Happy Birthday, Libraries

Ben Franklin started up the first lending library on this date back in 1731. The concept, initially based on subscriptions, caught on, and now we are blessed with an amazing network of knowledge that can bring all kinds of intellectual property to your door.

Most of us just use the library as a quiet place to go browse and pick up a book or CD that we don't feel like purchasing. That's a huge enough service, but if you look around even a typical branch, you'll notice a lot more going on. Computers are waiting to help bridge the digital divide. Meeting rooms are hosting community organizations. Posters are advertising a series of free lectures on all kinds of topics. One local library is a nationally known center for genealogy. You can get audiobooks for your iPod. If you talk to a librarian, you'll see that their profession is obsessed with coming up with new ways to help meet informational needs you never knew you had.

Have you ever tried inter-library loan? It's incredible - if a book exists out there, but it's too obscure to find a home in the local libraries, the library will hunt it down and get it to you, still for free. I recently wanted a couple books on a topic I was researching, and within a couple weeks, they were waiting for me at my neighborhood branch.

When I was a kid, I used to haunt the stacks at the Natural Bridge branch of the St. Louis County Library (which I learned moments ago has relocated). Throughout my life, libraries have always been a welcoming place to hang out, read, study, or just browse. We're all fortunate that Benjamin Franklin, nearly 300 years ago, had a brainstorm about how he and a group of his friends could get access to the books they wanted to settle their arguments.

Join the Jackson County Ethics Commission - Day 112 of the Jackson County Ethics Blackout

I recently spoke with one of the County legislators most resistant to Ethical Home Rule. Not only did he attack the concept of local oversight, he even had the gall to attack the future ethics commission. "Do you really think Sanders is going to appoint people he doesn't control?", he whined. That vile little attack on the process came from someone who agrees with the appointment of criminals to be a majority of the Anti-Drug Committee.

The fact is, Mike Sanders will appoint whichever 5 nominees that the Ethics Commission Selection Committee delivers to him. Mike Sanders has been above-board through this whole process, and is the prime mover behind the move to articulate the very Ethics Code that the Jackson County legislators are excluding themselves from. Unlike the Jackson County legislators, Mike Sanders is not foolish enough to maneuver himself into a battle against ethics. It takes a special kind of stupid to fight against Ethical Home Rule in Jackson County, and Sanders doesn't suffer from that kind of stupid.

Unfortunately, the Jackson County Ethics Commission Selection Committee is facing a few problems in finding a properly balanced slate of candidates to submit to Mike Sanders for appointment. The application "deadline" has been extended from the end of February until whenever they can get a great slate of candidates they feel confident will carry out their duties impartially and diligently. Here is the application, and here are the qualifications. The application is a simple online form and the qualifications are minimal.

If you read this blog, and live in Jackson County, you probably qualify to be a member of the Jackson County Ethics Commission. Stepping up and serving now would give you a chance to learn more about how the County works. More importantly, you would be playing an important role in the return to Ethical Home Rule for Jackson County.

Hint - while the Charter requires that "no more than three commissioners must be from the same political party", there is no restriction that you must belong to either of the major parties. Seems like this would be a great way for one of those third parties to get somebody involved in actual government . . .

Won't you consider going online and filling out the short application? If you will not or cannot, do you know somebody who might be waiting for a call from you to get involved? Would you please make that call?

I promise to continue the fight to bring Ethical Home Rule back to Jackson County, but the fight is meaningless if we can't find 5 citizens to serve on the Ethics Commission. The criminals on the Jackson County Legislature and their secretive colleagues are quite happy to allow the Ethics Commission to remain unfilled. They need our oversight.

Now's The Time to Apply for the Ethics Commission - Day 72 of the Jackson County Ethics Blackout

As of a week ago today, only two applications for the Jackson County Ethics Commission were under consideration by the Selection Committee. The blame for the lackluster turnout rests squarely on the shoulders of the anti-Ethical Jackson County legislature, which has done everything possible to make clear that the new members will face a fight if they dare to do their duty and follow the Charter.

Under the Jackson County Home Rule Charter, the Ethics Commission is directed to investigate allegations of ethics violations against the legislators. The legislators have attempted to excuse themselves from that Charter-directed oversight through an ordinance. The situation is a time bomb, and any informed individual who applies to the Commission knows that he or she is risking a metaphorical knife fight against an unscrupulous legislature. The legislature has made clear that any attempt by the Ethics Commission to do its duty under the Charter will be met with attacks, lies and probably litigation.

Do it anyhow.

Go to the Ethics Commission Selection Committee's website and fill out the application. For your effort, you will receive no money, no fame, and little, if any, official thanks. You will be expected to attend meetings, pay your own parking, and be scrutinized by those who want you to fail. If you do your work ethically and diligently, nobody will name a golf course after you.

Do it anyhow.

We need good, honest people to do the dirty work of policing Jackson County ethics. It's thankless but important work. If good people don't apply, the positions will be filled by insiders and stooges. We can't have that, not while millions of dollars are being spent by a committee where the majority has a rap sheet. Not while the County Legislature is usurping the naming rights to public facilities. Not while the Legislature is using an ordinance to defy the Home Rule Charter.

Public service is calling good people to take the challenge. Please do it. Fill out the application and help return ethics to Jackson County.