New Brockton, a little Coffee County town of no more than 1,500 residents just west of Enterprise, has had its share of embarrassment lately. Its animal shelter was exposed as a hellish center of neglect for the dogs housed there. Ultimately, the town’s mayor, Lenwood Herron, was put on trial for misdemeanor animal neglect and was convicted this past week.
As bad as the treatment of the dogs that suffered and, in some cases, died was from Herron’s neglect, the residents and taxpayers of New Brockton have had it worse.
Just after Herron’s conviction, the city received another wallop: the town garbage truck was being repossessed.
The municipal leadership is obviously in disarray. City services are neglected without regard to consequences of failure. The IRS is demanding payment for back taxes. Equipment vital to carrying out those services is put at risk with financial agreements that include the possibility of repossession, then the mismanagement of the city’s affairs makes that possibility a reality.
The possibility now, of course, is that the streets could be filled with rotting garbage since the town no longer has a garbage truck to pick it up. The town’s council, with the mayor noticeably absent, is said to have worked out an agreement with a company to pick up garbage this week and is apparently working toward a more permanent solution.
Residents should be working toward a better solution themselves – either through recall provisions or at the ballot box. The ills suffered in New Brockton can be laid at the feet of every member of the town council as well as the mayor, and resident s should reconsider whatever faith they may have left in the ability of these elected officials to operate the municipality in the best interest of the people.
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