Early this evening we went to a workshop for the Greenville County Council regarding flooding issues in the Brushy Creek watershed. There were a few of the council members present, and the usual suspects from our other flood meetings, including Representative Gloria Haskins. Basically, these were the ones who are up for re-election this year.
The Soil and Water monkeys gave a PowerPoint presentation on the flooding issue, and requested an expenditure of $360,000 to further study the problem. Yeah, right. County Council has allocated $1.6 million for flood relief for this year. So let’s say that the commission spends nearly $400K and 4-6 months studying the problem. They will need to spend an additional half million to draw up the engineering plan before the first shovel full of dirt will be moved. By that time, the bozos on Council will have been relected, and will feel no compunction to spend any money on flood relief until the next campaign rolls around.
It was very obvious which ones were up for re-election. These asked the most questions and talked the longest without saying anything. After all, there were TV cameras and reporters present. Lottie Gibson sat quietly without saying a word. Scott Case spoke at length, and Gloria Haskins stumbled all over herself thanking everyone under the sun for attending.
Joe Dill, however, was the true County Council fool star. He blamed all of the flooding on the school district. That’s right, according to him schools don’t have to do any flood control during construction. Let’s forget for a moment that he is part of that nebulous far right-wing bunch of weirdos that wants to completely abolish public education. After all, he himself never felt the need for one. What Dill did was to place blame on something completely out of his control, thereby abdicating himself from any responsibility. Can’t be the Council’s fault – must be those godless government schools.
Laura and I left with the feeling that once again, nothing would be accomplished.