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Now to work

That's disappointing.

However, the low turnout does not appear to have had a significant impact on the results. The five candidates who lead their respective fields in the first round were elected Tuesday, some with more votes, some with fewer.

The winners don't have much time to savor their victories. The education calendar and events not controlled by that calendar have combined to require the new board to make some major decisions immediately.

First, there is the matter of departing Superintendent Johnny Brown. An interim superintendent must be appointed while the board searches for a permanent replacement.

Because it is not a permanent position, the board is likely to look within the system for an interim superintendent. The person named may even become a candidate for the permanent appointment.

However, the board should not overlook qualified retired educators and college professors who are willing to take sabbaticals from their current jobs to serve as interim superintendent. The permanent appointment should be made as soon as possible, but only after a nationwide search.

Second, the new board soon must make some budgetary decisions, including notification of teachers and other personnel that they won't have their contracts renewed. State law sets the deadline for when such notifications have to be made.

Such decisions are tough enough when you have experience making them. They are even tougher when you're still learning your way around the building in which you meet, not to mention all the other facilities in the system.

And Wednesday, state Superintendent Ed Richardson dropped another potential bombshell in the board's lap by sending investigators to look at system finances in the wake of audit problems.

The members of the new Birmingham Board of Education face a baptism of fire as they assume the positions they so much wanted to fill.

Security spending not a snap

His is a hooey-laden observation that nevertheless points to a public policy dilemma. No matter how much is spent on domestic security, some stone somewhere will be left unturned, leaving opportunities for demagogues to sound off and raising questions of how much domestic security spending is enough.

A case at hand is the Army Corps of Engineers' effort to wrangle another $150 million out of the White House for protection of water projects.

The Associated Press revealed that the White House didn't provide a nickel of that request, but the same story quoted the White House as observing that the corps received $139 million last fall as part of anti-terrorist legislation and has spent no more than half of that to date.

In his 2003 budget plan, President Bush is proposing to spend $38 billion on domestic security, including $67 million for more guards at dams, reservoirs and other water projects. The corps still won't be receiving the sensors, alarms and other items it wanted, but how much more protection would those items afford relative to their cost, and is that the best way to spend those security millions?

The fact is, any number of federal agencies and pork-loving politicians will try to get all they possibly can out of any security package. What the administration has to do and has tried to do is put in place a practical, reasonable plan that draws the line someplace.

Tuesday, Brookings Institution scholars praised some elements of the Bush plan while criticizing others and stressing that the chief job is to focus "primary attention on vulnerabilities that could lead to thousands of deaths or other horrendous damage." Such an emphasis clearly should be part of the equation, along with an effort to calculate the feasibility and likelihood of certain kinds of attacks.

The Brookings price tag for its plan, it should be noted, is billions more than Bush is talking of spending, and Bush is hardly talking about peanuts.

Analysts for another think tank, the Heritage Foundation, have suggested that every time a dollar goes into a new security program, a dollar should come out of some old non-security program. That is a good idea that could keep the anti-terrorism spending from wreaking fiscal havoc.

Sept. 11 did teach us that we have to spend more to lessen the risk of catastrophe, but the citizenry should simultaneously be alert that excessive spending has huge societal costs, that not everything sought in the name of security is wise and that there is finally no way to have absolute security from terrorists, however much we all may want it.

OTHER VIEWS

Indian Affairs scandal keeps getting worse

By DAN THOMASSON
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE

What's more, it may never be settled. Even the courts can't seem to find a way to assure Native Americans that billions of dollars in land-use fees owed them will ever be distributed. The money is due them for grazing, timber cutting and the extraction of oil, gas and other minerals on their land. The mess stems from bureaucratic intransigence of historic proportions by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees it, reaching back almost to the creation of the bureau, an agency whose early years were marred by corruption.

Andersen itself was paid $20 million to try to straighten out the system and clearly didn't, which comes as no surprise. Price Waterhouse, another accounting giant, had joined the General Accounting Office and others in issuing reports urging reforms in the 1980s, all to no avail.

So infuriated has one federal judge become over the lack of government response during the six years since frustrated Indians filed a class-action suit, he held both the Clinton Interior and Treasury secretaries in contempt of court, and current Interior Secretary Gale Norton and more than three-dozen others in her department now face similar citations from District Judge Royce Lamberth.

The class-action suit seeks to win justification, and thus billions in owed payments for 300,000 individual accounts held by the bureau. Just as in nearly every other dealing Native Americans have had with the government, they have failed to achieve any satisfaction. Indians contend that not one single account of those represented in the suit has been accurately balanced. Does the expression "flimflam" ring a bell? It certainly does with Lamberth, who has been struggling with misleading government lawyers, shredded documents and a host of other government shenanigans, including deleted e-mails. Last December, he became so upset over the lack of security on Web sites linked to the trust accounts that he ordered them shut down. In a classic bit of bureaucratic fumbling, Interior shut down all its Web sites, including those for the national parks, causing a disruption in vacation plans for thousands of Americans.

