Journalism in Lee County is alive and well courtesy of an August 1st article in the Opelika Observer entitled "Solid waste disposal hot topic at Lee County Commission". Despite attempts by the Lee County Commission to silence its residents by excluding citizen comments from the live stream video feed of its meetings as well as the official minutes, occasionally the voice of the people manages to squeak by and see the light of day. In this case, it even made it into a local newspaper!!!
OPELIKA — Prior to the official start of Monday night’s Lee County Commission meeting, there was a time for public comments.
Lee County resident Lance Farrar addressed the commission regarding a records request that he made one year ago.
“July 31, 2023, Lee County Administrator Holly Leverette informed the Lee County Commission there were 6,818 delinquent — your words, not mine — solid waste customers for the monopoly Arrow Disposal Services bills that Lee County Commission were collecting for,” Farrar said. “I immediately gave notice of a public records request for the names and addresses for those so-called delinquent solid waste customers. I have yet to receive that [information] one calendar year later.”
Farrar also discussed requesting a copy of a letter sent by Commission Chairman Bill English to the Alabama Attorney General’s office pertaining to the legality of Farrar’s original request for the names and addresses of the solid waste customers. Farrar said that he made a public records request for that letter in April of this year, again with no response.
Others that made public comments included John Sophocleus, requesting a copy of a customer contract associated with his name and address for the solid waste pickup.
So, the article is a little light on the details and context such as mail fraud, commingling of funds or double billing for those who have not been following along as it moves on to other topics from there. But, hey, something is better than nothing we suppose. Providing in-depth analysis is in the official job description for the Examiner, so that is exactly what we will do here and now. Let's start off by crunching some numbers.
We all know that the LCC doesn't answer questions and Commissioner Tony "Lobotomy" Langley "doesn't do what we tell him to do", so the chances of getting a straight answer out of these blokes regarding why they shut down a thriving market of local small business sanitation vendors in favor of a rigged government enforced monopoly is a long shot. Oh yes, there were also those public dumpsters that everybody loved that the county took away because they supposedly lacked the law enforcement resources to prohibit illegal dumping from non-residents. This was all merely a shallow pretext to funnel taxpayer money into the coffers of an ACCA approved contractor. Sigh.
Last but hardly least, is the confounding matter of the LCC and their peculiar taste in P.O. Box numbers. Widely known as the mark of the beast, their long running P.O. Box 666 had been slated for retirement after the LCC voted in June of 2023 to respond to community concerns over demonic possession at the courthouse and get a new number. In a baffling turn of events, the LCC had quietly continued to pay for POB 666 as well as the new POB 2412 over the past year and at their June 10th, 2024 meeting voted to stay with the mark of the beast instead of switching to the new number. Commissioner Cannon made the motion to keep POB 666, Morris seconded it and "Lobotomy" Langley cast the deciding vote in favor. Gary Long, in a rare moment of couth, abstained and LaGrand was the sole "NO" vote. Chairman English gaslit the entire chamber by spuriously claiming that it was all simply to difficult for their vendors to adjust to a new PO Box number.
Hope springs eternal, as the political careers of Long and English will be joining Oscar the Grouch in a landfill somewhere when their replacements are sworn in this coming January of 2025. This will profoundly change the dynamics of the LCC to be sure, for the better we pray. Some zealots within the Lee County Republican party machine still believe that Long and English have done a pretty bang up job over the years, which leads everyone else to conclude that it must really be true that one man's garbage is another man's gold.
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