| RAMER
The Ramer City Commissioners meet at 7:00 p.m. on the fourth Monday of each month at the Ramer City Hall.
Ramer elects five commissioners to four-year terms, and the commissioners choose one of their number to serve as mayor. Elections are held every two years, and the commissioners’ terms are staggered.
Ramer’s current mayor is George Armstrong, whose current term expires in 2008.
Ramers commissioners, with the year they come up for reelection, are:
Kendall Summers (645-5709) 2008
Tim Baker 2010
David Dickey 2010
Bill Thomas 2010 Town Board Meeting
28 July 2008 The main item of business at the July meeting of the Ramer town board was the passage of the second reading of the 2008-2009 budget.
“Last meeting we had some changes,” Mayor George Armstrong reminded Commissioners David Dickey and Kendall Summers (Tim Baker and Bill Thomas did not attend the meeting), “And one of the changes was utilities at city hall. Street lights went from eighty-five hundred to twelve thousand.… That made a grand total of 28690. The ball park state at 4400. We upped the gas and oil on the fire department by a thousand, and repairs fifteen hundred, which will make that a total of 9650. And that is a total of 42740, ball park, fire department and general.”
“And we are paying back that money,” Armstrong added, as an aside, referring to the beer-tax money Ramer had erroneously received from sales at the Junction, which is actually in Eastview. At the previous meeting there was some question of whether that was being done, and Armstrong dispelled that confusion: “We are paying that back.”
Armstrong continued. “The estimated revenues stayed the same, 43260, and then the civic center, the rental, we say we’re taking in thirteen hundred, making a grand total of 44560. City street aid, we’re requesting 15,000, and we think we’ll take in about 9950 from revenues and from interest and [unintelligible] sales tax. Right now, in what we call unencumbered funds, we’ve got a CD up there in streets for 35141, and the checking account has got thirty-three, so we’ve got somewhere around 69,000 in street aid. City of Ramer water department, we left all of that basically the same. Then we had with it, and the only other thing we had here was what, again we call unencumbered funds, we’ve got like $41,031 in the checking account, and CD.
“Now in the, we don’t have any CDs, or what you call unencumbered funds, in the General. So it’s kind of still nip and tuck, and we’re, you know, we’re barely keeping our head, we’re going to spend 42740 and we’re saying we’re going to take in 44560, so we’re a couple of grand ahead. Hopefully nothing will happen.
“Do y’all see any problem with that?” he asked when he finished. No one did, and the second reading was unanimously approved on a motion by Summers, seconded by Dickey.
* * *
The relatively uneventful meeting had begun, as usual, with the reading of the previous meeting, which were unanimously approved on a motion by Summers, seconded by Dickey.
After discussion of some needed concrete work at the ball park, school lights, street signs, and the reconnection of the Ramer water system with that of Eastview, the board turned to the evening’s second major item of business, road repairs.
“Okay,” Armstrong said, “the Cemetery Road and the J. Taylor Road. Up on the Cemetery Road, Auzzie Knight has got a culvert there that’s in bad shape, where those trucks have run over it and crushed it. Now, cemetery needs some work done on it, that road around the cemetery. And the J. Taylor Road is in bad shape. And I want to make a motion that we fix it. This has been on the agenda for quite some time. I haven’t seen a lot of log trucks, and it’s good and dry right now, and hopefully we can get the county to do it for us. I believe they said one time they would.”
Dickey said he had talked to Harvey Neal Smith, who said he would do it for cost.
“And,” Armstrong continued, “we’re probably going to have to put a culvert in up here on J. Taylor Road, and we’re probably going to have to put a culvert in up here on the Cemetery Road.”
After some discussion of cost, Armstrong said, “I’m going to make a new motion, that we fix the Cemetery Road, the J. Taylor Road, and the culvert at Auzzie Knight’s.” His motion was seconded by Dickey and carried unanimously.
“What I will do is—” Armstrong began, then he started over. “Well, let’s put it this way. If it does not exceed fifteen thousand, I’ll tell him to go ahead and go to work and fix it. If it does, might have to do part of it, and part of it next winter.”
* * *
Before adjourning the board voted unanimously (on a motion by Armstrong, seconded by Dickey) to put a protective film on the large window at city hall and (on a motion by Armstrong, seconded by Summers) to donate $100 to help defray the travel costs of the fourteen-year-old State Champion baseball team to Atlanta for their next level of competition on the road to the world series. Town Board Meeting
23 June 2008 The June meeting of the Ramer town board got off to a late start. City hall was still locked and dark when Commissioner Kendall Summers drove into the parking lot a minute or two before 7:00 p.m.. He remained in his vehicle until about 7:00, when Mayor George Armstrong arrived, pulling his vehicle up next to Summers’. Summers then got out of his truck and into Armstrong’s car, and the two then drove out of the parking lot and turned east on Hwy 57, headed toward Eastview. At about 7:05 Tim Baker arrived and sat in his jeep for a couple of minutes until Armstrong and Summers returned, and the three finally entered city hall. Armstrong called the meeting to order at 7:09. (Commissioner Bill Thomas eventually arrived about 7:35, but Commissioner David Dickey and his wife Tabitha, who is the town recorder, never did appear.)
Even more bizarrely, while several other municipalities in the county have been scrambling to schedule special called meetings to get in the second readings of their 2008-2009 budget ordinances before July 1, Ramer hasn’t even gotten around to the first reading of its 2008-2009 budget. Go figure.
The agenda of the meeting was positively Spartan. Here it is, in its entirety:
Agenda Ramer City Meeting June 23, 2008
Old Business 1. J. Taylor Rd. 2. Cemetery Rd. 3. Connection to Eastview
New Business 1. Letter from Comptroller 2. Culvert @ Auzzie Knight’s (R.T. & Inez) 3. Budget 4. Fall League 5. Parade Prizes
Ramer Mayor George Armstrong began the June meeting by reading through the minutes of the previous meeting, which was the April meeting, since the board had not met in June because the normal meeting day fell on Memorial Day. Armstrong said that “no one has contacted us from FEMA to let us know when we should receive payment” of disaster relief from the February tornado, but he explained that apparently some of the required paper work had not been received. That has now been taken care of, so the payment “should be forthcoming.”
Regarding the schools lights, Armstrong reported that it appeared that some necessary parts, “mostly clamps and bolts,” had not been supplied with the equipment, but that he was going to tell Billy Broadway to purchase what was needed and charge it to the town, and he expected the lights would be installed this week.
The subject of the ownership (and paving) of Key Lane was discussed once again, without resolution. Armstrong said that he had left messages with County Attorney Craig Kennedy but “he has not returned my call.”
J. Taylor Road was also discussed. “I’m catching a lot of flack about that road,” Armstrong said, before adding, “And understandably so.” Describing the situation, Armstrong said, “It looks like we may have to go around and try to ditch the ditches and put a culvert in under the road, which I understand may already be going bad. If it is, it’s filled in. And try to fix that aspect of it.”
However, Armstrong said that he was reluctant to undertake any repairs while the road was being used so extensively, and Baker agreed, saying “I know they want their road fixed, but if they keep hauling them big loads they’re going to tear it right up again.”
The minutes were finally approved (on a motion by Armstrong, seconded by Summers), then Armstrong said, “Before we get to the budget, I want to go into a letter that I got from the state comptroller.” He then went through the letter’s contents. “They talk about the fact that we haven’t had a audit; we knew that. Here’s what they say we’ve got, you know, we need to do. A general ledger was not maintained on a timely basis; we knew that. No subsidiary ledger of customer deposits. I’m not sure if that’s the water meter. I think it’s the water meter. And it’s supposed to be on the computer. Accounts receivable subsidiary ledger was not maintained; we knew that. Cash accounts were not reconciled at the time in a timely manner; we knew that. A copy of the city budget was not available; we knew that. No support for traffic citation and [unintelligible word] collection of fines; we knew that. Adequate logging of receipts of concession stands, concession sales collected at the park, or for revenue collected for civic center rent was not maintained. We are now maintaining for the civic center, but I don’t know that, I don’t know that we ever did that at the ball park [several unintelligible words]. We just let it run itself, and they keep the proceeds out of it.”
Armstrong told the board “We’ve got 90 days to reply in writing to this. So we’ve got some time, but I’ve got to stay on top of that.”
To help deal with these matters Armstrong said the town was in the process of acquiring some software, at a cost of $600-$800, “that will do all this they’re wanting us to do.”
“One other thing<” Armstrong continued. “Old business, J. Taylor road we’ve been talking about. Cemetery Road. Auzzie Knight come to me a couple of weeks ago and said the Cemetery Road was in, you know, washes pretty bad. Tim, you’re an old road man. Would you look at it, and just tell us what we need to do? If there’s any way to stop the water from running down there? If it needs flat rock put on it. I know there’s a culvert up there that probably stays stopped up. I don’t know how to offset that.”
Baker replied, “Yeah, I’ll go up there and look at it.”
“And also up there,” Armstrong continued, “they said that those trucks had ruined the culvert at R.T. and Inez’s, used to be their drive. I told them we’d have to check on that.”
Armstrong then addressed the last item of old business, Connection to Eastview. “I’m going to put a little pressure on somebody,” he said. “We need to get that done. One of these days, that—”
Summers asked, “You think that Don Mullins could do that?”
“Yeah,” Armstrong replied. “I think he could, as far as the digging’s concerned. I don’t think he would have any problem doing that. The only thing I don’t know about that is, you know what we got down there has to be tied in.
“What about Eastview doing it,” Baker suggested, “and letting us just pay for it? They’ve got a backhoe.”
Armstrong replied, “I don’t know if they’ve still got it, have they?”
“I don’t know,” Baker responded, “but I seen the truck and trailer sitting up there the other day. But what I was getting at was let them do it, and then if it messes up later on say, ‘Well, y’all done it, we paid for it,’ and that’s kindly—”
“That’s an option,” Armstrong agreed.
“They could do it the way they wanted to,” Baker continued. “As long as the price is within reason. You might just— Is Charles Weeks the mayor up there? You might just run it by him and see with he says.”
“I’ll talk to Charles and see what he says,” Armstrong agreed. “If they’ve got the means to do it, it might just be the thing to do, and we’d be clear, there.”
Baker pointed out that “They’re the ones that went up there and unhooked it.”
Armstrong pointed out a possible point of contention between the two towns. “Eastview’s tried to say, as I understand it, it needs to be bored under the road again and a new pipe put in. Bobby [Wardlow] and Billy [Broadway] both said there’s no need to bore under the road; the casing’s there. Just dig out, put new pipe in the casing. New valves, new connections.”
Armstrong repeated that he would talk to Mayor Weeks.
Before finally getting to the budget, Armstrong briefly brought up the Fall League and the question of parade prizes. No one objected to the Fall League using the city ball park, and Summers suggested that the town not give a cash prize for best float in this year’s town parade. “Let’s just try it without any, and see if we get any flack,” he said, “because I don’t know anybody that fixes up a float” for the prize money.
“All right,” Armstrong said at last, “let’s look at the budget. This was taken from, I guess you’d call it a, looking at the last couple of years, and what has transpired and what we got in and everything seems to be pretty well in that same, you know we haven’t give any raises— I kindly had hoped that Jamie was here tonight, see how gas and oil are $500 or so, you know, with $4.50 fuel. Probably not very good. Supplies, salary, they will stay the same. Insurance. We can always go back and amend that, if it becomes necessary.”
Baker said, “Gas and oil and repairs is about the only things that we’re changing there, ain’t it?”
Armstrong agreed, and Summers suggested that the increased cost of gas and oil might be offset by reduction in the budgeted amount for supplies.
Armstrong observed that the budget included $15,000 for streets, and that the water department’s budgeted items “stayed basically the same.”
“On our utilities,” Baker asked, “Pickwick’s saying July 1st, rates are going up. How much will that affect us?”
