Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part XCV): Ground broken on new county jail

I've written a lot over the past four years about Newton County's jail travails. Some of the earlier posts are here (May, 2009), here (November, 2008), here (January, 2009) and here (March, 2009). My first post about the jail dilemma is here (June, 2008), and some decent photos of the old jail are here. That old building, a historic structure, is currently serving as the county's Christian Food Room.

Well, after about four years of fiscal wrangling and hand wringing, the county has finally broken ground on a new jail, the jail its residents agreed to pay for with a tax increase in November 2008. To be more precise, though, the jail is not truly new. In fact, the county will be working to convert an existing structure--a metal building that the story refers to as a "well-appointed residence"--into a jail. That existing structure, which ironically sits right next to the old jail, is shown in the photo above, which was taken in mid-November, 2011. The then owner of the building is pictured moving some things out, perhaps in preparation for turning it over to the County.

The December 7, 2011 issue of the Newton County Times shows a number of officials at the ground breaking ceremony, among them County office holders (including Justices of the Peace), several sheriffs deputies, the Newton County District Judge, officials with the construction company that won the bid to do the renovation, and a staffer from the office of U.S. Senator John Boozman. Each is holding a gold-painted shovel, though the significance of the gold paint escapes me.

The structure that will house the jail measures 57 feet by 80 feet, and it sits at 105 Elm Street. According to the specifications of the bid, it will feature five felon men cells with two beds each, two felon women cells with two beds each, a male dormitory with six beds, a woman's dormitory with six beds, a holding cell, a cell that meets the American Disability Act, and a control room. In addition, the jail will include a dormitory for eight state inmates under the Act 309 program, an ADA-compliant public restroom, an industrial kitchen, two inmate visitation rooms, two exercise areas, a laundry room, an inmate property room, a booking room, a record room, two men's showers and two women's showers.

Davis Construction of nearby Harrison won the bid to renovate the structure. Many of the home's fixtures will be "carefully removed and put up for public auction," with proceeds going toward construction costs. The county sheriff joked, "I don't think the judge wants to send a convicted criminal to a five-star hotel." Davis Construction's winning bid was $840,000, well below the $1.5 million to be raised by the tax increase passed more than three years ago to finance the jail's construction. I do not recall seeing any notice in the newspaper of how much the county paid the building's prior owner for the land and structure.

Rural Iowa: waste-toids, meth-addicts, and elderly people waiting to die

How’s that for a sensational headline? I would take the credit for the creativity, but these are not my words. These are the words of Stephen Bloom, a journalism professor at the University of Iowa in an article that he published in The Atlantic in December.

Bloom, a New Jersey native, reflects on the twenty years he has spent as an Iowa resident in an attempt to educate readers about the state as the Iowa Caucuses approach. Page three of the article focuses on rural Iowa. Bloom brings the idealistic and mythical view that he claims that outsiders have of Iowa- the one where:

The fairytale rendering is pastoral and bucolic; sandy-haired children romping through fecund, shoulder-high corn with Lassie at their side. It's Field of Dreams meets Carousel with The Waltons thrown in for good measure. The ruddy, wooden Bridges of Madison County (where John Wayne was born) may be in the background as the camera pans wide.

Bloom spends the next several paragraphs with a harsh rebut to this myth. He cites a faltering economy, loss of jobs, and a surge of undocumented immigrants being mistreated while working dangerous factory jobs as characteristic of rural Iowa. While many of these points appear to be well-taken, he seems to go pretty extreme when describing the inhabitants of rural Iowa:

Those who stay in rural Iowa are often the elderly waiting to die, those too timid (or lacking in educated) to peer around the bend for better opportunities, an assortment of waste-toids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth, or those who quixotically believe, like Little Orphan Annie, that "The sun'll come out tomorrow.”

The article, particularly the description of the inhabitants of rural Iowa, has unsurprisingly offended many Iowans. Bloom, who is a visiting professor at the University of Michigan this year, has reportedly received many threats and fears for the safety of his family. The reaction hasn’t been limited to angry citizens and commenters, - many of his peers in Iowa have been blasting Bloom as well.

Bloom certainly has the right to his opinion, but one can’t help but point out the irony in Bloom’s attempt to dispel one stereotypical view of rural life (the idealistic version of “the country”) while promoting another (residents are all lazy, drug-addict, white-trash wastes of space). It is terrible if Bloom’s family is receiving threats, but at the same time, he might have realized that people would be highly offended by those remarks.

