Why Don't We Make Good Decisions any More | Eastern North Carolina Now

    The disasters of the Economic Development Council spending spree, the loss of the hospital, the millions lost in the school bond over run, the over building of the school system, and the building of the US 17 bypass, also known as the road to no where, are serious events in the history of Beaufort County. There are other disasters waiting to happen.

    All of these disasters had the same red flags. These include: a protective umbrella that presumes our bureaucrats and appointed boards know best and we only need to protect the personality of our hired leader, money is not important because we are doing "good", a failure to ask questions or investigate, failure to set policy because our hired bureaucrat and board know all there is to know, put down attacks directed toward anyone who dares to raise a question, and distorting facts to the point of falsehood.
Beaufort County Commissioner Hood Richardson speaking to many of his constituents at the Candidates Forum, help on April 2, 2012 at Beaufort CountyCommunity College: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage
    Voters have not punished any of the Gang of Five for the serious loses named in the first paragraph. The voters not holding commissioners individually responsible for their bad and expensive decisions has made our commissioners even more bold and lazy. There is no oversight from the Gang of Five in running the affairs of Beaufort County. Commissioners simply raise taxes and go back to sleep. Limited voting opened up the commission and the school board to racial and political minorities which is good. The resulting block voting, apparently, has muted the ability of voters to take a strong stand on the qualifications of candidates. Too many people are voting from habit and not from knowledge about issues and commissioner mistakes. Voters should never return people to office who have not served hem well.

    Could it be the voting public is not provided enough news to be adequately informed to make good political decisions? Beaufort County does not have a universal or aggressively competitive news system. Fifteen years ago we had a radio station and a TV station that were interested in events in Beaufort County. The Radio station is gone and WITN now focuses on the region rather than the County. There is less news competition. The Washington Daily News, a liberal newspaper, has crept into its shell providing feel good news as Beaufort County has become politically polarized during the past 15 years. There are those who will say the internet has more than made up for these news loses but not everyone has the internet and having to search for news as opposed to having it presented to you is a limiting factor. Not everyone searches for the political news.

    The Beaufort Observer and Beaufort County Now provide on line news and commentary. The County Compass provides weekly hard copy news. All provide commentary. However, the reader has to make an effort to access these sources and only the dedicated make the special effort.

    Other problems universal to all news providers is the tendency to lean either liberal or conservative. Rarely do we see balanced stories. It is honorable when some news sources announce they are liberal or conservative. In addition some news sources deliberately deny the publication of news that affects their pet projects, people and issues. The public should be skeptical of the motives of all news sources.

    It may be that we do not make good judgements because we do not use our common sense when we consider opinion news. Being skeptical means we should critically examine our personal opinions along with all the information presented to us by others. Common sense will carry the day.