“It will affect us,” Armstrong acknowledged. “I tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to question gas and oil” because those figures did not appear to be based on the previous years prices, “and diesel fuel being what it is, that might not take care of us right now.”
Baker suggested that he “check on utilities, too. Seems like last thing I read in Tennessee Magazine was a three or four percent increase.”
Armstrong then read several figures from the revenue part of the budget, with water sales projected to be $54,000 and sales tax $24,500.
Apropos of sales tax, Baker asked about the status of the “pay back” of taxes which had for several years erroneously paid to Ramer on sales at the Junction, which is actually in Eastview. [See the report of the August 2007 meeting, below, for details.].
“You know,” Armstrong replied, “that’s real strange. We haven’t noticed a big decrease in what we’re getting. We’ve called them, and they said it’s been taken care of.”
Baker suggested that it sounded too good to be true and expressed some concern that the problem might pop back up “a year or two down the road.”
The meeting was finally adjourned, on a motion by Summers, seconded by Baker, without any vote being taken on the budget. Town Board Meeting
28 April 2008
Half of the hour-long April meeting of the Ramer Town Board was spent discussing and ultimately approving a contract with Farley Purvis for the regular inspection of Ramer's water tank. The meeting began with the reading of the minutes from the March meeting, which were approved on a motion by Mayor George Armstrong, seconded by Bill Thomas. Armstrong then suggested putting of a discussion of the audit until the next board meeting, to give the commissioners additional time to review it. The mayor then reported to the board regarding the trash problem on Ramer-Selmer Road. "I talked with Ronnie Neill, who is our representative from MTAS, and this is kind of a sample ordinance of what we can do about, you know, cleaning the place up. Residences, streets, whatever. It addresses several things. Dead animals, sanitation, slums, public water officer. It covers junk yards, junk yard screening. "There's a lot of stuff in here," Armstrong said, "and here's what he told me on the telephone. This is worth just as much as we want to make it. If we don't enforce it, it's not worth even writing up." "Well," Thomas observed, "if we don't enforce it, we shouldn't even ask about it." Thomas said that the town of can either have the owners clean them up "or we can do it at their expense, right?" "If we pass these ordinances we can do that," Armstrong agreed. "I, for one, think that should be passed," Thomas said, "because there's a lot of that old trashy stuff around here." "When talking with this gentleman," Armstrong continued, "he said 'You're going to catch a lot of flack,' and he said, 'Rest assured, one of the commissioners will have a complaint raised against him.' He said it never fails. For whatever reason. And this is comment I made to Bonnie. If Kendall decides to park his tractor in front of his house, with a disk on it, and we've already teed somebody off and they drive by there, 'Look at that old tractor setting there!' And they're going to call, and they're going to complain. I'm just telling you some of the things that can go on, and probably will go on." Armstrong suggests that the commissioners take copies of the proposed ordinance and look it over before the next meeting, "and then we can decide how we're going to enforce it, and if we're going to strictly enforce it. I can tell you right now, I don't like to be told what I can do on my land that I pay taxes on—" "I'm the same way, but …" Thomas interjected. "—but I agree that some of this needs to be cleaned up," Armstrong concluded. "Is there anything about condemned houses in there?" David Dickey asked. Armstrong said that there was, and then Recorder Tabitha Dickey said, "I think these matters need to be gently approached, because you are going to open a can of worms when you start telling all these people what they're going to do. I think you need to start out by, maybe a little letter, and explaining— "Yeah," Armstrong agreed. "My raised beds, and my gardens might be offensive to somebody." Tim Baker said, "basically, all we're wanting to do is get these old houses cleaned up. I mean, it ain't like we're trying to change everybody's lives, here." "But," Tabitha Dickey observed, "now if we go in there and clean one of these houses up and send them a bill for two or three thousand dollars, you know …." "Yeah," Baker replied, "but I mean we're not going to do it right off the bat. We've got to give them some kind of a notice." "I'm sure we would," Armstrong agreed. "Well," Thomas said, "the way I understand it, we've been trying to get them to do it for years." The board then voted, on a motion by Armstrong, seconded by Tim Baker, not to meet in May because the fourth Monday of that month falls on Memorial Day this year. After reviewing several other items mentioned in the minutes, Mayor Armstrong turned to Farley Purvis and said, "Looks like you're next." "This is Farley Purvis," Armstrong said, of "Tank Consultants of Tennessee. He knows this [tank] pretty well. He is wanting to sign up the city on a, basically, what it is, a hundred dollar a month to do the various and sundry inspections." Purvis told the board that he would inspect the tank annually and wash it out every five years. "You’ve got some things going on with that tank that we're going to have to address at some point…. It's not a 'if,' it's a 'when.'… There's going to be the place to where the tank is going to have to be done inside. It's going to have to be blasted and painted and this kind of stuff. And that's going to be tricky when it comes to that, because keeping the tank down that long, you've got just a lot of things." Purvis explained that "the bad thing is, most of these tanks are going to have to be epoxy on the inside. The bad thing is, once the blasting and painting is actually done, you've got seven to ten days of just setting there curing." Bobby Wardlow of Ramer's utility department said that Ramer would be tied in with Eastview by the time this was done. "Within ten years we should have that tank in good shape," Purvis explained. "And that's going to mean getting money from some place. That's probably going to mean painting the inside, probably going to mean painting the outside, within ten years." Purvis explained that "the state requires professional inspection every five years. If they come back in, this tank hasn't been washed out for ten years, you guys say you can't afford this, you can't afford that, you can't keep a tank up, they can come in and take over your tank…. That don't need to happen." Armstrong summed up Purvis's proposal thusly: "If we go under contract with him, number one, he will inspect it every year, and then he will wash it every five years. At the time he draws it down and washes it, if there is a bad, bad spot, that you can put this quad-epoxy on, he'll do that. But, now, if he comes into something, that say, hey, that section right there has got to be sandblasted and be done, then he's going to come to the city and say, 'You need to have that done, and that's your expense.'" Purvis added that "to blast and paint the inside of this tank, for instance, it's 4,800 square feet inside, the best price for most, just a blast and [unintelligible words] epoxy system, is about $4 a foot. So 4,800 times $4 a foot, that would be about what the inside would cost to blast and put a system on it. So, all of a sudden, see, you're looking at a little different deal. That's something you don't want to find out, you didn't know about it Monday and all of a sudden you've got to pay for it on Wednesday. You don't want that. Annual inspections will stop that." "There are some problems coming up with this tank that are going to have to be addressed," Purvis repeated, "and I know you guys don't have the money straight off to just do it." Purvis said, "The one thing that I'm concerned about this tank more than anything else is that it's going to come to a redoing the inside. Good possibility that tank's going to be down for over two weeks. So you have to be hooked up [with Eastview]. You're not going to be able to survive something like that." Thomas moved that the town accept Purvis's proposal. Armstrong seconded, and the motion passed unanimously. At the conclusion of the board's regular business Mayor Armstrong called on Peggy Berryman, who was in the audience. "We’ve talked to you about this Modern Woodmen's program, John Hand project coming up Saturday," Berryman said. "We're going to buy the poles to put the fence back up, and we're going to get weed killer, and we're going to clean off the tennis and basketball courts, and we're going to paint some of the playground equipment. So, we're going to need all the help we can get, and we need everybody down there." The meeting was then adjourned on a motion by Kendall Summers, seconded by Bill Thomas. Town Board Meeting
24 March 2008
The March meeting of the Ramer Town Board got off to a late start. Commissioner Bill Thomas rarely attends the meetings, and David Dickey was busy attending to insurance matters at the ballpark, but Tim Baker's unexpected absence left only Mayor George Armstrong and Commissioner Kendall Summers at the table, so the opening of the meeting was delayed for several minutes until Dickey could be summoned. "Well," Mayor Armstrong said, when Dickey arrived, "we finally got a quorum. We'll open this city meeting, call to order and read the minutes from the last one, if you please." "The FEMA deal," Armstrong said, reviewing the contents of the minutes after they had been approved on a motion by Armstrong, seconded by Dickey. "I could be wrong about that 87.5%. It could be 75%. I'm not sure that Outdoors Unlimited's going to be covered. But he [the FEMA representative] did take the bill with him, the last time he was here. He took that bill with him. He had originally told me that if it was under a thousand dollars it wasn't, you couldn't use it, it didn't qualify. But he took it anyhow, so I don't know where we stand. So it's somewhere between 87.5 and 75%. I've heard both numbers dropped, and I've got a meeting Wednesday with him, we're supposed to finalize it, so we'll know more then. He took all the stuff from the ballpark. We are going to get some money for debris removal up at Jay Taylor Road. How much, at this point I do not know. I don't know about the lights. I've talked to Billy [Broadway]. Billy's kind of waiting on me, I think. I don't know what it is. But anyhow. The beer thing's okay. Okay, we've got the civic center keys …. All right, we discussed the 2006-7 audit, and asked that you take one and look over it. We're going to put that off to next month. Next month being April. We need to try to get us an audit at our June meeting approved, so that we'll have an audit to start the first day of January. Or July, that comes right after June." Armstrong then read from the agenda, "Status on Ramer-Selmer Road," and turned to two of the three people in the audience, Aaron and Bunny Knight. "It's the slums," Bunny Knight said, referring to the condition of the road on which she and her husband live. "That's the best name I've got for it. It's the slums…. I just wish everybody would drive down there and turn off that road. Here's pictures. I want everybody to look at them. But they do not do it justice. You have to see it to believe it." "We ain't trying to be nasty about our neighbors," Aaron Knight added. "We just want them to clean up a little bit." Referring to the trash depicted in the photographs, Knight said, "If it was next door to any of y'all's houses, y'all would be down here the same as us." "Is there not any kind of ordinance on the book," Bunny Knight asked, "where people have to maintain their property?" "There is," Town Recorder Tabitha Dickey, acknowledged, "but the only repercussion is a $50 fine. And the letter that I mail out, you never get the $50 fine back. There's no reinforcement on the books to do to somebody if they don't pay it." After both Knights elaborated on their concerns, Mayor Armstrong said, "The only thing I know to do is what I did on the beer issue, and whether or not we did this thing correctly when we had that, made those, those motions, whatever, is talk to MTAS or TML…. Now, they might have some guidelines that we could go by that we could enforce, without, you know, causing, you don't know what—" "We didn't come over here to cause no hard feelings," Knight said. Armstrong said that he had heard complaints for other people besides the Knights, then he repeated, "The only thing I can think of to do, can y'all think of anything other to do that what we can do, I mean the ordinance we've got, it just don't have enough teeth in it for anything." He added that he would be glad to "call MTAS and see what kind of stuff they can come up with that a place like this can do." "You know," Bunny Knight said, "that little road that we live on up there, that used to be one of the neatest, nicest roads there was in Ramer. Everybody kept their place up, you know. But it's not like that any more." Armstrong said, "Only thing I can do, Bunny and Aaron, is get with MTAS and see if they can get me something that we can go to—" "If that's all you can do, George, that's all you can do," Bunny Knight said. "I'll find out," Armstrong said. "Try to this week." "All right," Armstrong then said, turning to Eddie Moore, the last of the three people in the audience, "Eddie, you're next." "First of all," Moore began, "I'd like to thank y'all for all the support y'all have given the park down there. This is basically the same budget that we've had for the last two years," he said, referring to the document he was offering for the board's approval. "Twenty-two hundred dollars for the mowing, and then $2,200 to help pay for our umpires." Moore said that the actual cost for the umpires would be about $2,500, but "the coaches and the league is going to take up that extra." Moore added that "we have already gotten all the storm damage—I don't know how many of you saw the storm damage, I know David has, and George you have, most of it is in your yard—but we've already got all that fixed and we've already paid for that out of our pockets." "Hopefully, you'll get that back," Armstrong said, then he made a motion "that we approve the Dixie Youth budget as submitted." Dickey seconded the motion, which passed unanimously. Bids were then opened for the mowing contract, which had been advertised after the February board meeting. The lowest bid, for $4,200, was from Kevin Gray, and the second lowest was from Ernie Willis, for $5,040, and Armstrong made a motion to award the contract to Gray, conditioned on him having liability insurance. "If Kevin does not have insurance, doesn't have it and doesn't want to get it, … then I think we should go ahead and award it to Willis, as he's the next lowest." Dickey seconded the motion, which passed unanimously. Armstrong then called on Dickey to address the next agenda item, "Key Lane repair." "Harvey Neal Smith [of the county highway department] called me about Key Lane. A lot of people's called the county about the road around the school, where they have to pick up their kids…. It's just chewed up, in terrible shape. And Harvey Neal said it's a city road, he can't to anything about it. But he said he would asphalt it and fix the road at cost and materials for us." There then ensued some discussion about ownership of the road. Armstrong pointed out that the state would not permit the town to spend money blacktopping the road if it was not a city street, and in the end Armstrong asked Dickey to contact Director of Education Charles Miskelly to determine whether the road belonged to the school board. "Okay," Armstrong said, "we're going on to the next thing: 'Well pay-off and GRW payment.' We owe, Tabitha, what? Eight thousand and something now?" "Eighty-five hundred on the well," Recorder Dickey replied. "And we owe G.R.W.—" "Five thousand," Dickey said. "That's thirteen-five," Armstrong said, totaling the two. "We've got a C.D. coming up for renewal, about a $45,000 C.D. coming up for renewal … the seventh of April." Armstrong said that he had discussed the matter with the recorder, and "Before we renew this, we're thinking about taking out like fifteen grand of it, paying off G.R.W., which is the engineers from the well that we didn't do. We've got the bunch in Jackson paid off. We just owe G.R.W. about five more grand." In the discussion that followed, utility director Bobby Wardlow brought up a familiar issue. "If we do that Eastview tie back in, that could be expensive, depending on what we have to do. If we have to re-bore the road, twelve inches, that will be expensive. To put a pipe under the road and put our pipe in it." Finally, Summers made "a motion we pay both of these bills off and add to the well fund at each renewal as feasible." Armstrong seconded the motion, which passed unanimously, and the meeting was adjourned on motion by Summer, seconded by Dickey.