Child labor and US farms

That’s right, in the United States, children as young as twelve can legally work in the fields. They can pick your berries and even drive a tractor. But recently, a slew of articles have been published about new child labor regulations in the U.S.; you can find them here, here, here and here. Even The Daily Yonder featured the story in one of their Tuesday Roundups.

The media interest in this issue has been triggered by new rules from the U.S. Department of Labor, rules aimed at improving safety for children in the fields. The new rules include a ban on farm workers under the age of 16 handling most “power-driven equipment” (such as tractors) and from contributing to the “cultivation, harvesting and curing of tobacco.” Further, it would prohibit children under the age of 18 from working “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.” According to a report called "Occupational injuries among young workers," most youth work fatalities occurred in agriculture and about two thirds of these fatalities were attributed to transportation accidents, particularly accidents, which occurred either by truck or by tractor.

In fact between 1993 and 2002, tractor accident counted for a quarter of all youth worker fatalities. The proponents of the legislation say these changes are in response to these shocking statistics and insist that they are “not talking about the children of growers, but children employed as farm workers.” Secretory of Labor Hilda Solis insisted this would not apply to children who work on farms operated or owned by parents but rather is to protect “Children employed in agriculture [who] are some of the most vulnerable workers in America. Ensuring their welfare is a priority of the department, and this proposal is another element of our comprehensive approach.” Many farmer groups and rural-state politicians disagree. They are up in arms about these proposed changes as they feel it will stop many farming families from employing their underage children.

Rachel Leven’s piece in The Hill takes a refreshing rural-urban perspective on the situation. A group of more than 70 House representatives sent a letter to DOL indicating the rule “challenges the conventional wisdom of what defines a family farm in the United States.” In response to the law, Representative Denny Rehberg states

You’ve got a president of the United States … from Chicago, you’ve got a director for secretary of Labor who’s pushing this from Los Angeles, and you have to think to yourself, do you have any idea what it’s like not just to run an agricultural business in a rural state … but to raise a family in one?

Leven summarizes this quote as mean that Rehberg feels these “proposals are coming from officials who do not understand rural life.” While there are exemptions for family run farms, these exemptions would not apply if parents did not full ownership (which is a common situation today). Further, many feel the necessary precautions are already in place. For example, current regulations allow children to operate heavy equipment if they have taken a safety. A letter written opposing this regulation and signed by more than 30 Nebraska state senators further insisted that "[d]oing away with this exemption will not only reduce the number of youth getting proper training on operating power equipment, but will deny them the experience and responsibility associated with learning to operate the equipment safely and effectively." Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard however insists these farm regulations are not a rural-versus-urban issue. Rather, she feels the “focus needs to be that there are an estimated 400,000 children working on farms that are not owned by family members and those children are not being protected by our current labor laws.”

I am personally conflicted. On the one hand, I support farmers, their sustainability, and their unique understanding of how best to live and thrive. However, I cannot get over the BPL analysis (weighing the burden of taking a precaution against the probability times the gravity of loss if the precaution is not taken) that I learned in my first year law school torts class. The statistics make me believe that the risk is simply too high, and the farming communities need to find alternative ways to teach the next generation of farmers that does not put our nation's youth at fatal risk.

The challenges of serving an acutely remote (and very cold) place

Those challenges are highlighted in a drama playing out now in the Bering Sea, as reported here in today's New York Times. There, a Russian tanker carrying fuel, the Renda, accompanied by a Coast Guard icebreaker, the Healy, are 140 miles south of Nome, Alaska. Nome, in far northwest Alaska, is running out of fuel because its final shipment of the year, typically made in early fall, was waylaid by bad weather. Now, the 4,000 residents of Nome (included in the 9,492 residents of the Nome Census Area)--along with the various oil exploration interests in the area--are anxiously awaiting the arrival of fuel reinforcements.

An excerpt from William Yardley's story follows. It compares the current drama to a 1925 one in which diphtheria swept through Nome. "No roads led [to Nome], flight was ruled out and Norton Sound was frozen solid." The life-saving treatment was ultimately delivered by sled dogs in what became known as the Great Race of Mercy, and that journey is still commemorated by the Iditarod each year. Yardley writes:

The tanker is slogging through sea ice behind a Coast Guard icebreaker, trying to bring not medicine but another commodity increasingly precious in remote parts of Alaska: fuel, 1.3 million gallons of emergency gasoline and diesel to heat snow-cloaked homes and power the growing number of trucks, sport utility vehicles, and snow machines that have long since replaced dogsleds.

