Speaking Personally, Good government isn't free

In our coverage of the recent public-safety community forum, we reported the names of the members of the hiring committee for the next fire chief of the Willow Springs Fire Department, myself included.

 

Though I initially accepted, I ultimately removed myself from the committee before attending a single meeting. Serving on the committee made sense at first for the same reason I share my opinion on this page. I see the machinations of our local agencies up close. I pay close attention to them. When I give my opinion, it's an informed one.

 

However, the responsibility to bring you unbiased news coverage is heavy. I follow rules for myself about this opinion page. First among them is I will never write an opinion before I report the news. You're going to get just the facts, ma'am, at first. Only afterwards will I share an opinion.

 

It's harder than it may seem to keep my opinions out of a news story, and I don't always succeed perfectly.

 

Because the hiring committee is making news, I didn’t think I should participate. My first responsibility is to give you, my readers, the news. As much as I hated to, I stepped back from the action of the story in order to report, and opine on it, from an impartial distance.

 

From what I can see from here, I don't know (officially) who the next chief will be, but I do have this opinion to offer you.

 

It's time for small towns to stop relying on volunteers for governance.

 

Let's compare and contrast Willow Springs and Mountain View to get at why I think so. They are opposite incarnations of the same problem.

 

The first thing to know is that the people who have legal authority to make laws and policies in our state's fourth-class cities are the aldermen — specifically, a board of aldermen led by a mayor. Mayors in towns like ours have very elastic powers under Missouri law, but what they must do is set the agenda and run the meetings of their boards. They cast votes only as tiebreakers. What they can do, however, is wield power almost completely unchecked except by the will of the voters.

 

And yet, these positions are essentially volunteer. In Willow Springs, the mayor receives a stipend of $100 per month, and it's $75 for the aldermen. In Mountain View, the pay is around $26 per week for aldermen.

 

The people who seek, campaign for, and are eventually elected to these positions must do something else to support themselves. It's not working for low wages. It's volunteering.

 

Volunteering is a noble, beautiful thing to do, but it shouldn't be the way we govern. Consider these two towns.

 

In Willow Springs, the sitting city government includes three professional women working full time (or more) and two retired men. These devoted civil servants put as many hours into serving the city as they can, but they still only have 24 hours in each day.

 

The reality is that the work of running the city is done by unelected, capable employees. Ask City Administrator Beverly Hicks any detail about any department of the city ... and prepare to be impressed. She will be able to reel off, with startling accuracy and detail, whatever you want to know. And if she doesn't know, she's going to find out.

 

There’s no one in an elected position in Willow Springs who can do that. 

 

Willow Springs has solved the volunteer problem of governance by hiring a capable administrator who wields a huge amount of power and responsibility. She has to; the elected officials are at work at their paying jobs.

 

We're lucky in Willow Springs. Capable, native-born administrators like Hicks don't grow on trees.

 

Now let's look east to Mountain View — the other side of the volunteer problem coin. That city has functioned without an administrator since 2020. Predictably, that function has been dysfunction.

 

A newly elected board and mayor dismissed their administrator as their first act after being sworn in, and the fallout from that decision has resulted in high turnover rates in both elected and hired positions. Mountain View has had three mayors since 2020. I counted 15 members of the board of aldermen since then, and I'm likely missing someone. There have been four city clerks. With few exceptions, the turnover has not been peaceable or uneventful.

 

The one constant in that municipal government is those in power at any given time have a healthy disdain for whatever was done by their predecessors.

 

So either everyone who has held office in Mountain View in the last four years is crooked, a snake and a buffoon — or a city run by volunteers with no administrator for continuity and accountability is a bad idea.

 

Two words: Aaron Tippin. If you live in the city of Mountain View, that "fundraiser" cost you $10,196 of your tax dollars, courtesy of your volunteer elected officials.

 

At various points in Mountain View's history, it wasn't unusual for the board to meet for six or seven hours at a time, usually in lengthy closed sessions. Even now, the meetings are very long.

 

For anyone who has to work, these time commitments are too much to ask.

 

I think it's time we ask: Are small towns failing to attract outstanding candidates for civil service because the very best people simply don't have the time or inclination to volunteer?

 

Think about some of the recent elections that have been the most-heated and most-fiercely pursued.

 

The sheriff's race comes to mind. Howell County's sheriff is a paid job. Our last sheriff was in his 40s with a growing family. The current one is in his 30s, also with a growing family. Would these men have been able to run if the position paid $100 a month? Of course not. The community expects a paid, full-time sheriff. 

 

Think about the county collector's race in 2022. At stake in that race was not only the county salary, but the commissions on taxes collected for certain cities — over $100,000 a year. The fight for that seat was one like I've never seen.

 

Even Howell County's three commissioners are paid a living wage for meeting twice a week. In 2024, the presiding commissioner earned $49,916.47 annually, and the two associate commissioners earned a $47,209.34 salary.

 

The best solution local volunteer governments have found is a capable, paid administrator. A paid city administrator should execute the will of the mayor and aldermen. Doing the job well relies on a disinterest in personal gain in said administrator—almost altruism. When the power of a government is in the hands of one person on a day-to-day basis with volunteer elected officials checking in monthly, that administrator better be trustworthy to a fault. 

 

We’re lucky in Willow Springs. 

 

But how likely are we to get this lucky twice? What chance do other small towns have to find someone like Hicks?

 

What could these towns accomplish if the people with the legal authority to govern were paid fairly for that work? And what if those fairly paid people were directly beholden to the voters?

 

No more scrambling to find citizens with time, inclination, temperament and talent to serve as volunteers, but instead groups of public servants who run the cities like it's their job.

 

Because it is.