Simple Daily Requirements

As Americans we have no shortage of issues to gripe about and to be perfectly blunt, nearly all of them are our own fault. Yes, no matter who is to blame, we all own a part of the fault. It may be our direct actions or actions that happen because we turned a blind eye and assumed that somebody else would take care of it. Come on, think about it. When is the last time you walked past a discarded piece of trash and rather than stop and pick it up, you determined that would be somebody else’s job? Most of the time it is something that seems to be only a simple annoyance, but all too often these little things end up being very large things and there you are; right back at pointing a finger at somebody else.

Flint Michigan is now encountering that very issue and despite the attempts to make it out to be a racially motivated issue, the real issue is poor planning and even poorer execution on bunch of people that were elected and trusted to do “the right thing”. In their haste, they lost site of the fact that their community was rapidly changing. Jobs lost, people moving out, a shortage of funds and poor maintenance of their water system were the indirect causes. The real cause was a governmental body that squandered money for decades before, putting off the much needed basic’s in order to promote other things that really didn’t make a difference.

We are seeing this all across the country. Every state has it’s nightmare scenario and it won’t take much to trigger serious issues that turn into a catastrophe that could not have been avoided. Or could it? We have accepted politicians that have turned elections into Hollywood night extravaganza’s and allowed these same politicians to squander public money on special, high profile, projects that get their picture in the paper, but do little to benefit the population.

Too often we elect officials who’s credentials show no training or education at operating municipalities and have no experience in the same. There is no requirement for them to possess even the basic qualifications, to understand how to create and stick to a budget, to manage union and non-union work forces, to understand the demand on the public worker as well as the expectations of the everyday citizen and lastly, we citizens have no idea of what we should be expecting from these workers or elected officials. It is truly the blind leading the blind.

Every state, city, municipality, town or village has certain basic requirements that cannot be ignored and must be met every single day in order for that organization to operate properly, efficiently and in the best interest of it’s citizens. Skip one or two steps and you have started down the road to eventual disaster or very costly repairs to bring things back to even keel. The basics like electricity, potable water, sewage treatment, trash collection, road repairs, etc. must be met or the community eventually falls into decay. Mayors and elected officials need to be dull, drab figures that worry more about pothole repair than the next photo-op at a new public park. They need to look at all the costs, not just what was needed to build it and walk away from it. Parks are good, but clean running water and sewage removal are mandatory. Without both we quickly slip into a 3rd world environment where public health is a major concern and child mortality rates steadily rise. Remember who elects these people? WE DO.

This is a subject not being taught in our schools so children do not grow up understanding the importance of these most basic needs. We can play the latest video game with great perfection, but cannot change a simple faucet in our house. It is time we demand these topics be addressed, our children and ourselves educated and our elected officials start paying attention to the basics and leave the glitz and glamour to the movie stars, where it belongs.