For the moment, this latest tale appears less likely to produce a warm children's book than an embarrassing memo, and maybe a few lawsuits, about how it all could have been avoided

The story includes lots of interesting detail about the effort, including the distinction in capabilities between a medium-duty icebreaker like the Healy and its "heavy-duty polar" counterparts, which were not available for the effort. But it might all be summarized with the old adage, two steps forward, one step back. In short, no one is sure the Renda is going to make it to Nome this winter, in part because ice closes in around the Healy before the Renda can follow through the path cut open.

The drama of getting fuel to Nome aside, who's to blame for the failed autumn shipment? Who will be suing whom? And what is the role of the government in solving the problem? According to Yardley, many blame Bonanza Fuel, "one of two local companies that barge in fuel and the one that failed to ensure its fall delivery made it. But the fuel company's owner blamed the barge company for delaying shipments." Flying fuel in would add about $3/gallon to the cost, which is already $6/gallon in Nome.

As for the government's role, some ask whether "tiny Nome [is] worth all the effort"? But the situation has highlighted issues (such as Coast Guard capacity) that are likely to arise as Arctic exploration and Arctic shipping burgeon. Nome Mayor Denise Michels picks up on this theme in discussing the government's role (here, primarily in the form of the Coast Guard assistance) in getting Nome out of this pickle:

Why should we be treated any differently than the Lower 48? ... We keep saying we are an Arctic nation.

Michels notes that the Coast Guard provides escort for commercial shipments through ice and difficult conditions in the Great Lakes and elsewhere.

The story reminds me of the isolated, "fly in, fly out" mining communities I heard so much about when I was in Australia last year. It also reminds me of the Australian designation of "remote" communities, which are distinct from -- perhaps a subset of-- rural ones. Certainly, Nome would qualify as remote. Indeed, it may be sui generis in the U.S. context.

Elsewhere in Alaska, the coastal city of Cordova is snowed in See NPR coverage of both Alaskan events here. Another report on the record snow fall in Cordova, and what's being done about it, is here.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art reaches out to local schools

A recent New York Times feature story about the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art recited the now familiar spiel on the location of the institution, the pet project of Wal-Mart heir, Alice Walton, which opened in November, 2011. Roberta Smith calls the museum's home, Bentonville, Arkansas, a "small town in northwest Arkansas."

As I have noted in earlier posts, Bentonville is hardly a "small town." In fact, is in a metropolitan area with nearly half a million people, but Smith is not the first to characterize it as such. See earlier posts here and here. And admittedly, the immediate setting of the museum is bucolic, as the top photo suggests.

But Smith is more focused on the museum and its collection than she is on its location, and she concludes her opening paragraph with this assessment:

But there it stands, a big, serious, confident, new institution with more than 50,000 square feet of gallery space and a collection worth hundreds of millions of dollars in a region almost devoid of art museums.

Smith mentions an interesting gap in the Crystal Bridges collection--indeed an ironic one: "the almost complete lack of paintings by largely self-taught or folk artists."

This omission is especially noteworthy because rural America is so often associated with the common man, as well as with other connotations of folksy.

And, indeed, the museum is reaching out to the "common man" or--more precisely--the common child. Smith notes the museum's "ambitious education program, which will reach out to more than 80,000 elementary students in the area."

Related to these programs, I assume, is the Crystal Bridges Fenceworks exhibit, which sits at the entrance to the museum grounds.

The art fence caught my eye when I visited the museum on its opening day, Nov. 11, 2011. I took the photos below of the artwork of students at area schools, including Springdale, Bentonville, Fayetteville, West Fork, Elkins and many others. Some of the scenes depicted are very local--such as that of the Rodeo of the Ozarks. You can see that one painting is in a van Gogh style, another a la Monet. I wonder how long Fenceworks will remain, and if it will be a rotating exhibit, with new paintings by area children each year. The sign on it suggests that the exhibit will grow.

Uranium mining blocked at Grand Canyon

Read the New York Times story here, for which the lede follows:

The Obama administration is set to announce on Monday that it will block new uranium mining on one million acres in northern Arizona near the Grand Canyon, lobbyists and Interior Department employees who had been informed about the decision said on Friday.

