Braised Lambchop
a nurse trying to work while suffering with chronic pain - she rambles a bit

I live in a heavily Republican county, and next week is a primary election. Before each election, our League of Women Voters local chapter has public forums so the candidates for each office can be heard in a moderated discussion.

In Oklahoma, each of the 77 counties has three county commissioners, and each county is divided (oddly enough) into three districts. I live in Washington County District 2, and the forum for that commissioner's race was held Wednesday night.

A little background here: Until two years ago, my city was the world headquarters for a huge oil company, Phillips Petroleum. When Phillips merged with Conoco, to form ConocoPhillips, the headquarters moved to Houston, taking the high-paying executive salaries with it. About 700 people lost their jobs here, but the blow was softened some by moving technology workers in and making this the 'Global Technology Center' for the company.

In the meantime, however, the Chamber of Commerce and local business development leaders started to panic, and they made a deal with the devil: Wal-Mart. They agreed to let Wal-Mart build a distribution center 7 miles south of Bartlesville. The city's development group paid for the land and utility extensions, and gave the world's richest company tax breaks to essentially wreck our air and water. By the end of 2004, there will be 1200 trucks every day coming through here, not to mention the obligatory construction of truck stops, fast food joints, and strip malls along what used to be a nice forty-mile drive to Tulsa.

Now, for the county commissioner's race. One of the candidates you'll read about in this article, Bill Trower, is the community relations manager for the Wal-Mart Supercenter in town.

Think about that for a second. Wal-Mart is building a huge distribution center in the county, and one of the Wal-Mart managers is now running for a seat on the governing board of that county. On top of that, the largest bank in the county is Arvest, is owned by Wal-Mart. I've suggested before that they just go ahead and change the name of the county from Washington to Walton.

The seat Trower is running for does not contain the Wal-Mart construction. However, there are only three commissioners, and Oklahoma is not known for a long history of clean county government. Twenty-five years ago, more than 200 Oklahoma county commissioners were either convicted of or pled guilty to charges of bribery and conspiracy, because they took bribes and kickbacks from contractors and just about anyone who offered them any money for anything while they were in office. The thought of Wal-Mart's money so close to county government and influence isn't just a casual worry. It's dangerous to representative government.

But here's my real problem with the guy. Trower listed at this forum several ideas he had for saving the county money. I'm for saving money. This is one of the richest counties in the state, but I'm still for saving money.

Unfortunately, his ideas call to mind the worst cliches about Republicans making wealth off of the backs of the poor. Trower wants to feed inmates at the county jail with food for poor people from community food banks.

Specifically, he calls for saving $100,000 a year by using 'the Tulsa Food Bank,' an organization which changed its name in 2002 to the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma. Not surprising that the guy doesn't even know the correct name of the group he wants to raid.

This idea literally makes me sick. There are 24 counties that depend on the CFBEO for food. They feed 50,000 people each week, and we receive bulletins from our church every month requesting donations because there isn't enough food to go around. And a candidate for County Commissioner wants to take food away from children so he can score campaign points? How does he expect his 'program' to work - inmates get priority over hungry families and children? Which family has to go without dinner because Trower made a campaign pledge?

I have a feeling Trower doesn't intend to do this at all. I think he's trolling for votes among the 'poor folks deserve to be poor 'cause they keep on having babies out of wedlock' crowd, of which there are far too many in this area. But if Trower does intend to follow through, his morality and fitness to serve in office should be seriously questioned. I cannot live in this county knowing that tax dollars are being funneled away from inmate welfare, and toward some construction project, while those inmates are being fed at the expense of hungry children. Is Trower going to be the one to go to the CFBEO and tell a hungry child why she can't have as much food as she needs?

It's disgusting. It's immoral. Trower doesn't deserve anyone's vote. If being the Wal-Mart candidate isn't enough, this stupid, outrageous, unworkable plan makes him unfit for office.