Of course, there weren’t as many alternative entertainment
choices in those days. Time would dampen the public’s enthusiasm for
observing Democracy, unless it jarred with, or supported, strongly held beliefs.
Council meetings could be educational though, so once, while
we were waiting for our marriage date to arrive, I took my finance to a city
council meeting in the small town of Kensett, Arkansas, known primarily as
being the hometown of famed legislator Wilbur D. Mills.
It promised to be a short meeting. I came to have the council
approve a grant application for a planning study. I explained to Brenda on the
way up that I was familiar with the city, it being the site of the two wildest
city council meetings I had ever attended. I explained that the first was when
a rowdy group of citizens attended in order to raise hell about the proliferation
of stray dogs that had “taken over” the town. Amidst tales of garbage can
contents being strewed over a city block and untoward impregnations, the group demanded
that council hire an animal control officer.
The second boisterous meeting there, which I also attended, occurred
after the mayor had hired a “dog-catcher” and said dog-catcher had begun catching
dogs.
He was catching the wrong dogs, it seemed. He was, according
to the crowd of speakers, many of whom I recognized from the first meeting,
supposed to catch “those dogs” and not “our dogs.” Why, one yelled in anger, “Tags”
only followed Johnny to the school bus stop each day to protect him and had
been incarcerated for his effort. Would the city be responsible for his, the dog's, therapy?
“Fire the [expletive deleted] dog-catcher,” one lady yelled,
with resounding applause from the others.
Brenda thought about my story and said, “Why do people run
for public office?” I had no answer, just an admission that I was glad there
were those that did.
Seated in the back of the audience later, we were surprised
to hear the first speaker, a well-dressed lady in her mid-forties rise, approach
the podium, and with an air of great solemnity, ask, of the mayor and council, “What
do you plan to do about the Buffalo?”
“The Buffalo?” Brenda whispered, “I thought the Buffalo River
was over about Marshall.”
It was. The Little Red River is the one that runs just north
of Kensett. We listened.
“He’s moved the beast next to our back yards and the flies
are killing us.”
Ahh. The truth emerged like a tyke playing hide-and-seek.
From what we later gathered, a man had bought, for reasons known only to himself,
a wild buffalo as a pet. He kept the creature in an over-sized yard that backed
up to a row of houses. When the residents of those houses had complained about
the odor and flies that seemed to accompany the pet, the owner responded by
dragging the feeding trough against his back fence so that the offending and
noxious impact lay concentrated against the back yards of the complainers. The pet
was happy, the owner of the pet was happy, everyone else living nearby … not so
much.
An hour and a half later, the council got to my business,
having managed somehow to piss off all in attendance, save Brenda and me. The council members fairly
snarled as they questioned my proposal. Then one had an idea. “This planning study,”
he said, “can it address the keeping of animals in town?”
“Sure it can,” another member said.
“Move for approval,” another member said.
“Second the motion,” another member said.
“All approved ‘Aye’ the ayes have it,” the Mayor said. “Congratulations
young man.”
Back in the car, Brenda looked at me and said, “How do they
get people to do your job?”
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| A new element in the annals of urban planning. |
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