Such mining has been the subject of an interim ban since 2009. In proposing an extension of the ban, Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior, cited "potential for pollution in waterways and harm to wildlife, desert vegetation and air quality."

Felicity Barringer's story offers this political perspective on the moratorium:

The long moratorium has been opposed by the region's Congressional Republicans. They argue that it would prevent the creation of thousands of jobs and upend a 28-year-old compromise on land use forged by environmentalists and mining proponents during the Reagan administration.

Once again, then, the story is spun as one that pits rural economics against environmental protection. See a recent, related post here.

A subsequent New York Times report is here.

New York Times again turns attention to Post Office closures

Campbell Robertson reports in today's paper on the grassroots efforts of communities in rural north Arkansas to save their post offices. While I've been writing about such efforts in the context of northwest Arkansas (in particular, Newton County, see posts here, here and here), Robertson's focus is a bit farther east, mostly in Stone County, population 12,394. The story also includes mention and photos of the post offices in Witts Springs (Searcy County) and Tilly (Pope County), which I mentioned in this post a few weeks ago.

The story refers to the same sorts of practical arguments I've recited in my coverage of the issue (e.g., delivering medicines to the elderly, lack of broadband), but Robertson's headline, "A Fight for Post Offices and Towns' Souls," highlights what I see as the most interesting part of the story. It is the nostalgia angle--the place-as-identity angle--which is reflected in this quote:

The deeper anxiety [among rural residents fighting to keep their post offices] is an existential one. Prim, Tilly, Ida, Fox--all of these communities were named into existence decades ago, and in some cases more than a century ago, by a postmaster. While the postal authorities insist that there will be alternatives to stand-alone offices--for example, an outdoor bank of boxes--residents fear that place that began with post office buildings could simply cease to exist with their departure.

Of course, this is a point I have made in my earlier posts, too, but it's a little different when the New York Times gives it a platform. I also appreciate this quote from Stanley Morrison, identified as a 59-year-old rural Stone County logger and justice of the peace:

There are those who have been downtrodden so long, they can't get back up. And there are others who've been downtrodden so long they decide to fight back.

Another rural resident, this one in Tilly, commented, "I don't remember an issue where we had to pull together like this." Rural Arkansas communities are indeed organizing to fight the closures, but the effectiveness of their efforts remains to be seen.

Robertson notes that the junior U.S. Senator from Arkansas, Republican John Boozman is departing from his small government philosophy to propose "legislation that would ban the closing of any post office if the nearest one is more than 10 miles away."

There are times it's not as profitable, but it's important to provide that service.

Robertson's focus on Arkansas is apparently based on the fact that the state stands to lose one third of its post offices under the current round of proposed closures.

Don't miss the slide show accompanying Robertson's story. It features photos of many rural post offices in the area, and a few of their post masters, too. An earlier post about the New York Times coverage of the proposed post office closures is here.

Pulling out all the stops to save a rural school (Part VI): The value of the "isolated" school designation

I wrote in recent posts, here and here, of the efforts of the Deer-Mt. Judea School District in the Arkansas Ozarks to attract Oark school patrons away from the Jasper District, their current home. The Jasper Board of Education passed a resolution at its December 15 meeting "resolving not to cede territory to other school districts," according to the December 21, 2011 issue of the Newton County Times. An excerpt from the Jasper District resolution follows:

Whereas in the eight years since the merger, the resulting school district sand its school administration team have made substantial improvements and repairs to the physical plant at Oark Campus, substantially increased the salaries of the former Oark School District employees, and has spent countless hours forging a healthy and productive relationship with the students, parents and community members in Oark;

The resolution also referenced a December 17, 2009 public meeting with Oark school patrons at which none of the 100 or so in attendance expressed a desire to leave the Jasper School District to join the Deer-Mt. Judea district. This suggests, of course, that the issue of Oark joining Deer-Mt. Judea was on the table as recently as two years ago.

Also at the December Jasper Board of Education meeting, the members of the board and the superintendent explained that the petition recently submitted by those purporting to be Oark School patrons did not feature the requisite 75 "verifiable signatures"--meaning registered voters in the school district. The Board therefore decided not to meet with the petitioners because it was not required to do so under Arkansas law. The District's lawyer advised that doing so might set a bad precedent by which future disgruntled patrons, though few in number, might expect an audience with the Board of Education regarding grievances.