Town Board Meeting
25 February 2008
Ramer's February town board meeting was brief and relatively unremarkable by recent standards, the two main items of business concerning tornado damage and an MTAS opinion regarding tie votes. Also of note was the attendance of Commissioner Bill Thomas, whose absence from recent meetings had been the subject of some discussion at the January meeting. When Thomas had not appeared within a couple of minutes of 7:00 p.m., Mayor George Armstrong telephoned him, and Armstrong held off on convening the meeting until he had arrived.
After the minutes of the January meeting were read and approved (by unanimous voice vote on a motion by Armstrong, seconded by Thomas), Mayor Armstrong informed the board of a change in plans for painting city hall. "As you may recall we had approved Poindexter to paint. Poindexter has since taken a job and he can't do it, so we went with the second bid [from Linda Reaves], which is going to start, like, tomorrow."
He then turned to an agenda item that was rendered moot by the 5 February tornado. "Commissioners discuss structural insurance on the ballpark. As you might well know, it's a little late, as it got pretty well tore up. But it's back, fixed now." After mentioning several non-related matters, Armstrong returned to the subject. "Okay, that's— Let's go back while I've got this on my mind. On this thing with the ballpark. You know, we never did get the insurance, for whatever reason, but since it did get damaged, FEMA is probably going to pay at least 87% of it. At least that's what they told me today, that we're most likely, we'll get eighty-seven, that's actually eighty-seven-and-a-half percent, it's twelve-and-a-half percent city. They're going to pick up probably all of what we have already paid Richard Howard to clear the streets up Jay Taylor Road, and one I suspect around here on Ramer-Selmer Road, and that great big one there at Jackie Washburn's on Friendship Road. So— And there's possibly going to be some more, because a lot of that debris is still there, and one of these guys, the guy from FEMA, was with debris management, and he was talking about additional stuff left on the side of the road. And so I'm thinking they're gonna, I'm gonna have to call and talk to them, I think that we're going to get them to maybe give us a little money for that. There are still a lot of trees, as a matter of fact there's a couple more trees blown down on Jay Taylor Road right now that you can barely get around. So, I'm going to talk with them again tomorrow, because I know that guy's still going to be here tomorrow. And maybe I can get him to come down here and look at these. That's what he's doing tomorrow with Harvey Neal [Harvey Neal Smith, with the county highway department], is going around looking at the roads. So, I don't know how long it will take, but at least it looks like we're gonna get some money out if it. As far as the ballpark itself is concerned, it's back in operation. The tin has been put back, the corner's been put back on the concession stand, the roof's on the batters' box. We had a bid from O'Neal Moore of fifty-eight eighty, to do the whole thing. That was the fences, the sign, of course he's already done the pavilion and the batters' box and the concession" stand.
Armstrong also reported on progress in complying with TML recommendations regarding the city park. "They unloaded a load of pea gravel there today for the playground. We're still going to have to do something about the concrete where it's chipped and broke on the side. And I think Tabitha [Town Recorder Tabitha Dickey] sent the notice in to the paper to advertise for bids." The recorder confirmed that she had done so.
"There is one other thing that I want to—" Armstrong began, harkening back to the question raised by Terry Derryberry at the January meeting regarding the effect of a tie vote. [For the exact context, see the report of that meeting which appears immediately below this report.] "I think all of you have got a copy, Terry's not here, but I'm going to go ahead and go over this, from the University of Tennessee Municipal League, or— is this MTAS or TML? This is MTAS. And the question was, when we had the motion to have a poll, and when the motion was made, there was a second and then it was called for a vote. There was two voted to have a poll, two voted not to have a poll. Terry's question was, can you do that? Who won? Did I win, or did you win? According to the Tennessee Municipal League, we won. The, the, and I'm just gonna kind of generalize on this, it takes a majority of the people here to make a vote to pass a motion. We did not have a majority, so we're within our rights to call it, you know, it didn't pass because of a lack of a majority. A poll is not worth a nickel. If you'll read this letter here, it doesn't mean anything. You don't have to honor it, and it goes on to say this: 'Tennessee cities wishing to legalize beer sales can do so by passing an ordinance. The ordinance must create a beer board, a group which oversees the issuance of beer licenses and which decided punishment for violators, and the general rules for a person to secure and maintain a license. Once such an ordinance is adopted, beer sales are then legal to the extent permitted in the ordinance.' So without an ordinance, the sale of beer is illegal in Ramer, and we do not have an ordinance." [For the context of the poll question, see the report of the November meeting, which appears immediately below the report of the January meeting. The issue there was not whether the board was required to conduct a poll, or whether it would be bound by the results of such a poll—the issue was whether the board should conduct a poll to ascertain the opinion of the public on the issue.]
Armstrong read further from the MTAS letter. "Private citizens, even those who live outside the city limits, are permitted by Tennessee law to attend municipal board meetings. Noting in the Tennessee Open Meetings law, however, suggests that spectators are, suggests that— Nothing in the Tennessee Open Meetings laws, however, suggests that spectators are permitted to coerce the board into taking any particular vote or to otherwise disrupt the meeting. Unless the board wishes to discuss the legalization of beer sales and places this matter on the monthly agenda, the local businessman has not authority to demand a monthly debate on the issue. In further instances I would suggest that the businessman be politely informed of that fact, with the mayor making the point that the matter is not on the agenda and is no longer under consideration by the board."
"So there you have it," Armstrong concluded. "We was in our rights to do just what we did. As a matter of fact, when I first told him, he said, 'Mayor, you was in your right to do absolutely nothing. You don't have to do nothing. Without a beer ordinance, you don't have to do anything.' So, if anybody asks, we were in our rights to do just exactly what we did."
"So," Commissioner Tim Baker asked, "we can just tell him [Derryberry] that it's not on the agenda so we don't have to discuss that every month from now on?"
"No, you don't," Armstrong replied. "If it's not on the agenda …."
"But," Baker continued, "if he calls down here and wants to have it put on the agenda then you have to put it on there?"
"No," Armstrong said. "The public does not set the agenda. We set the agenda. You can put it on there. Kendall can put it on there."
"That's the only thing that I was—" Baker began.
"I understand exactly," Armstrong said, reassuringly. "I understand exactly."
The commissioners were provided with copies of the '07 audit, several items in which were touched on by Mayor Armstrong and Recorder Dickey, and Armstrong said the report would be discussed further at next month's meeting.
In other matters, Mayor Armstrong advised the board:
• that he would acquire five additional tables for the civic center from Sam's Club in Jackson
• that he was "fixing to put the pressure on" Billy Broadway to get the school lights up
• that the advertisement for mowing bids would appear "in next week's paper"
• and, finally, that five more keys would be purchased for the civic center, at $5 apiece.
The meeting was then adjourned, on a motion by Thomas, seconded by Kendall Summers.
Town Board Meeting
28 January 2008
Editorial Comment
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Those words, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1816, appeared at the top of the front page of my Kentucky newspaper until I sold it in 2006 and moved back to McNairy County.
Those words are just as true of counties and towns as they are of nations. If any citizen of McNairy County and of the towns it contains expects to be "free" in any meaningful sense of the word while remaining ignorant of what his public officials are doing, he, too, "expects what never was and never will be."
It is an unfortunate fact that most of McNairy County's citizens do not attend the meetings of their governing bodies, which is the most immediate and direct method of dispelling ignorance of what those governing bodies are doing. There are many reasons for this, some good and some bad, but this apparent indifference of the citizenry to what its elected officials are up to has led some of those officials to believe that their actions should not be reported, much less questioned.
Fortunately, our Founding Fathers foresaw the dangers of allowing public officials to keep their actions secret from the people, and in the First Amendment they established several fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
This past summer, in an effort to make public meetings in McNairy County accessible to citizens who do not attend them, I began posting lengthy reports of the meetings of the county commission and school board and of the town boards of Adamsville, Eastview, Ramer, Selmer, and (when it did not fall on the same night as the county commission) Bethel Springs. And since then the county's only print newspaper, the Independent Appeal, has increased its coverage of the meetings of the county's two largest municipalities, Selmer and Adamsville.
This increased attention has not always been well received by the public officials whose actions have been brought under public scrutiny, but for the most part those public officials have accepted the right of the press to report on those meetings and the right of citizens to voice their opinions.
But not Ramer.
The Ramer town board meets the fourth Monday of the month at city hall. The mayor, recorder, and four commissioners sit around the table that takes up most of the small room. Fire Chief Jamie Robertson occasionally attends, and Utilities Director Bobby Wardlow is usually present, but for the most part the half dozen folding chairs that line one wall are unoccupied.
Ramer's board has evidently become so used to conducting its business out of sight of the people who elect its members that it regards the reporting of the board's transactions of public business as a hostile act. When it was reported, on this website and in the Selmer and Corinth papers, that the town board had dissolved Ramer's one-man police department, Mayor George Armstrong complained that "stuff like that didn't necessarily need to be published." [See below for the report of the 24 September 2007 board meeting, and the editorial comment which followed it.]
As I remarked at the time, "What is at stake here is the public's right to know. Ours is a representative democracy, in which our elected officials are our servants, not our masters. We are not sheep, to be blindly shepherded about by our elected officials. We are not children, required to leave the decision-making to the grownups in government.
"In a democracy, the people are sovereign, and the rights and duties of sovereignty cannot be exercised in ignorance. In this, as in almost everything else, the public's right to know is paramount. No one, not even the highest-minded, smartest, and best-looking elected official in the history of our republic, ever has had, does have, or ever will have the right to keep the public ignorant…. The citizens of Ramer have the right to know not only that their police department has been dissolved, but also the reasons for that dissolution. They have the right to know who voted for dissolution as well as who, if anyone, voted against it. They have the right to know these things because in this, as in every other action taken by public officials in the name of the people, the people must be able to judge whether they are being well served by those they put in office, so that they can keep them in office or throw them out as need be. Without knowledge of what government officials do, and why, representative democracy becomes at best a farce, and at worse a tragedy."
