Why don’t the good citizens of this community vote to place their town’s government under supervision of the Volunteer Fire Department? Flip this whole bad idea over. Let the chief who’s proven capable of putting out one fire after another try his hand at extinguishing the endless personal inflammations in town.

Take that step, frustrated Tontitownians (my word), and I’d bet all the smoky turmoil that’s become the norm in this little burg of endless backstabbings could be quelled overnight.

University deficits

Speaking of large universities and budget deficits, the $4 million in the Advancement Division at the University of Arkansas is tiny potatoes compared with what the world’s richest university, Harvard, is experiencing. For fiscal 2013 alone, that private school (with an amazing $32.7 billion endowment) reported a budget deficit of $33.7 million.

In fact, half of the Ivy League’s eight elite universities are reporting budget shortfalls, including Yale at $39.2 million and Cornell with $31 million. As with the UA, some universities are turning to their substantial reserves to fill their budget gaps.

I discovered this by simply Googling deficits and universities. Yet I haven’t seen more than one story in the mainstream media about all these budget errors. Either I’m going blind, or guess these news outlets don’t believe budget shortfalls filled by ample reserves nowadays, even at the nation’s largest and wealthiest universities, are all that newsworthy.

It’s the location

I’ve got to smile whenever I read how some lobbyists and others with special-interest agendas try to make it seem in news stories as if public opposition (including my own) to the hog factory placed in the precious Buffalo National River watershed, when our state’s Department of Environmental Quality (cough) quickly and quietly permitted that mega-waste-producer in such a sensitive location, somehow equals widespread opposition to hog farms and supplier Cargill.Talk about a crimson oinker (pork version of a red herring).

Once again for the record, the only protests in this instance are over the wrongheaded location of this particular swine factory, not the farmers or hog farming itself. Period. End of sentence. They ‘ain’t heavy’

The world needs more people like Lowell Police Chief Randy Harvey, who drew some national attention last week when he was pictured escorting (even carrying) children across the icy crosswalk in front of their school, as he does each weekday. Harvey said he just saw this need in his community and “took care of it.”

“It was a chance for me to interact with the community,” he explained. One video of Harvey’s efforts that went viral on the Internet showed appreciative students bringing the chief a cup of hot chocolate at the frozen crosswalk.

Good job and a standing ovation for you, Chief Harvey. Many of us Arkansans are proud of you including, I feel certain, your beloved predecessor, the late Joe Landers, whose caring heart once beat in concert with your own.

Unexpected responses

Many thanks to the unexpected outpouring of readers who sent messages last week letting me know they are out there. Wow! Their comments came in response to my reminiscences of the newspaper’s in-house readership survey conducted about 10 years ago, which documented how many were reading who and what in these pages at that time. Although I wasn’t soliciting responses by bringing it up, all those supportive notes were much appreciated nonetheless.

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Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.

Editorial, Pages 11 on 02/11/2014