Kerr County Demonstrates the Importance of Paying Attention to Local Government

And the Parallels to Washington County Politics

Do you have questions about where and how to get involved in the fight for democracy or how to use your one voice in your community to the most effective effort? The latest national news about how Kerr County had failed for years to address flood safety issues for its residents, despite having time and funding available, demonstrates that your voice is needed in local government. Your voice is powerful in local government.

I’ve been following the unfolding of the tragedy in Kerrville, Texas. My dad’s side of the family is from Hale Center in West Texas. He was a singer/songwriter and used to frequent the Kerrville Folk Festival with my mom. At one point, he won the New Folk Songwriters Contest with a song called, The Wind Blows Through West Texas. Now, somebody needs to write the Flash Flood Alley song for the Hill Country. I’m sure all those songwriters who have spent so many years frequenting that area are writing about it as we speak. It’s what we do. We write our feelings. We write our lives.

It’s horrifying how many lives have been lost in this disaster. It’s a worst nightmare situation. One of our volunteers in the NW Arkansas community was having coffee with me last weekend and told me that she was one of the Mystic campers in Kerrville back in the day. She spoke of how wonderful the place was and how Dick and Tweety created such a safe place, full of love, tradition, and meaning.

Initially, we learned that the emergency responders who were supposed to alert the local community about the National Weather Service Warnings had taken the Department of Government Efficiency’s offer for early retirement. So there was nobody to relay the warning to the locals.

Yesterday, this post from Brenna Perez is the latest news I’ve seen that reveals years of local governance approach of the Kerr County Commissioners. Their anger at the Biden administration, misunderstandings of socialism and communism, and refusal to accept science and disaster preparedness recommendations expose the microcosm of the MAGA movement, visible at the local level in Kerr County.

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A post shared by @perezbrenna

You can watch some of the actual County meeting footage here where residents overwhelmingly express the desire to send millions of dollars of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money back to the federal government. It’s fascinating to watch the emotional responses that are posturing as logical argument. Some of the arguments made were that the Biden administration was going to require Kerr County to pay that money back

You can watch one of their sessions about this issue here. It’s long, but worth the watch if you have time:

This money wouldn’t even exist if it hadn’t been for the great Scamdemic. They created the problems. I don’t trust anything, including our elections, our Supreme Court. I mean I know a lot of people my age are having a hard time admitting that this is happening in America. These people are communists. They hate America. They’re teaching it in our schools. They’re invading the border as we speak. I don’t think we should take any money from the federal government because they can’t be trusted.

We do not want more of Biden’s mandates attached to keeping Biden’s money.

The grammar in the rest of the above segment is painful to me (as an English major), but you can listen on TikTok if you like. In summary, the rationale behind refusing 5 to 10 million dollars in ARPA money is because of fear of the federal government, fear that President Biden was going to force everybody in Kerr County to get vaccinated, fear of communism, and anything from a Democratic administration. And it’s not just the fear, it’s the ‘eff you, we’re not taking your money’ indignance that is so remarkable and to their own self-detriment.

If you go through their recorded meetings over the years, you will hear them discussing installing sirens and choosing not to. Ultimately, they kept the ARPA money and used it for communications upgrades, pay raises, and jail upgrades.

This recent flooding tragedy could have been prevented if the Kerr County Commissioners’ court had implemented a reasonable needs assessment and not been so hung up on identity politics, disinformation, and fear. They had the funding necessary and refused to use it out of political spite and hubris.

Sounds similar to the Washington County Quorum Court right here in Arkansas, where we received $46 million in ARPA funds to mitigate the economic impacts of the pandemic. Members of the quorum court wanted to use the money for a jail expansion, but had misgivings about the federal administration and the way the money was supposed to be allocated. The people of Washington County voted down the jail expansion project. Then, the Washington County Judge terminated the existing, highly functioning women’s prison. The quorum court moved forward with the jail expansion anyway. On a side note, related to the use of ARPA funds, the Washington County Quorum Court also encouraged nonprofits to apply for a small amount of the original 46 million in ARPA funding through a rigorous process and then, oddly enough, denied them that funding. The Arkansas Advocate does a great job of covering the jail issue here.

We need logical, science-minded, community-oriented humans running for local office. And we ALL need to be paying attention to our local governments, showing up for it, having conversations with our neighbors—our representatives, asking questions. Our lives depend on it.

Some more resources, if you have TikTok: PBS, more from the Kerr County Commissioner Meetings.

#KeepShowingUp