Mayor Armstrong apparently does not agree. At the January town board meeting he objected to my reporting and commenting on Commissioner David Dickey's assertion at the 26 November 2007 meeting that he represented the people who voted for him (rather than the people of Ramer), as well as Dickey's assertion that his opposition to the issuance of beer licenses was supported by the Gospels. It was precisely to preempt any assertion that I was somehow misrepresenting what was actually said at that meeting that I went through the laborious process of transcribing every word of that twenty-two minute exchange. And my editorial comments that Dickey's positions suggested "either a failure to understand, or a failure to believe in, the concept of representative democracy" as well as a "lack of familiarity with the very Gospels on which he claimed to base his opposition to the awarding of the beer license" appeared under the heading "Editorial Comment."
In that Editorial Comment I quoted what Jesus actually says in the Gospels, and it was on Jesus's own words that I based my assertion that Jesus does not display any hostility toward alcohol per se. The argument that the wine Jesus made from water at the Cana wedding (John 2:1-11) was "new" non-alcoholic wine is logically insupportable and is in fact specifically contradicted by Jesus's own words elsewhere in the Gospels. After tasting the wine Jesus has made from water, the steward at the Cana wedding says, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." That this could have been "new," non-alcoholic wine is specifically contradicted by Jesus Himself, who says, at Luke 5:39, "No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better."
It was precisely because my editorial comments were harsh that I went to such great lengths to set forth the evidence—the verbatim transcript of the comments and the specific passages from the Gospels—upon which those comments were based.
Mayor Armstrong said that he was offended by my reporting, that "It looks as if, though, Ramer's city meeting's a joke," and again, "it makes Ramer's city meeting look almost like a joke." But is it my reporting that makes Ramer's city meetings look like a joke—or is it what I am reporting on?
The Meeting
The January meeting got under way without Commissioner Bill Thomas, whose absence from this and earlier meetings was the subject of later comment.
After the minutes were read Mayor George Armstrong asked, "Any comments about the minutes?" But before anyone could respond, he went on: "But first, first, before we get into this, I've got something that's in my craw, that I've got to get out, Guy [Guy Townsend, the editor of this website]. I read the town board meeting from last week [sic] that you published in your website. And I'm just going to read part of it: 'Along the way Dickey indicated that he represented the people who voted for him, rather than all of the people of Ramer (which suggests either a failure to understand, or a failure to believe in, the concept of representative democracy).' Well, in my opinion, I could very well be wrong, but in my opinion, that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to vote for the people, what the people want. Not only did David, at the time he was trying to get in here, that was one of the many questions that was asked him, would he be for beer, and, and then the next thing, he made a poll, that—"
Armstrong was interrupted at this point by Terry Derryberry, the only other member of the "audience": "George, you said yourself, you just got to go back to one of the other meetings. You said yourself, 'If Derryberry's poll wasn't no good, then Dave's wasn't either."
"I'm not talking about whether the poll's good, bad, or indifferent," Armstrong replied. "I'm just talking about what David believed that he was doing when he voted."
"Oh, yeah," Derryberry replied.
"I don't think it was a failure to understand," Armstrong continued. "The next thing is, is the saying about Jesus, is his hostility to alcohol, 'which suggests a lack of familiarity with the very Gospels on which he claimed to base his opposition to the awarding of the beer license.' Then you went on with three or four pages of scripture, which I have no problem with. I, it, but, having read this, it, to me was very offensive. It looks as if, though, Ramer's city meeting's a joke. I just, I didn't appreciate it one bit."
Townsend responded. "What I did was transcribe every single word of the twenty-two minutes that Mr. Derryberry and Mr. Dickey were going back and forth, and everything I said in there is what was said in this meeting."
"That 'which suggests either a failure to understand or a failure to believe in the concept,' was that said in the meeting?" Armstrong asked.
"No, sir," Townsend responded. "But what is in the Gospels is not what Mr. Dickey was saying."
"It's not the Gospel I'm talking about now," Armstrong said. "I'm talking about the failure of the concept of representative democracy."
"Okay," Townsend replied, "an elected official represents all of the citizens, not just the ones that voted for him. Otherwise, you don't have a representative democracy."
Armstrong said, "But that's what he thought he was doing."
"But," Townsend replied, "he said he was representing those who voted for him. If you'll read what he said in that twenty-two minutes, you'll see that he says that he was representing the ones who voted for him, not the people of the city of Ramer. And I would not have said that, had he not said that in the meeting and had I not had the transcript there in the report itself for people to read."
"And the rest of this three pages of, two pages of scripture is just to make a point?" Armstrong asked.
"To make the point that Jesus does not, in any of the Gospels, say anything negative about alcohol, and to make the point that Jesus in John in fact creates alcohol for people who are already drunk. If you'll read it in the New Revised Standard, it says 'when they were drunk." [Actually, it reads, "after the guests have become drunk."]
"Okay," Armstrong said, "I'm not going to get into arguing the scriptures here at the meeting tonight. To me, and I'm just one of the five, but to me, I found it offensive. I thought it makes Ramer's city meeting look almost like a joke."
"If I had said any—" Townsend began, before starting over, "and if you can show me anything in there that I say happened at that meeting that did not happen, then I will apologize on the website. But if what I say happened did in fact happen, I won't apologize. Because the people of this community have a right to know what's going on in these meetings. And if people presume to speak for God, then they ought to know what scriptures they are basing their claims of divine knowledge on."
Kendall Summers then spoke up. "Well, and you're saying the Bible don't say anything about drink?"
"No, sir," Townsend replied. "I'm saying that if you will read the Gospels, there is nothing in there that Jesus says that is negative about alcohol. And I cited the occasions in the Gospels— You'll just have to read it, and read the Gospels to see if I got it right—"
Summers persisted. "And you're saying that it don't say anything negative about alcohol, or wine, or drinking, or drunk."
"It does not say— " Townsend began. "In the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Jesus does not make any disparaging remarks about alcohol. He does not. And, in fact, in John, first chapter of John, Jesus performs the miracle at Cana, where he actually creates alcohol." [It is in the second chapter of John, not the first.]
"Is it alcohol?" Summers asked.
"Of course it's alcohol," Townsend replied.
"Is it?" Summers asked again.
"Yes," Townsend replied.
"Do you know it is?" Summers asked yet again.
"Yes," Townsend replied. "I know it is."
"How do you know it?" Summers asked.
"Because I read the Gospels, that's why," Townsend replied.
"You don't read all of them, then, because I, it—" Summers said.
"Which ones besides Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—" Townsend began, before Mayor Armstrong brought the discussion to a close.
"We're not going to argue Gospels," Armstrong said. "I just, I, I took offense to the way it was written. Right, wrong, or indifferent. I just, it's been in my craw ever since I read it, and—"
Armstrong then recognized Derryberry again, who harkened back to the previous meeting where a motion to poll the people of Ramer to ascertain their position on beer licenses ended with an inconclusive two-two vote (Bill Thomas being absent from that meeting as well). "Well, I want to ask you something, here, George, and this ain't got nothing to do with that, but it does have to do with the tie vote. When y'all got the tie vote, then you said, 'Hey, it's dismissed.' Well, the people that I've talked to says that's not right. It's not dismissed. They said if you'll kind of read the ordinances, that you've either got to contact that third vote or let me be the winner. He said y'all can't be the winner just because it's tied. Now, I don't know."
"I can't say— " Armstrong began. "What I know is you've got to have a quorum [sic]. We did not have it."
"Well, but it was a tie," Derryberry said. "I mean, you know. Really, what you should have done is, according to my information, and I don't know, but according to my information it was your duty to get that tie broke. One way or another. You can't just say, 'Hey, we've got a tie, and it's over with.'"
Armstrong replied. "Like I say, I'm not sure, Terry, but I do know there are two forms of government, and one of them is a manager type government, which we are here, and then there's a mayoral type government, in which the mayor does have the responsibility to break the tie."
"I got one more question—" Derryberry began.
"But, I will find out," Armstrong continued, "and if that is the case, then when all of us are here we'll redo it."
"Okay," Derryberry said. "Well, let me ask you this. I got one more question now. I also, now I don't know whether this is true with y'all's city ordinance or not, but it is with most everybody's. If one of the commissioners misses three meetings out of twelve, then he's dismissed."
Town Recorder Tabitha Dickey said, "Ours is three consecutive. That's what it states in the ordinances."
"It's three?" Derryberry asked. "Okay—"
"Consecutive," she repeated.
"Three consecutive" Derryberry repeated. "In other words, he can miss—"
"He can be," David Dickey interjected, "but I don't know if it's required or not."
"Yeah, they can be," Tabitha Dickey agreed, stressing the conditional.
"Say what, Dave?" Derryberry asked.
"It's worded that they can be voted off," Dickey replied. "You have to vote on, you have to vote them off."
"But it is three in a row," Tabitha Dickey added, "before you can even consider that."
"Okay" Derryberry replied. "Well, that's what I was wanting, you know—"
Armstrong said, "But I will find out about, you know, in case it's tied, if we have to do it over we'll just do it over when all five are here."
"We didn't have to do this to start with, did we?" Summers asked. "We didn't have to take this last business. We didn't have to do it, because we voted the time before. It was on the record the time before. Now that's the way I understand it."
"That's probably correct," Armstrong agreed. "We did not have to do it. But in the interest, I think what Tim Baker [who made the motion for the poll at the previous meeting] was trying to do, in the interest of trying to establish a definite yes or no, that's why it was brought up."
Armstrong then said to Derryberry, "Let me check on that. I will check on it. And if we have to do it over, we'll do it over."
"All right," Derryberry said.
* * *
The next several items were disposed of quickly. The board agreed, without a vote, to honor its acceptance of a bid for painting the city hall (another bid had come in after the first one had been accepted), and Mayor Armstrong reported that the sign for the fire department had arrived. He also reported that the safe discussed at the last meeting had been installed, although as a cost of $400 rather than the $350 the board had approved.
"So I guess we need to make a motion to amend the minutes, that to read four hundred," Armstrong said. Summers made the motion, which was seconded by Dickey and passed unanimously. (No motion was ever made to accept the "amended" minutes.)
* * *
Armstrong then brought up the Eastview water hookup, which has become a regular agenda item. "Bobby [Utility Director Bobby Wardlow], I believe you told me that you and Billy know what you, what Eastview wants you to do up there at Eastview. To tie on."
"We know what we've got to do," Wardlow replied. "Not particularly what Eastview wants. They don't care, do they? As long as we get it back?"
"Well, I don't know," Armstrong responded. "They was talking about a new line under the road, and I though—"
"Well, we'll just have to see where it's broke," Wardlow said. "If it's in that elbow right there next to that casing, we may have to do that."
"I'm not saying we need to do it any time soon," Armstrong said, "but I think we need to get hooked up to that as a back up, don't you?"
"Well, we're planning on it," Wardlow replied. "I talked to Raymond [Raymond Butler, with the Eastview utility department] about it, and as soon as we get a little decent weather we're planning on doing it."
"Okay, so that's in the making."
There was then some discussion about getting an appraisal for work on buildings at the ballpark, then Armstrong remarked that the town had been getting some complaints about tables at the civic center. Tabitha Dickey said that several people had complained about tables being missing, and Armstrong said that a lot of the tables that remained were in pretty bad shape. In the course of this discussion Recorder Dickey observed that she had no way of knowing how many keys to the civic center were out, or who had them, and after some further discussion the board voted unanimously, on a motion by Baker, seconded by Armstrong, to re-key the civic center and give Dickey the responsibility of keeping track of the keys. Returning to the original subject, board then voted unanimously, on a motion by Dickey, seconded by Summers, to purchase five new tables.
Armstrong then reported that he had a release on a piece of property, but he tabled the matter when he realized that both he and the town recorder had to sign it in front of a notary public.