One thing the Jasper Board of Education resolution did not mention is the state funding it receives because Oark is an isolated school. I wrote an earlier post about funding for isolated schools, but I have recently learned more about what qualifies as an isolated school and a bit more about how much state funding is associated with the status. First, to qualify as an isolated school, the school must meet four of these five criteria:

• There is a distance of twelve (12) miles or more by hard-surfaced highway from the high school of the district to the nearest adjacent high school in an adjoining district;
• The density ratio of transported students is less than three (3) students per square mile of area;
• The total area of the district is ninety-five square miles (95 sq. mi.) or greater;
• Less than fifty percent (50%) of the bus route miles is on hard-surfaced roads;
• There are geographic barriers such as lakes, rivers, and mountain ranges that would impede travel to schools that otherwise would be appropriate for consolidation, cooperative programs, and shared services.

The law that provides this definition (Arkansas Code Annotated Section 6-20-601) goes on to state that an isolated school is eligible to receive isolated funding if three criteria are met:

• the school district's budget is prepared by the school district with Department of Education approval;
• the school district has a prior-year three quarter average daily membership of less than three hundred fifty (350); and
• the school district and each school within the school district meets the minimum standards for accreditation of public schools prescribed by law and regulation.

So, just how valuable is this "isolated" designation? According to this 2005 news story, up to $4.8 million dollars is available each year to be divided among the state's 27 isolated schools. An excerpt from that 2005 story follows, providing background on the "isolated" designation and what lawmakers saw as at stake. The excerpt begins with a quote from the law's sponsor, Representative Roy Ragland of Marshall, in Searcy County:

"This is probably the most important bill for me and my district," [Ragland] told colleagues. The bill would deliver about $4.8 million to the state's remotest schools in an effort to help them meet new education requirements, such as an increase in the state's minimum teacher salaries.

If the schools can't meet state standards, the state could close them, forcing even longer bus rides for students in those districts.

SB 191 passed 70-11 and now goes to the governor.

Ragland told House members there is not a companion appropriation bill. Rather, the $4.8 million would come out of the regular general fund, but only if available.

To illustrate the need for additional funding, Ragland used the consolidated Huntsville and St. Paul School District, located in his North Arkansas district.

The new district is paying about $200,000 annually to keep the tiny St. Paul schools open. If those schools close, students there would have to be bused more than 60 miles to schools in Huntsville.

Also, the rugged back roads would make the bus trip very dangerous, he said, adding that there are 27 isolated schools in the state, with about 7,000 students, which would split the $4.8 million.

"This is to subsidize those schools," Ragland said.

More recent data indicate the following amounts associated with the isolated school funding at Deer, Mt. Judea, Oark, and Kingston. I also note, for the sake of comparison, how much the Huntsville district gets for the St. Paul isolated schools (referring to all grades, K-12, not literally to multiple schools), to which Ragland referred in his 2005 comments. Note that it is substantially less than the Jasper District and the Deer-Mt. Judea districts receive.

Deer-Mt. Judea District (for those two campuses): $210,968

Jasper District (for Oark and Kingston): $296,874

Huntsville District (for St. Paul): $24,233

These payments, in February 2011 (click on "Isolated" in right hand column), represent one of two "isolated" payments to each district for FY 2011. However, the second of the two payments for FY 2011, in June 2011, are much smaller, e.g., for Jasper just $98,958 and for Huntsville, just over $8000.

Looking at the payments to all of the Arkansas school districts, the Jasper District (for Oark) receives more than any other district, following somewhat closely by the Ozark Mountain District (which covers parts of Newton County and Searcy County), which receives $232,347, and the Cossatot River District, which receives $245,538 for tiny schools at Umpire, all in Polk and Howard Counties.

In a future post, I will discuss the Ozark Mountain District's recent decision to annex an additional school, the one at Lead Hill.

Nouveau riche in North Dakota

This story in the New York Times a few days ago was chock full of rural themes: Lack of anonymity, attachment to place, and rural economies--including their association with extraction industries and farming. A.G. Sulzberger's story is headlined "A Great Divide over Oil Riches" and it tells of those who have gotten rich--and those who haven't--in the state's oil boom. In some ways, the story is the same one we're hearing more and more these days in the United States--the story of a burgeoning income and wealth gap. The difference with this one is that it presents income inequality in the microcosm of a nonmetropolitan area where, even more than than in the U.S. generally, the existence of class stratification is often vehemently denied.

