County judge’s actions deserve praise, not scorn

Regarding Sunday’s editorial on our county judge, titled “Something happening here” — you bet and it’s great.

I have served on the Washington County Quorum Court for five years and four months. I worked through the struggles of trying to reduce our county expenses and this year is the first time the county judge’s budget has gone down, not up. It went down $800,000.

Our road department has doubled the miles chip and sealed by 100 percent. The efficiency went up by 40 percent due to a simple change in operation hours.

The previous Planning Department had mismanaged an application to open a much-needed dirt pit for 1½ years without success. When Joseph Wood became the judge, his staff found that the application had not been properly done; the plans were completely changed, the application corrected and approved within 6 months.

The new grants administrator has raised more money for our county than any I know of in my time on the court, $3.5 million.

The previous administration had hired and given the previous manager of Information Technology the permission to bypass the normal oversight process of all purchasing decisions and now he is gone and charged with embezzlement.

The bridge fiasco under the previous administration demonstrates the way things were done in the past. Now we are getting significant county road improvement the previous administration’s people said were impossible. Ask some of the residents on Sugar Mountain Road about the changes. Had you left your ivory tower and been there to see conditions before, you would be praising the judge’s decisions.

My perspective about the comptroller change is easy. In my years, it appeared to me, that the reports were more to confuse than to inform. Read the report and tell me where we are. We need a report that clearly describes the bottom line of our financial situation. The comptroller was following the same protocol of the previous administration. The court has also had to approve correction of several mistakes.

The recent loss of a county attorney was a surprise to me, but I do know that she was an appreciated employee. The same goes with the previous manager of the Planning Department. Personal issues still influence people’s decisions.

The lawsuit against the county is another example. If you read the Arkansas guidelines for county operations, it says very clearly and repeatedly that the newly elected official has complete authority to hire his staff without the oversight of the Quorum Court and all county employees are at-will employees. Check it out, you may be informed and amazed.

To attain improved efficiencies changes have to be made. Check out management changes at Tyson, Walmart and Hunt. It’s done for improvement of efficiencies. Without changes, any organization will soon disappear.

Are you willing to print positive comments about Washington County issues?

HARVEY BOWMAN

Springdale