He then moved on to a report from the Tennessee Municipal League [TML] on the city park, reading from it: "It was observed that the shock-absorbing material beneath the playground equipment at Christy Ramsey Park needs to be reapplied. This represents a dangerous condition in which a child or adult could be injured by striking the hard-packed dirt beneath the equipment. The TML pool recommends a shock-absorbent material such a wood chips, pea gravel, or sand be [unintelligible word] beneath the equipment to help reduce this hazardous condition as recommended in U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission Handbook for Playgrounds." When the board agreed that the pea gravel beneath the equipment should be replaced, Armstrong continued to read: "During the survey it was observed—this is a liability exposure—it was observed that the concrete perimeter around the concession stand has become broken, representing trips and fall hazard. The TML pool recommends the sidewalk be repaired to eliminate this exposure." After some discussion, the board agreed to repair the concrete.
"We need to advertise for mowing," Armstrong told the board, which agreed to run the same ad the town had run last year. Armstrong emphasized that the town needed to make sure that the person hired was capable of doing the work.
Armstrong also reported that the flashing lights for the school zone had arrived, and there was some discussion about getting them installed.
Then, as the meeting was about to adjourn, Summers brought up Ramer's erstwhile police chief, whose position was eliminated by the board at its August meeting but who continues to work as a constable for McNairy County. "About Billy Jackson. You know, I don't know where the report got out that we didn't have no law in Ramer, but he's been working Ramer. So we need to think about if we're going to give him a little for some of the time he's been putting in."
"We have to be very careful with that," Armstrong observed, and David Dickey said that that might raise some insurance problems.
"That's what we have to be careful about," Armstrong agreed, "that we don't get back into that thing of, you know, well, if he's on our payroll, he ought to be on your insurance."
No action was taken on Summers' suggestion, and the meeting was finally adjourned on a motion by Summers, seconded by Baker.
Town Board Meeting
26 November 2007
Editorial Comment
The November meeting of the Ramer Town Board started out calmly enough, with only Mayor George Armstrong and Aldermen Tim Baker and Kendall Summers present, but eventually Alderman David Dickey showed up (Bill Thomas never did) and after a time things got lively, with Dickey providing most of the excitement as he not only opposed the consideration for a beer license for the Ramer Quick Stop but also opposed polling the citizens of Ramer to find out whether they were for it or against it. Along the way Dickey indicated that he represented the people who voted for him, rather than all of the people of Ramer (which suggests either a failure to understand, or a failure to believe in, the concept of representative democracy), and, in trying to justify his actions, he misquoted one of the most famous sayings of Jesus and ascribed to Jesus a hostility to alcohol which is not to be found in any of the Gospels (which suggests a lack of familiarity with the very Gospels on which he claimed to base his opposition to the awarding of the beer license). Dickey also confidently asserted that "the Lord will provide" the money to make up for the roughly $12,000 in taxes the town of Ramer would be forfeiting every year.
For the record, Dickey's assertion that "the drunkard's chance of getting into heaven is, there's a better chance for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, that's what the Bible says," is not to be found anywhere in the Bible. Each of the three Synoptic Gospels contains a version of this saying (John does not), and in each instance the reference is to "a rich man," not to "a drunkard."
Matthew 19:24: "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
Mark 10:25: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
Luke 18:25: "For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
Likewise, Dickey's central assumption that Jesus was hostile to alcohol has no substantiation whatever in the Gospels. Gluttony of any sort, including drunkenness, is condemned by all religions—and indeed even by non-religious ethical systems—but nowhere in the Gospels is the mere consumption of alcohol condemned. Indeed, in the unrefrigerated world of the first century A.D., fermentation was the only method available for preserving the crop.
Then there are Jesus's very words themselves, in which he repeatedly speaks of wine without condemning it:
Matthew 9:17: "Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the new wine runneth out, and the bottles perish; but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved."
Mark 2:22: "And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles."
Luke 5:37-38 is similar, but Jesus adds an interesting observation at 5:39:
37 "And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish.
38 "But new wine must be put into new bottles, and both are preserved.
39 "No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better."
And, of course, there is the "fruit of the vine" of the Last Supper, which Jesus actually commanded his followers to drink—which a glance at the calendar will show must have been fermented (Mark 14:23-25; Matthew 26:27-29; Luke 22:17-18). John again is odd man out, making mention of the supper but not of the Eucharist (John 13:2-4).
However, John does provide us with one of the best-known stories in the Gospels, the miracle at the wedding in Cana, which is recounted at 2:1-11. (Here I am using the New Revised Standard Version, whose contemporary usage is easier to follow than the King James Version.)
1 "On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
2 "Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.
3 "When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, 'They have no wine.'
4 "And Jesus said to her, 'Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.'
5 "His mother said to the servants, 'Do whatever he tells you.'
6 "Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.
7 "Jesus said to them, 'Fill the jars with water.' And they filled them up to the brim.
8 "He said to them, 'Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.' So they took it.
9 "When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom
10 "and said to him, 'Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.'
11 "Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him."
The assertion, then, that there is a Gospel basis for denying a beer license to a Ramer merchant—or, even worse, for denying the citizens of Ramer the opportunity to make their feelings known on the matter—is just as bogus as is the claim that "the drunkard's chance of getting into heaven is, there's a better chance for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, that's what the Bible says." Because the Bible doesn't say that at all.
We live in a representative democracy, in which the voting citizenry elects representatives, from the local level to the national level, to act on behalf of all of our citizens, not just some of them. Every elected official—indeed, every public official, elected or not—is obliged to act on behalf of every single one of us. Not just on behalf of the people who voted for him. Not just on behalf of the people who go to his particular church or belong to his particular denomination. Not just for those who agree with him. And not just for those who share his particular biases and prejudices. The public official who puts his personal biases and prejudices ahead of his duty to represent all of the public is representing nobody but himself. And that is not what representative democracy is about.
The Meeting
After the minutes were read and approved at the November meeting of the Ramer Town Board, Mayor George Armstrong said, "Okay, let me tell you what I know about the quotations on the city hall renovation. We had two quotes. One was to do the complete job, and I assume that's walls and ceiling, for $700. We had another quote said they would do it for $17 an hour."
Alderman Tim Baker observed that he thought that replacing the carpet was the major issue, and Armstrong agreed, but he pointed out that the walls and the ceiling needed to be painted before new carpet was installed. "So," he said, "I guess the question is, do we want to do it by contract price or do we want to do it by the hour." In the end the board decided, on a motion by Baker, seconded by Armstrong, to see if they could get the work done at an hourly rate of $17, not to exceed 41 hours.
After then informing the board that he had spoken with Eastview Mayor Charles Weeks about tying back into the Eastview water system and that Weeks had said he didn't see a problem with it, Armstrong then turned to Terry Derryberry, the sole audience member, and said, "Terry, do you want to address the board?"
There then ensued the following twenty-two minute exchange, principally between Derryberry and Alderman David Dickey.
* * *
Terry Derryberry: "I just wanted to come up and ask for my beer license again. I pretty well know what the answer is, but I still wanted to come, put my two cents worth in."
Armstrong: "Not a thing in the world wrong with that. I open the table."
[Long pause.]
Derryberry: "Would you vote on it one way or the other? If all of you wants to vote no, that's fine. I don't have a problem with that."
Dickey: "Well, I voted no on it, I mean, I'm not going to make a motion on it."
Derryberry: "Why not, buddy?"
Dickey: "Well, if you make a motion for it, that's the same as voting for it, you know, so I just—"
Derryberry: "No—"
Armstrong: "No, that's not right. You don't have to do that. You know, you can make the motion, but if it don't get a second, the motion is of no value. But, even though the motion's made, and a second, should you get a second made, if nobody votes for it it still dies."
Dickey: "I'm just, I'm not for it. I think we made it without it this far, we can go longer without it."
Long pause.
Derryberry: "Well, the state of Tennessee, though, says it's legal, Dave. What if everybody thought like you're thinking?"
Dickey: "It would be a better place, I believe."
Derryberry: "You can't go to town if you ain't got no money, can you? We'd have to close the whole county. You boys cash Eastview's check."
Armstrong: "That wasn't no beer money. That's no beer money."
Derryberry: "Okay."
Armstrong: "The beer money comes straight from the distributor."
Derryberry: "But what difference does it make?"
Dickey: "Well, I think, you know, everybody could use more money. But I mean, I just—"
Derryberry: "But you get, now part of the money that the city of Ramer gets comes from beer. You get a percentage of McNairy County beer tax."
Armstrong: "Probably do."
Derryberry: "Yeah, sure you do. Everybody that's incorporated. If you're not incorporated, then you don't get no beer tax. Dave, we had it twelve years down here, and we never had the first call to the county. Not the first one. I've never had, not one minute's problem with it."
Dickey: "It's not a problem, you know—"
Derryberry: "And half of the people that live right here go to Eastview and buy it, and, I mean, you can go up there and you can see it just like I do. But it's kind of like Mr. Jerry Teague told me, he said, 'You know, some of them boys up there is on the board, and they'll just shake my hand and hug my neck every time, but when Eastview gets ready to vote for it, they vote for it.' But, like I say, you know— That's why we call it America."
Armstrong: "I think what the bill's problem is here is from the poll that David took, that the majority of the people in Ramer don't want beer."
Derryberry: "Well, now, George, I can bring you, to this meeting, if that would help you change your mind, 75% of the people in this town will come to this meeting. And, I mean, the man I just mentioned is one of them. That didn't use to be. There's a bunch of people in this town right here that's for beer."
Baker: "I mean, just to be frank here, I mean, I mean I'm sure we could use the money, couldn't we?"
Armstrong: "Oh, yeah."
Baker: "How much, really, would it benefit us a month?"
Armstrong: "The last beer that was sold in Ramer, we got $2.71 per case, straight from the distributor, to the city of Ramer. It was running anywhere from, I'd say it would probably average $1,100 a month. It would run anywhere from nine to twelve hundred."
Derryberry: "Let me tell you what they told me. And I just checked just to see what it was. You know, one or two months there we run eighteen hundred, is what you got, but the average was $1,243 a month, so they tell me."
Armstrong: "And that could very well be."
Derryberry: "If that ain't a bunch of money—"
Armstrong: "But, in all due respect, we had a lot more traffic then than we've got now."
Derryberry: "Well, Ramer's dead. We ain't got no traffic. I mean, you can't buy gas, you can't buy beer, and everybody's going to Eastview."
[Long pause.]
Baker: "Can I just ask Terry a question?"
Armstrong: "Yeah. Sure."
Baker: "I can ask him anything I want to?"
Armstrong: "As far as I know, you can."
Derryberry: "I ain't going to lose my temper tonight. Now I did before, and I apologize to all of you—"
Baker: "The biggest thing that bothers me is everybody thinks you just want a beer license to sell it." [That is, to sell the business.]
Derryberry: "That ain't really so. That's not so. I tell you what, I've had an opportunity to sell it to some people, and I mean, you know, even when I sold it to [inaudible name] it was three that come down there, but I, I don't trade with them myself, and I ain't calling no names, I mean, this is, like I say, America, and, but that ain't the reason I'm wanting beer. I wouldn't be spending as much money as I am spending down there now if I, you know, wanted to sell it."
Baker: "I mean, for the majority of the people that I talk to, that's just what everybody says, you know—"
Derryberry: "Well, I—"
Baker: "You know how rumors are in a small town. It's just like bringing the mail."
Derryberry: "I know. I know what you're saying. But this is the third time I've had it. It seems like nobody else really don't want it. [Laughter.] So. But I, you know, like I say, I hate for, I mean, I'm a Ramer man. I really am. I spend a lot of money in Ramer. And I'd rather see the customers that go to Eastview come to Ramer. If they're going to buy it, they're going to buy it somewhere. It's got nothing to do with whether Ramer's got it or not."
Summers: "Well, here's the way I look at it. If it takes a hundred cans of beer to make a person drunk, he drinks one can he's one-hundredth drunk. If it takes ten cans to make him drunk, he's a tenth drunk. And I, myself, morally, I'm not going to be, I'm not going to vote for anything that [several unintelligible words] a person, anybody, on the road."