The dateline is Stanley, North Dakota, population 1,301, and the story features a number of members of the community, including some long-time farmers. Some of those farmers got rich thanks to the mineral rights on their land--and some got even richer because they happened to own the mineral rights on others' land. (North Dakota happens to be a state where mineral rights can be separated from the underlying property). Here's an excerpt that provides an overview of the story and what has happened in Mountrail County, population 7673.

Sure enough, money is flowing by the barrelful into Mountrail County, transforming a tiny community once proudly situated in the middle of nowhere into an unexpected oasis of prosperity at the heart of the nation's biggest oil play.

The number of households earning more than $100,000/year spiked last year to 21%, from 6% a decade earlier. The median income rose more than 50% in the last decade, the fifth-highest rise in the nation. Deposits are one Stanley bank are now at $135 million, up from $43 million at the start of the boom.

Sulzberger's story highlights how the lack of anonymity that characterizes rural places can aggravate the awkwardness of the newfound and increasing income and wealth gap:

As with any major boom--from real estate to tech stocks to natural resources--the sudden split between the winners and the witnesses has been painful. But this is happening in a small town, where proximity and familiarity make a sudden re-ordering all the more difficult.

"It's not all good," said Leslie Anderson, who is among the lucky locals who sometimes make more from a single month of oil payments than he used to earn in a year of farming. "There are a lot of families fighting that got along before."

Sulzberger also provides a vignette of rural frugality, writing of a newfound oil millionaire living in a trailer home. Lenin Dibble farmed his whole life, but now receives as much as $80,000 a month in oil royalties. He's not spending it, though. He says he can live comfortably off his Social Security and payments he receives from leasing his farm. He's saving his oil wealth for his adult children. Dibble does complain about some of the changes the oil boom has brought:

What he and others in town notice more than the newfound money are the problems: locking the door to his house, taking the keys out of his car and seeing a quiet community where everyone knew everyone overrun by the bustle of strangers.

"I wish it had never happened," Dibble said.

Other residents may not be talking about their oil wealth, but hints of it are found in the fact that they are driving their first new car--and perhaps taking their first-ever vacation, to boot.

The trend of population loss of the high plains has also been reversed as a consequence of the boom. Mountrail County's population up nearly 16% over the past decade. And this relates to another rural phenomenon-- the attachment to place that the county's young residents can now indulge themselves, given the plentiful jobs.

The rest of Sulzberger's story is worth a read for its many rich quotes from Mountrail County locals.

An awfully rosy portrait of rural Iowa

A front-page story in today's Washington Post paints a very rosy portrait of Washington, Iowa, population 7,135, in the southeast corner of the state. Here's an excerpt from Eli Saslow's story, which contrasts how good things are in this Washington, with the bleak national portraits painted of Washington, DC and the nation by those vying for the Republican nomination for President:

What could be better at the beginning of 2012 in this other city called Washington, a rural town of 7,200 surrounded by the corn and soybean fields of eastern Iowa? This is the Washington with a 4 percent unemployment rate, with record-breaking hog and cattle production, with a new high school and a $6 million library, with a newspaper that doesn't bother to print a crime blotter, with heated sidewalks in front of the bank so customers never have to walk in the snow.

In fact, Washington is not "rural" by official U.S. Government measures, one of which sets the threshold for a rural place at fewer than 2,500 in population. Furthermore, Washington County--of which Washington is the county seat--is part of the Iowa City, Iowa Metropolitan Area. No mention is made of population loss, with which the midwest is so oft associated; indeed, Washington County's population grew about 5% in the past decade.

Never mind those so-called ecological measures of rurality. The place Saslow depicts certainly sounds rural, marked by lack of anonymity and an informal way of handling problems--problems like missed loan payments. The bank official who is the focus of the story, 62-year-old Keith Lazar, tells of how he has learned lessons regarding these matters. He recalls how, several years ago, he initiated the seizure of 25 cattle and 365 hogs from a farmer who defaulted on a loan. The seizure took seven trips, and the farmer watched from his porch for its duration. It was very tense. The banker felt awful the next day, and he hasn't handled problems the same way since.

Now Lazar abides by the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The bank manager now grants a payment extension on a small business loan to a customer encountering a sudden turn of bad luck.

