How can a community refuse to honor a contract to pay legitimate bills?
It's odd to me that the Ozarks hamlet of Lead Hill would sign a legal contract with the Ozark Mountain Regional Public Water Authority (whew, there's a five-gallon title), then find itself in possible contempt of court for not honoring it.
This town near Bull Shoals Lake seldom makes headlines. I suspect the most controversial things to happen there before this story unfolded was whether to erect a stop light. But this latest flap over failing to pay its water bill as it contracted to do five years ago has me puzzled.
The town's mayor, Jimmie Lou Nuessner, seemed surprised to learn that Boone County Circuit Judge Shawn Womack had signed an order which scheduled a hearing in August to assess if Lead Hill officials will be held in contempt of court. That's a legal matter they can't walk away from.
Seems the town leaders signed the contact in the spring of 2009 to purchase wholesale water for a monthly minimum payment of $5,200 regardless of whether it accepted the authority's water. The authority, believing the contract to be, well, a real contract, began providing water to the town in November 2012, according to a news account.
That came after the authority had invested $72 million to complete a facility that treated and distributed water from Bull Shoals across 120 miles of pipeline to 18 area communities including Lead Hill. But then Lead Hill stopped making payments, so the authority sued to force the town to comply with their contract.
I can't fault them. Authority officials had built the expensive treatment and distribution facility, trusting that all those who signed up would live up to their legal agreement. Most of us full-grown adults know how the contracting thing works: We'll provide you with clean water and you will pay us the money you promised.
After several missed payments, the town leaders basically thumbed their noses and announced they were disconnecting from the authority's system entirely and returning to using well water.
But not so fast, said the authority. Lead Hill by then had accumulated a past-due bill of over $54,000. The authority naturally wanted it paid.
The judge heard arguments in late May and ruled against Lead Hill. But thus far there's been nothing, as in zip, repaid.
Soooo, come August, the water gets deeper when Lead Hill will have to explain why it didn't follow the judge's order, which I understand was written in plain English. The lesson here for all of us, including businesses and towns, is to always live up to your word and, for gosh sakes, pay your legitimate bills, especially when a judge orders you to.
Meanwhile, up the highway in Bull Shoals, leaders are trying to explain why many thousands in federal taxes were withheld from employees but somehow never submitted to the IRS. That doesn't sound good either.
Alguire's boomerang
Motorists arriving in Fayetteville for the 2014 football season may notice something that should have happened decades ago.
Residents already are enjoying the benefits of the so-called flyover bridge on North College that allows the crush of northbounders to enter the Fulbright Expressway and Mall Avenue with ease.
What a relief from what, since 1970, has become one of the most congested and confounded intersections in the state. College Avenue and Joyce Boulevard has been a mess for decades now as drivers waited and waited to finally get through lights, or were forced into making U-turns to swerve into the southbound lanes of College feeding onto Fulbright.
I'm tellin' ya from experience, things could get downright hair-pulling in the fog of that vehicular war zone.
But no more. The modernistic $6.3 million flyover was set to open (ahead of schedule) this week after 18 months under construction. It sweeps artistically from the leftmost northbound lane of College across the southbound lane then down onto either Fulbright or Mall Avenue.
One to thank above all others in seeing this long-needed improvement become reality is Robert Alguire, who actually conceived of the flyover while serving on the Fayetteville Planning Commission during the 1980s. As with all visionaries, Alguire's idea at the time wasn't given the merit it deserved. Some even teased, calling it "Alguire's boomerang." Well, ye scoffers of nearly four decades past, your short-sighted dismissals at the time have now officially boomeranged. Thanks for a great idea, Robert!
Liberty wins one
Count me with Americans celebrating the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision this week supporting religious freedom over Obamacare's mandate that required private companies such as Hobby Lobby to pay for funding birth control, including forms they believe cause abortions, in violation of religious beliefs.
The concerning part of this decision was that four radical justices appear to believe your religious liberties and mine somehow don't trump President Barack Obama's politically saturated brainchild and the grossly overbearing ideological demands about birth control Obamacare placed on closely held private American businesses.
Here in the United States of America, as opposed to, say, the totalitarian USSR, some individual liberties apparently do remain. Good for the court's majority for choosing freedom of choice and common sense.
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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 on 07/05/2014