Derryberry: "Well, I appreciate that. You know, I understand your feelings about that, Kendall, but how many people do you see drunk compared, how many people do you know of that get drunk now? It's not the beer thing, now. It's people that's over fifty, sixty years old that's buying beer. It's not 18, 19, 20 years old. They don't buy beer. You know that and I know that."
Summers: "But still, if it's 18 year old or 80 year old, I don't know how much beer it takes to make a person drunk."
Derryberry: "Well, I don't either. I never tasted on in my life, and you can believe that or not. I've never tasted a one."
Summers: "But if it takes ten cans to make a person drunk—"
Derryberry: "But Kendall, you got the wrong idea. People don't drink beer to get drunk. That's just like drinking a Coke. I've never seen nobody that I know that drinks beer really drunk, have you? Who have you ever seen drunk, that drinks beer?"
Dickey: "I've seen people drunk on beer."
Summers: "Plenty."
Derryberry: "But Dave, I know why your feeling is like it is."
Dickey: "I've seen it destroy a bunch of lives, Terry. I really have. I just can't support, on my judgment day, when I stand before Christ, I want Him to say, 'Come on in.' You know what I mean? You know? I'm worried about, this life here ain't nothing—"
Derryberry: "But it also says that you need to obey the land of the law [sic], too."
Dickey: "It sure does."
Derryberry: "Well, the law says it's legal. You're voting just like the man done up at the Baptist church at Selmer. You know, as one of the commissioners told him, said, 'Hey, I swore an oath to do what the law of the land says.'"
Dickey: "And that's why I took this poll, I honestly called everybody on this thing."
Derryberry: "Well, now, let me ask you this—"
Dickey: "I was going to go, people voted me in office, and I was going to stand open minded on this whole deal, and that's why I called every, I called everyone I could get a hold of, I worked three solid days on it—"
Derryberry: "Well, I did, too. I mean, your survey—"
Dickey: "—alphabetical order, same list you guys—"
Derryberry: "All right, let me ask you something right here. You either tell me yes or no."
Dickey: "Okay."
Derryberry: "If I bring the majority of the people that's registered to vote, if they say, right here, at this table, that they're for beer, and I get the majority, you give me a license. If you don't, I won't ever say no more about it."
Dickey: "Well, I can bring a majority that says not to, I mean that's—"
Derryberry: "Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you, Dave. The survey that you done is no more important—"
Dickey: "No, it's just what I, this is what I got to answer to. I can't go by what other people—"
Derryberry: "The man will tell you what you want to know."
Dickey: "Exactly. You, too."
Derryberry: "That's what I'm trying to tell you."
Summers: "Can we take a motion on the city commission to take it on a referendum?"
Armstrong: "You can't put it on a referendum, for some strange reason. I don't know if it's the size of the town—"
Derryberry: "You've got to have 6,500 people."
Armstrong: "To have a referendum."
Derryberry: "That's right."
Armstrong: "I tell you what we need to do. Now listen to this. And I ain't going to say it no more. I'd be willing for the city of Ramer to set up a poll. It doesn't have to be called a referendum. I'll man it. Me and Terry will man it. Or all of us. At the civic center, on a given Saturday, with enough time to advertise it, and to have it on a piece of paper, and then count the pieces of paper. It's no 'Terry said,' or 'David said.' It's on paper."
Derryberry: "I agree with that."
Armstrong: "I mean that's kind of my answer to your question, can we put it on a referendum. No, but we could have a poll."
Baker: "I think that's what should be done. And that way if Terry can get all the people down here, then he's willing to do it, and the ones that don't want it, then they can support it and they can get everybody behind it."
Derryberry: "That's right."
Baker: "That don't leave the monkey on our backs."
Summers: "Now, wait a minute—"
Dickey: "The monkey is on our backs."
Summers: "—no, no this is not right, to have a poll."
Tabitha Dickey [Town Recorder, and wife of Alderman Dickey]: "Once you get that poll, it still falls back on the board."
Baker: "Now that's the truth. But the people have spoke, and we'll be doing what the people want. That's why I'm in here, because of the ones that put me in here. David's the same way."
Derryberry: "Well, you're going to have your people here."
Baker: "But the only thing I'm saying is, there are a lot of times I can't make a judgment for myself, and I ask people surrounding me what's the best thing to do. I mean, they's people for beer in Ramer, and there'll be people against it. And I ain't ashamed to admit it. I drink beer. I drive to Eastview and buy my beer. I'd just as soon spend my money down here, but apparently they don't want it, so I'll just spend my money at Eastview. I'd whole lot rather us be getting it to spend on the ball park, or putting up signs, or doing something for benefit down here. Because the ones that ain't buying it down here, they drive to Eastview and buy it and they come back down here and drink it."
Derryberry: "And they throw the cans out down here every morning."
Baker: "That's exactly right. You can't holler, just because you sell beer in Ramer, you're going to have alcoholics driving on the road and all this. Well, they're going to drive to Eastview and get it, and drive back through Ramer anyway."
Dickey: "I don't have the poll here, but I read it somewhere, but I've studied this and thought a lot about it. Every dollar bill spent on alcohol in America costs four dollars to police."
Derryberry: "Dave, how much do you think this dope costs? These kids ain't doing—it ain't enough people in Ramer that drink beer to make one hill of beans hardly difference. But, why don't you want to talk about what the kids are doing now? Do you know what they're doing here in town? Yes you do. You know exactly what they're doing. And it's not drinking beer."
Dickey: "But I ain't going to say we ought to sell it, then, to get some money off it. It's just as wrong as beer."
Derryberry: "Well, beer's legal. But the other's not."
Armstrong: "That's kind of a moot point. You know, that shouldn't enter this equation here, because if you're going to do that there's more people killed off these cigarette right here every year than there are alcohol—and I can't wait 'til the break. And it's a moral issue. You can't argue moral issues."
Dickey: "It's a moral issue."
Summers: "It's a moral issue."
Dickey: "I've seen it destroy lives first hand, and I cannot support it. I'm sorry. I mean, I know we need the money and everything, but the Lord will provide. I mean, you stand behind Him, He'll stand behind you. That's what I believe."
Derryberry: "Well, do you think the Lord never did drink any?"
Dickey: "The Lord, the drunkard's chance of getting into heaven is, there's a better chance for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, that's what the Bible says."
Derryberry: "But do you know what an eye of a needle he's talking about?"
Dickey: "He's talking about a canyon where they crossed."
Derryberry: "There you go. But how big was the canyon?"
Dickey: "It was small."
Derryberry: "Yeah. That's what a lot of people misinterpret—
Dickey: "I mean, I, I'm not saying—"
Derryberry: "Drinking a beer a day won't put you in hell. I think adultery is ten times worse than drinking a beer."
Tabitha Dickey: "A sin is a sin. It does not matter what you do. You know, all is a sin—"
Derryberry: "Well, no, they say adultery is at the top of the list, the Bible does. Is the worst of the Ten Commandments, adultery."
Tabitha Dickey: "No, that's in the Old Testament, Terry. In the New Testament a sin is a sin, it doesn't matter—"
Derryberry: "Well, I didn't say it wasn't a sin."
Tabitha Dickey: "And, you don't believe this, but he and I both prayed a whole lot about what we need to do. And I'm sorry that it upsets you—"
Derryberry: "Well, I mean, it's your prerogative. You know, I'm not trying to change your mind, not one bit, Tabitha. No ma'am. Don't misunderstand me. That's not what I'm trying to do. But I think that Dave was elected to the city of Ramer to serve the city of Ramer, not Dave. His personal belief is not worth one hill of beans."
Tabitha Dickey: "You're exactly right."
Derryberry: "Not one hill of beans. He shouldn't even express his personal belief. It's the people—"
Dickey: "But I'm expressing the people that voted for me—"
Derryberry: "Well, let's see what they say."
Dickey: "—I think I'm expressing their opinion. They voted me in, and when I went and talked to everybody running, I told them to call and tell me—"
Derryberry: "Well, I talked to 39 people, and 37 of them is for it. So let's just see."
Tabitha Dickey: "I see where y'all are coming from, too. The same people that told you yes probably told him no."
Derryberry: "That's exactly right, Tabitha. You're exactly right."
Dickey: "People will tell you what they want you to hear. There ain't no doubt. There ain't no doubt. But—"
Derryberry: "But it's like George said. Let them write it on a piece of paper."
Dickey: "Well, they can write all day, it comes down to our vote. I mean that's the way it is."
Derryberry: "Well, if you're going to do what you want to do, it does."
Dickey: "I do what the people want me to do."
Derryberry: "Okay, if the majority votes for it, then that's what you've got to do."
Summers: "No."
Dickey: "No, I don't have to. I mean—"
Derryberry: "Well, I mean, you may not, but I mean that's the justice system."
Dickey: "I just believe that's what the people want. I mean, from what I've talked to, and I've put as much effort in it as anybody has that's worried about this situation."
Derryberry: "Well, why would you worry about putting it on paper, then?"
Dickey: "I'm not worried about it. I don't [unintelligible word] if you do that or not."
Baker: "Do we have to have a motion to do that. Just between y'all and the gatepost, I'm ready to put this to bed. I mean—"
Armstrong: "We'll have to have a motion to do that."
Baker: "Well, I make a motion we have a poll to decide what the people want, once and for all."
Armstrong: "Now we've got to have a second. [Long pause.] I second it. Now we vote."
Baker and Armstrong vote aye, Dickey and Summers vote no.
Armstrong: "Motion fails. No quorum [sic]."
Derryberry: "I appreciate it. At least you done something."
Dickey: "It's nothing against you. I think the world of you, you know I do. I don't want you to think it's nothing personal against you. It's just I, you know, the people who voted for me I went and talked to, and I just, I just, right now I don't see no reason doing a poll. They've talked to me, voted for me. I think I've done my job. Like I say, no hard feelings. I don't want you thinking I don't like you—"
Derryberry: "Well, like I say, I kind of lost my temper up here before, and I ain't going to this time. I've always thought the world of the Dickeys, and the Armstrongs, too. George, I owe you an apology and I'm going to give it to you right in front of these people. I got a little tough on you, when I shouldn't have. And I apologize."
Armstrong: "Accepted."
Derryberry: "All right. So, like I say, I appreciate what you done tonight, and I— Now I'm not going to forget the beer deal. Of course, you can't blame me. I mean, I don't want you to blame me there, you know, but like I say, but I won't be back to ask you all boys, because you've done what I wanted you to do. I mean, I wanted you to vote yes or no, and you've done it. And I appreciate it. So, like I say, I won't bother, now I may come to the meeting, because I'm a Ramer boy, and I kind of want to see what's going on myself, you know, and that's all I got to say. I appreciate it."
Armstrong: "All right. Thank you."
* * *
The remainder of the meeting was short and uneventful. Armstrong reported that a difficulty with a light at the fire department would probably have to be solved by running a new wire to the fixture, and he observed, "I guess we'll do what Eastview wants us to do," with regard to tying back onto the Eastview water system. The mayor also reported that a new sign had been purchased for city hall and asked the board to approve the purchase of a new sign for the fire department. Armstrong himself made the motion, which passed unanimously after being seconded by Summers. Armstrong said he anticipated the sign would cost about $45.
Armstrong then moved on to a somewhat more expensive item, a night-deposit safe for the water department. "We've been needing one of them for years and years and years down here." The mayor said that Philip Hollingsworth has a night-drop safe which he will sell for $200, and that welder Kevin Porterfield has said that he can make a chute, with a baffle, which would allow after-hours deposits to be made directly to the safe. Tabitha Dickey said that she had checked and that a new safe would cost in the neighborhood of $2,600-$2,700. Baker asked how much Porterfield will charge and Armstrong said that he didn't know, but it would not be that expensive. Baker then made a motion to spend not more than $350 to acquire the safe and get it installed, and Armstrong observed that it needed to be done in conjunction with the painting, since the chute will have to go through the wall. Dickey seconded the motion, which passed unanimously.