Saslow suggests a link between such policies and success of Lazar's bank, which was established decades ago. The bank has had a great fiscal year, with $2.7 million in profits for 2011, $1.5 million being paid in dividends to the bank's 430 shareholders (many of them local) and $300,000 in bonuses to staff, "including greeters and tellers without college degrees." In fact, only 17.9% of Washington County's residents have a bachelor's degree or higher--about 10% below the national average. That's about the only measure by which Washington County looks less salubrious than the nation, though. Consistent with other rosy economic metrics, especially for a county with such a small population, Washington County's poverty rate is 10.9%, well below the national figure.

And the story does refer in passing to less affluent members of the community who are also bank customers, noting one seeking a loan for a mobile home. Part of the story's message--whether an accurate depiction or not--is that folks who live in mobile homes, too, are members of the community--able to pop into the bank manager's office.

Finally, the story touches on the role of civic institutions in communities like Washington. Saslow explains that folks in the Kiwanis Club--including the middle school principal, the dentist, the sheriff and the hospital president--would rather "pitch in a few $20s than raise taxes or rely on government to fix their problems." So they "solicit community improvement donations"--which they've used in the past to fund a weight room, a park fountain, and a bandstand.

Can life really be this good? Who's to be trusted to enhance our quality of life? the "state" or our neighbors? should the answer vary from rural to urban?

One thing is clear: Saslow's depiction of "rural" Iowa reflects the "love" end of our nation's love-hate relationship with rural America. But I'm always skeptical of the accuracy of any depiction of rurality that is so clearly love or hate.

Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part XCIV): Training law enforcement officers

A few stories in the Newton County Times in recent months have highlighted the issue of financing, hiring and training local law enforcement officers. In prior issues, I have discussed law enforcement staffing in the county, including a plea last year by Jasper residents to have 24-hour patrols--that following a spate of burglaries. Read more here.

Now, the October 5, 2011 issue of the paper reports that the Western Grove City Council is discussing the municipality's need for law enforcement. Western Grove is Newton County's largest city, with a population of 518 (sign above shows the 2000 count), though Jasper is the county seat (2009 population down to 357). The story indicated that the city was considering contracting with the Newton County Sheriff's office to station a deputy in Western Grove. This could be a win-win for both city and county since the Sheriff's office has recently reduced its staff due to budget cuts. The Sheriff said he was working one day recently as a bailiff in the Newton County Circuit Court, the implication being that he has no staff to perform this function. The same story provides the September, 2011 Activity Report for the Sheriff's office, which shows 29 arrests, with 29 inmates housed in out-of-county detention facilities for 234 total inmate days at a total cost of $8,155. The Sheriff's office patrolled 14,299 miles, used 841.09 gallons of fuel, issued 86 citations, served 31 warrants and tuned over $1,087.83 to the Circuit Court. The office reported 40 felony and 24 misdemeanor cases for the month.

A front-page story from the November 30 issue of the Newton County Times reports that Jasper Police officer James R. Wright was one of 42 officers from around the state who completed Basic Police Training Course 2011-B at the Black River Technical College Law Enforcement Training Academy in Pocahontas. The 13-week course includes instruction in "standard police tactics, firearms, legal, educational, technical skills and practical exercises." The story does not indicate whether Wright paid for his own training or whether the City of Jasper financed his attendance at the course.

A December 14, 2011 story features the headline, "District trying to lock up criminal justice grant." It reports on the Jasper School District's application for a $40,000 grant from the Arkansas Department of Career Education to provide a course in criminal justice for Jasper District students, grades 9-12. A representative of the Dept. of Career Education had recently visited the Jasper campus to inspect its "distance learning classroom" because the program would transmitted simultaneously "between the Jasper, Oark and Kingston campuses." The program would be taught three days a week at Jasper and one day each at Kingston and Oark. Once in each nine-week period, students would meet in one location "for physical training such as learning proper handcuffing techniques." The grant would provide the school district with finger print kids and other basic equipment. The district would have to hire a certified law enforcement officer to teach the course. The Jasper Police Department and the Newton County Sheriff's office have written letters in support of the program, according to the news story.

The story also noted the significance of such career courses for students not interested in a traditional curriculum tracked toward college. The District's assistant superintendent suggested that securing this program is an urgent matter because, without it, some students feel they have no reason to stay in school. The visiting administrator from the state office of Career Development noted that the program encourages students "to provide services to the community, like directing traffic at ball games and parades and other tasks that give them some limited authoritative responsibilities."