Quorum Court’s turmoil risks chaos

It will be interesting to see what comes of county government as the first of the year approaches. As needlessly dysfunctional as monthly Jefferson County Quorum Court meetings have been over lo these many months — the entirety of 2023, in fact — there was actually a budget in place for 2023 that had been approved in 2022. That allowed the various county departments to pay their employees and operate, even if it was in the shadow of the silly show that certain justices of the peace have conducted each month.

But that was 2022 and not 2023. Now, those JPs, led by Lloyd Franklin Jr., snarl every meeting, conducting their own shadow meetings and, in toto, falling short of even being able to work with the county judge in passing the rules that provide the framework for how meetings are to be operated. In short, if they can’t come together long enough to handle the simplest agenda items, what chance is there that they will be able to consider and pass a comprehensive budget for 2024?

We doubt that the average member of the public could identify what it is a justice of the peace does that is crucial to the operation of the county. That being said, in their administrative absence, the rough side has and does drag, as the saying goes. Contractors have come in to the Quorum Court meetings to say they have not been paid. These are people — really like most, if not all people — who can’t afford to do work and then not get a check for their time and labor.

Then there was the veteran who, sitting in a wheelchair, was upset at a lack of support for veterans and ended up throwing the microphone he was holding across the room. That image is particularly startling, but it does put a point to the idea that it’s hard, if not impossible, to run county government without justices of the peace — in this case, justices of the peace who value the efficient operation of the county over their petty power plays.

It’s easy to look at the dysfunction of government on the federal level as that government moves from one threat of a shutdown to another. But Jefferson County has become something akin to Washington, D.C., and not in a good way.

So far, even lawmakers in D.C. have figured out a way to keep their part of government going, even if for only a few months at a time. Will Jefferson County officials figure out a way to do the same? If not, picture the unpicturable, as in we doubt the important parts of county government continue to operate without funding. In short, we don’t think the coroner’s office will be out picking up bodies for free.