Armstrong then mentioned that County Mayor Jai Templeton had given him a notice from the Chickasaw-Shiloh RC&D Council regarding its 2008 Community Grants Program, the purpose of which, Armstrong said, reading from the notice, "is to allow communities, state and/or local agencies, neighborhood groups, civic groups, schools, nonprofit organizations, etc. the opportunity to implement small scale projects that have significant importance in their area." The amount of the grants range up to $1,000, with 35% match required from recipient organizations. Armstrong urged the board members to get the word out to any local organizations which might be eligible for one of the grants, the purpose of which is "to implement projects that focus on improving the environment, youth education, community development, community innovation or leadership development."
Armstrong reported that the town had received the audit for 2006, and Recorder Dickey said, "They're working on '07-'08 right now."
Finally, Mayor Armstrong announced that the board would not hold a meeting for the month of December, since the fourth Monday of that month falls on Christmas Eve this year, and with that the meeting adjourned.
Town Board Meeting
22 October 2007
The Ramer Town Board convened its October meeting in the middle of a rain shower that left what Mayor George Armstrong referred to as "City Hall Canal" in front of the building, which was something of a coincidence since most of that night's meeting was taken up with consideration of various water matters.
Aldermen Kendall Summers and Bill Thomas were not present.
After the minutes were read, discussed, and approved (on a motion by Armstrong, seconded by Tim Baker), the three board members present (Armstrong, Baker, and David Dickey) briefly discussed the purchase of new street signs before postponing a decision until next month when the board would have better information about the number needed and what they would cost.
School signs were next on the agenda, and Mayor Armstrong reported that "I got two quotes today, from the same guy, Temple over here in Decatur, Alabama. For just a regular, flashing sign, works off of regular A/C current, they are $1,800 each," and for two solar-powered signs at $3,801.24 apiece. The solar signs, Armstrong explained, are self-powered, and the vendor says they last longer. "But they should," he said, "at nearly double the money."
Dickey asked how long it would take for the energy saved by the solar signs to offset their added costs. "How much energy does one of them use? How long would it take to pay for itself?" He expressed the belief that it would take quite a while, and the others agreed. After further discussion Armstrong moved "that we buy two new alternating-current school signs." The motion was seconded by Dickey and passed unanimously.
Mayor Armstrong then moved on to new business, starting with "City Hall Canal. Right in front of the door," and he asked water supervisor Bobby Wardlow to do some ditching to relieve the problem so that people would not have to wade through standing water to get into city hall when it rains.
The mayor then moved on to another item of new business. "City Hall. The office. It's deplorable," Armstrong said. "It stinks. The floor is nasty. We need some work on it now," he said, to which everyone agreed.
Wardlow said, "If you're going to do anything else, I'd let the floor be the last thing I do. Like, if your planning on painting the ceiling, do the painting first. Start at the top and then work your way down."
In the discussion that followed, City Recorder Tabitha Dickey raised the possibility of getting the outside of the building painted, but Armstrong said "I'm personally more interested on the inside of it."
After some further discussion, Mayor Armstrong said, "Okay, for the time being, with y'all's blessing, Tabitha and I will try to come up with some figures for next month's meeting for what it would take to paint this, ceiling and walls, and a new floor."
Armstrong then turned to the town's water system, the discussion of which took up most of the balance of the meeting. He explained that the town is required to have its water tank inspected every five years, and he said that the inspection had just been completed by Farley Purvis, who "suggested that we need to wash it out right now."
"Yeah," Wardlow said, dryly. "He always does that."
Armstrong asked the group, "What do you think about washing it out right now?"
"How do you wash the tank out?" Dickey asked.
"You've got to drain it," Wardlow replied.
"Drain it and high-pressure wash it," Armstrong added. "I've seen the pictures, and it's got a little rust up at the top, but you're going to have that. That's understandable."
Baker asked how much it would cost to have it done.
"He said about $2,500 to $3,500," Armstrong replied. "But my contention is, if you drop the water out of it, and you're going to clean it and pressure wash it, you might as well fix them places up there at the top, because they're only going to get worse."
After some further discussion, Baker said,"So, basically, you just shut the valve off and close the water off for the whole city and drain the tank, and he does his cleaning and business, and then--
Wardlow: "--and then you've got to pump it back up."
"And how long does it take to do that?" Baker asked.
Wardlow: "It would take, well, the minute you start pumping it back up you're going to have water, once you get the standpipe full…. You're going to have water, not very much pressure, but you're going to have water. But I don't know how long it would take. Probably half a day, to pump the tank back up full."
In response to another question from Baker, Wardlow said "We're going to be out of water until he gets through with whatever he's doing, he gets it all cleaned up and washed out." And this caused Wardlow some concern. "So we would be out of water, the whole city, for some few hours. I don't know how long. It just scares me to death…. You know, we have no alternative source of water right now."
"You know," Dickey said "we can't measure our water table right now. I don't think it's a good time to dump water. We don't know how much water's under there."
"I don't think that's something that you've got to do right away," Wardlow said.
"I think we should just leave it as it is," Baker said, "if there ain't nothing up there that's going to hurt nobody or is going to cause a major water problem. I'm like Bobby, you know, it ain't only draining the tank I'd be worried about, it's most times, if everybody else's luck is like mine, I'd drain that water tank and everybody in Ramer's house would catch on fire."
"And there ain't that many places to be getting water from, neither," Fire Chief Jamie Robertson added.
"I wouldn't even want to drain the tank if we weren't hooked up somewhere else," Armstrong said, and he wondered aloud about what tying back into the Eastview water system would entail.
Wardlow said he wasn't sure Eastview would let Ramer hook back up again, but he thought that Ramer should pursue it. "My thinking is what we ought, what we need to do, is just go back and hook it back up, if that's what we want to do. It would be at our expense, I'm sure."
"Do you think I ought to talk to [Eastview Mayor] Charles Weeks, say anything to him about it?" Armstrong asked.
"I don't know," Wardlow replied. "If you do, it's just going to open up a can of worms, I'm afraid."
"Well, I don't know," Baker said. "The only thing about that is we're talking about this well deal, that was one of our backup plans. If our well went completely down we could rely on maybe getting water from Eastview, so if we ain't got it hooked up then we might need to talk to them and see what—"
Armstrong said, "I think I might just approach him with that same thing that you said, you know, in view of the fact that we're, you know, y'all are agreed that we're still in, got an agreement that should still be good, if we want to re-hook."
"I'll talk to Charles," Armstrong concluded.
"What was the major decision on the water tank?" Baker asked. "Are we going to wait and see, or—"
"Yeah," Armstrong said. "I think we're going to just wait."
The board also decided not to take Farley Purvis up on an offer to enter into a contract to inspect the water tank annually for $1,200 a year.
Wardlow said, "I can't see what benefit it would be. The state says every five years. I don't understand why you would want to do it any more often than they require."
And Armstrong pointed out that the $1,200 was just for an inspection. "I could understand it, and be all for it, if this $1200, say, 'Well I'll come down there and inspect it, I'll make repairs as necessary up to a certain point.' But he didn't do that. This is strictly inspection."
"So," Armstrong asked, "are we all of the same opinion, that this $1200 a year is worth it or not worth it?" Dickey and Baker both said it was not, and Armstrong agreed.
The rain was still coming down when the meeting adjourned.
Town Board Meeting
24 September 2007
Mayor unhappy with coverage
"I want to say something about the policeman," Ramer Mayor George Armstrong said at the beginning of the town board's September meeting. "I don't know where this is coming from, but there was a write-up in the Independent Appeal, and there was a write-up in the Corinthian, 'Ramer has no cops.' Now what I read—we're under the Sunshine Law, but stuff like that didn't necessarily need to be published. And now every crook knows we don't have no cop."
Alderman Bill Thomas observed that Former Police Chief Bill Jackson was still a constable and could still give out tickets, and Armstrong acknowledged that "He can do the very same thing he was doing, as far as I know, he's just not doing it for the city of Ramer." Nevertheless, the mayor was clearly unhappy that the dissolution of the Ramer police department had become public knowledge. [See EDITORIAL COMMENT, below.]
Recorder's pay raise
Another town employee who is still on the payroll received better news. "Pay raise for recorder" had been the last item on the board's August agenda, but no action could be taken on it because the absence of Alderman Bill Thomas and the recusal of Alderman David Dickey (who is married to Recorder Tabitha Dickey) left the board without a quorum. With all the aldermen present at the September 24 meeting, Mayor Armstrong brought the recorder's raise up again. "I think you're doing a good job," Armstrong said, adding that Dickey had inherited "one big mess" when she took on the job.
"Tabitha, what are we paying you now?" the mayor asked.
"Eight dollars an hour," Dickey replied.
"She's working twenty hours a week," Armstrong said, and he recommended that her salary be raised at least a dollar an hour.
When Alderman Bill Thomas said, "Let's make it a dollar," Armstrong raised his own bid, asking, "Make it two?" Thomas immediately acquiesced.
"Is anybody going to make that motion?" Armstrong asked. Alderman Tim Baker did so, seconded by Thomas, and the motion carried unanimously (with Alderman David Dickey abstaining), giving Ramer's recorder a 25% pay raise, to $10 an hour.
Infrastructure
Most of the rest of the meeting dealt in one way or another with infrastructure.
Fire Chief Jamie Robertson reported that the light in front of the fire station was out again and that he had yet to hear back on the $5,000 grant which the department had applied for.
Reporter Dickey reported she also had not heard back on the grant she had applied for to fix the school zone lights which were damaged earlier in the year. Mayor Armstrong said that "the lights can be fixed" and that "I have told Billy Broadway that they're there, if he wants to fix them."
"What is J Taylor Road?" Mayor Armstrong asked, referring to the second item on the board's agenda.
"Listen," Recorder Dickey replied, "I have a lady that's been calling me and being very ugly about J Taylor Road, that's wanted to widen it before. She called me and left me a message, then she called me and I talked to her last week, and she called me again today."
Alderman Bill Thomas was familiar with the road. "It is kind of narrow," he said, "but I don't know how you're going to widen it."
"We ain't," Armstrong said. "We ain't going to widen it."
"Well," Recorder Dickey continued, "she says she's going to have a write up about it in the paper Wednesday if we don't do something about it, and I told her Friday afternoon, you know, we're going to have a meeting Monday night, I'll put it on the agenda, I'll tell them about it. It's in the works, the man just hasn't come and asphalted it."
The board members then discussed other roads in Ramer that needed to be worked on, and then Armstrong turned the discussion to various problems regarding the water system. "There's a back-flow valve at the doctor's place up there that's leaking," he said, and there was some question about who was responsible for fixing it. Armstrong said that he would talk to the doctor about it.
Armstrong said that the town was still receiving some complaints about "muddy water," which he thought could be cured by regularly flushing the system. "Why don't you boys take that on?" he said to Jamie Robertson of the fire department, adding, "Bobby [water supervisor Bobby Wardlow] ain't going to do it."
Mayor Armstrong suggested that the fire department start flushing the town's fire hydrants on a monthly basis. "I'd say start out with the ones where the people is calling the most first, and try it and see if that helps the situation."
In the ensuing discussion Alderman Tim Baker suggested checking out all the hydrants in town to determine which of them actually worked. Robertson said that all the hydrants needed to be oiled so that they could be opened easily, and he added that he would like to purchase some blue reflectors to put in the roadway to indicate the location of the hydrants. Ramer's fire fighters know where the hydrants are, he said, but "it's just good for the other [fire] departments" which might be called to Ramer to help with fires. Robertson said the reflectors cost only a few dollars apiece, and the board unanimously (on a motion by Thomas, seconded by Baker) authorized him to purchase however many of them the department needed.
Robertson also pointed out that the fire hydrants needed to be painted specific colors to indicate the size of the lines to which they were connected. Armstrong said "You find out from Bobby about the paint, and get 'em to working, and get 'em flushed, and then we'll paint them."
Armstrong then said that he had been approached by some people about the leaking roof at the town's concession stand. "It's just pouring," he said. The mayor told the board that "Randy Mullins and his wife have been talking to somebody and they—it's kindly hard for me to believe—but they think they can get it done, labor and all, for $1,500."
Robinson said, "Why can't they take half of that pavilion and close it in and that be their new concession stand, and tear that other down and leave it alone? That would be your cheapest way out."
Baker mentioned that "you don't have any bathrooms over there," and Armstrong agreed, adding that there was no electric service to the pavilion.
"I just think it would be ten times easier to close part of that pavilion in," Robertson insisted, but Armstrong repeated that there weren't any bathrooms anywhere "except in the concession stand."
Also, Recorder Dickey, observed, "They've redone the bathrooms in the concession stand."
Baker observed "It's pretty much a block building and a concrete floor, I mean you put a new roof on it and it ought to be in pretty good shape."
"It should," Armstrong agreed, adding that the bathrooms would need a little work to make them handicap accessible. He said that he would see if he could get something in writing about the cost of repairing the roof.
The board also discussed payments to Randy Nelson and Jimmy Hilborn for "engineering and consultation on the well" totaling $13,200. Recorder Dickey said that she had talked to Nelson and "he said that we could pay him out in payments." She was confident that Nelson would agree to payments as well, "as long as he gets paid."
"All this is out of the water account," she added. "I just wanted to let y'all know, let y'all be aware of what was going on with that."
Speed limit
Recorder Dickey then resurrected the issue of the speed limit through town. At an earlier meeting the board had agreed to raise the limit to 45 mph in those areas where it had been 30 mph and had requested that the state replace the speed limit signs to reflect the higher limit. "But that's been six months ago," she said, and the state has never gotten around to doing it, and she suggested that the old 30 mph limit be retained because of foot traffic along and across the road in town. "You've got people walking across the road through there all the time," she said, and if the speed limit is 45 mph "they're going to go 55 or 60."
After some further discussion Mayor Armstrong told the recorder to write a letter to the state "and tell them that we'd like to retract" the request to raise the speed limit to 45 because "public opinion pushes us to leave it as is. I think that letter will take care of it."
(EDITORIAL COMMENT: Before it was dissolved last month, the Ramer police department consisted of a single police officer who worked a total of 50 hours a month. Since a thirty-day month consists of 720 hours, this means that the town of Ramer had a police officer on duty a little less than 7% of the time.
Nevertheless, the argument can be made that even a part-time police presence operates as a deterrent to "crooks," since law-breakers are more likely to want to operate in a community which has a no police presence than in a community which has even a part-time police presence. And this deterrent effect is independent of whether the police presence actually exists, since what matters is not whether there actually is a police department, but whether the crooks believe there is a police department.
Mayor Armstrong claims that Ramer has lost the benefit of that deterrence because the dissolution of the Ramer police department—which, by the way, was first reported on this Web site—has been made known to the public.
To the extent that the knowledge that Ramer had a police officer on duty 7% of the time actually deterred crime in Ramer, that benefit has indeed been lost. But the mayor appears to have overlooked the fact that the only way to keep "crooks" ignorant of the lack of municipal police protection would have been to keep the residents of Ramer ignorant as well.
Ramer's residents have, at least in some measure, made important decisions regarding the safety and security of their homes and families based on the belief that they have some municipal police protection, and against the arguable advantage of making "crooks" believe in a non-existent police department must be weighed the actual disadvantage of allowing the public to continue to rely on a protection which no longer exists.
But what is at stake here is more elemental than that. What is at stake here is the public's right to know. Ours is a representative democracy, in which our elected officials are our servants, not our masters. We are not sheep, to be blindly shepherded about by our elected officials. We are not children, required to leave the decision-making to the grownups in government.
In a democracy, the people are sovereign, and the rights and duties of sovereignty cannot be exercised in ignorance. In this, as in almost everything else, the public's right to know is paramount. No one, not even the highest-minded, smartest, and best-looking elected official in the history of our republic, ever has had, does have, or ever will have the right to keep the public ignorant.
In 1816 Thomas Jefferson wrote, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." The nearly two centuries which have passed since then have done nothing to erode the truth of that observation.
The citizens of Ramer have the right to know not only that their police department has been dissolved, but also the reasons for that dissolution. They have the right to know who voted for dissolution as well as who, if anyone, voted against it. They have the right to know these things because in this, as in every other action taken by public officials in the name of the people, the people must be able to judge whether they are being well served by those they put in office, so that they can keep them in office or throw them out as need be. Without knowledge of what government officials do, and why, representative democracy becomes at best a farce, and at worse a tragedy.
Finally, for the record, I believe that the dissolution of the Ramer police department was in the best interest of the town of Ramer, and that the members of the town board gave due consideration to all of the relevant facts and circumstances before they voted, unanimously, to take that drastic action. This editorial comment is not a criticism of the board's action on behalf of the public, but a caution against believing that the public can or should be kept ignorant of such actions. An informed electorate is our only defense against tyranny at any level of government, and the First Amendment provides the means by which the electorate is kept informed.
Guy M. Townsend)
Town Board Meeting 27 August 2007 Ramer Disbands Police Department
Come the end of August, Ramer will no longer have a police department . The possibility of disbanding the department was first broached at the Ramer town board’s July meeting, but action was put off to allow the town time to look into possible cost-cutting measures. One cost reduction being considered was cutting the hours of Bill Jackson, the town’s sole lawman, who has for years put in fifty hours a month while also serving as a constable. Another was divesting the town of the considerable expense of insurance and maintenance on the town’s police car by selling the car to Jackson at a nominal price.
At the August meeting Ramer Mayor George Armstrong gave the board the bad news that the town had learned that “if we hire Bill in any form or fashion, we’ve got to maintain insurance on Bill, as far as liability, and on the automobile, and that’s the thing that we’re trying to get out of because it’s so expensive.”
Armstrong then told the board he wanted to make two motions. “The first motion that I want to make is that we disband the police department,” and he said the dissolution had to be complete. “As we discussed before, we wanted to hire Bill for certain times to do police work for us, but to do that we get right back to that insurance problem, and that’s what we’re trying to get out of.” Armstrong pointed out that disbanding the department would save the town nearly $11,000 in salary alone, not to mention insurance, maintenance, and gasoline costs. “If we’re ever going to build up any funds, and hopefully not have to use this line of credit, which would create another problem for use, I think [disbanding the department] is the only alternative we have. It’s not one I necessarily like, but ….”
After the motion (seconded by David Dickey) passed unanimously, Armstrong addressed Bill Jackson directly, saying “Bill, this is no reflection on you.”
“I know,” Jackson responded.
Armstrong then said, “Now the second motion that I want to make is that we sell the car to Bill Jackson for a dollar. If he wants it. He’s done us a good job for many years.”
“I appreciate that,” Jackson said, “and I still … if y’all need me, you know where I’m at. Just call me. I’m still a constable, and I’ll be here if you need me. I appreciate working for y’all, and y’all have been good to me, and I appreciate that, all of you.”
“Well, we appreciate what you’ve done,” Armstrong replied. “I certainly wouldn’t do your job. I’m too chicken.”
Jackson said “It don’t hurt my feelings at all,” adding that he can use a rest.
Alderman Kendall Summers seconded Armstrong’s motion, which passed unanimously, whereupon Armstrong said, “Bill, you’ve got you a fine car there.”
“Can I go ahead and use the equipment that’s on it like it is?” Jackson asked.
“Yes,” Armstrong responded, “that’s fine with us.”
“You’ve got a shotgun out there that belongs to the city,” Jackson said. “If you don’t care, I’ll keep it.”
“Just keep it,” Armstrong said.
“I’ll keep qualified with it,” Jackson told the board. “I hope it never comes to pass that we have to use that, but it’s one of the items you might need sometime.”
Jackson told the board that he would have “Constable” put on the car, and town recorder Tabitha Dickey said she would cancel the insurance effective the end of the month. “I’ll get everything changed over on it by the end of the month,” Jackson said.
The board agreed to pay Jackson through the end of the month, and Jackson said “I’ve about got the time in already.” Jackson also said that he would make himself available for court dates that had already been set for September and October. Those matters may settle before then, he said, “but I’ll be there if they don’t.”
Mayor Armstrong observed that the decision to disband the police department meant that “We’re going to have to redo the budget,” which, he added, would be “just about even” after taking out the cost of maintaining the police department. After some discussion the board voted unanimously, on a motion by Armstrong, seconded by Dickey, to approve the budget as amended.
Another agenda matter, consideration of a raise for the town recorder, had to be tabled because of the absence of Alderman Bill Thomas. Alderman David Dickey, who is married to the town recorder, could not for that reason vote, and the remaining two board members did not constitute a quorum.
In the department of “maybe too good to be true” news, Mayor Armstrong told the board that a tax problem first mentioned at the July meeting may have resolved itself. The problem arose from the fact that Ramer had been erroneously receiving sales tax from a business which had a Ramer mailing address but was actually located in the town of Eastview. At the July meeting Mayor Armstrong said that he had been in communication with the state and that the town of Ramer would have to reimburse the state, at the rate of a couple of thousand dollars a month, which would effectively wipe out Ramer’s tax revenues for many months to come. But, Armstrong told the board at the August meeting, “David [Dickey] and Tabitha both, I think, have called up to the state and talked to this lady up there, and she is of the impression that the monies that we were getting in error have been taken care of and our payment has been deducted.
“But,” he added, “that’s a big question mark.”
Tabitha Dickey said that it hadn’t been confirmed yet, but Alderman Kendall Summers said “We’re going to take it on face value.”
Another agenda item was “Installation of flush valves at trouble spots,” and David Dickey said that a number of people had been complaining to him this summer about the quality of the town’s water. Asking “Why don’t they call me?” Water Supervisor Bobby Wardlow said that in fact he was receiving very few complaints.
The high temperatures may be contributing to the discoloration problem, he said. “When the water temperature rises in the water tank it causes the water to oxidize faster,” which could contribute to the “red water” problem. “And water usage may be a problem, but we always have more problems in the summer than we do in the winter.”
Wardlow said that the problem with water clarity was of long standing, and that nobody has ever come up with an explanation for it. Far from complaining, though, Wardlow said that people have been telling him that their water is fine, and he added that he didn’t think there is any need for an additional flush valve and that any needed flushing can be handled using existing fire hydrants.
Dickey said that “This was in June and July that everybody was calling me,” adding that “I haven’t heard anything since then.”
“Well,” Mayor Armstrong said at last, “I guess there’s not any sense in doing anything,” and the board decided to take no action on adding additional flush valves.
Other business
• The board unanimously agreed, on a motion by Armstrong, seconded by Dickey, to make a payment of $2,500 against the principal of the loan the town secured years ago for its water well. The payment will reduce the amount still owed to $13, 500 and will therefore reduce the interest the town will have to pay.
• Armstrong reported that the state still has not taken down the “30 m.p.h.” speed signs in the city (the speed limit was raised to 45 m.p.h. some time ago), and he said that work had not yet begun on replacing the school zone lights which were damaged earlier in the year, though the town has applied for a grant to cover the cost.
• The board also decided to consider hiring accountant Ann Mauch of Savannah to take care of the town’s audit needs. Ramer had fallen several years behind in its annual audits and Mauch had been brought in to help the town get in compliance. She had spoken with the town recorder earlier in the day and had said that she would be willing to continue handling the town’s finances for a flat rate of $200 per month. Recorder Dickey told the board she thought it was probably a good idea, since the town would have to purchase software costing as much as $2,500 in order to do the work in house, and “the way things change, next year the state may require something that’s not on our software.”
“Let’s look into this a little more,” Mayor Armstrong said, and he told the recorder to “see if you can find out the cost of the software.”
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