The amount of land here is sizable, 57 million acres, 47 million of which is held in trust for the tribes. Leases for use of the land are signed with the bureau and pay the Office of Trust Fund Management, which is supposed to administer the accounts. Record keeping in any orderly fashion has been practically non-existent over the years, and many of the documents have been damaged or destroyed. Also, there has been a major problem as original account holders (land owners) died and their holdings have been spread among heirs.

Congress has tried to fix the problem on occasion without much more success. The latest plan offered by a group of Western senators, including Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Arizona Republican John McCain, would create a new position at Interior to oversee trust management and facilitate the handling of funds by the tribes themselves. At the same time, Norton wants to set up a new bureau in the department to deal exclusively with the trust-management problem. Those supporting the class-action suit for some strange reason aren't keen about new government agencies coming into the picture and want Lamberth to appoint an independent receiver to straighten out the individual accounts.

This entire affair has dragged on to the point of insanity. Obviously, a government agency or agencies that can't be trusted to manage the affairs of its constituents in better fashion needs to be severely reorganized or abolished altogether.

The government's continuing callous disregard of the rights of Native Americans is not only a national disgrace, it is criminal. The Enron scandal is just a blip on the screen of corporate sleaziness. The mishandling of the Indian accounts is far more serious in what it says about our system of government no matter how un-sexy it may be to the press.

Dan K. Thomasson can be reached
c/o Scripps Howard News Service
1090 Vermont Ave. N.W., Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20005-4906

YOUR VIEWS

Dome by itself won't benefit city

"If you build it, they will come." How many cities have harkened to this call only to end up with an embarrassing 10-ton gorilla? In the case of Birmingham, the "it" that will bring "them" isn't a dome, but improvements to existing infrastructure.

It would be incorrect to assume that an "Alabama Dome" would have the same or even a similar impact as the Georgia Dome on the Atlanta area. Birmingham has neither a top-ranked international airport nor an effective mass transit system, both generally accepted "must-haves" for a popular convention city. In contrast, Atlanta had both well before building the Georgia Dome. Birmingham also doesn't have metrowide gridlock, infamous urban sprawl and astronomical real estate rates. Some would say this is the price of success, but success is relative to what you, the community, set out to achieve.

Generally speaking, a livable city makes a hospitable city. The dome issue probably has more to do with current, low interest rates than anything else. So why not use these favorable market conditions to invest and improve on what Birmingham already has? Make Birmingham a better place for the people already here ... then they will come.

Davin Owens
2625 Highland Ave.

Have drifted

However, we should acknowledge our history, understanding that Christian principles are the reason we have the freedoms and wealth so looked up to by the rest of the world. I support Chief Justice Roy Moore and his stand for biblical concepts.

Wayne Bucher
2949 Brook Highland Drive

Bad name?

Armond "Si" Simmons
104 Wadsworth Lane
Pell City

Misread facts

Insurance fraud is rapidly rising in Alabama, and these scams increase everyone's insurance premiums. HB 327 would have made it a crime for people to knowingly lie to an insurance company when making claims or applying for coverage. Witt incorrectly says honest people could be prosecuted for innocent mistakes such as accidentally filling out insurance forms wrong.

In fact, the bill excludes innocent mistakes. It only punishes deliberate scams intended to rip off insurers and their policyholders. Organized crime rings launching multi-million dollar insurance crimes are among the cheaters this bill seeks to shut down.

Witt also laments that the state has virtually no fraud laws to protect consumers. Well, HB 327 also goes after insurance companies and agents who swindle people. It's exactly the consumer protection Alabama needs.

Alabamians deservedly pride themselves on their get-tough attitudes about crime. Yet Alabama is one of only five states without an insurance-fraud law or a state fraud-fighting agency. Every other state in the South already has passed effective anti-crime laws similar to HB 327.

Ms. Witt herself says Alabamians are possibly "the most easily swindled consumers in the nation." Alabama can no longer lay out a welcome mat for insurance cheaters. When predators come knocking, Alabama must show it's short on tolerance and long on justice.

Howard Goldblatt, director of government affairs
Coalition Against Insurance Fraud
1012 14th St. N.W., Suite 200
Washington

Heart gave out

Jessie's big heart gave out on her, and since those walks were the high point of her life (and she was the light of mine), I want to express my appreciation, albeit awkwardly, to all of you nice people who delighted her so when you would wave at her, or stop to pet her, or even slow down to wave at her from a passing car. Thank you. I'd say it better if I could, but my heart is too full.

Gene Dilmore
294 Shades Crest Road

More merit scholarships are needed

One focus of the National Alliance for Excellence is to promote funding for merit-based scholarships. Merit-based scholarships differ from need-based scholarships in that they are awarded only to the best and brightest students in the nation. Though scholarships for those with financial need are indeed honorable, it may be argued that merit-based scholarships produce the greatest returns on the investment in America's future.

Need-based scholarships facilitate individual ascendancy; merit-based aid raises up those who will, in turn, raise the nation. The brightest of Alabama's students are those who, with long hours of study and a dash of innovation, will rise to greater heights. They will be the future engineers, doctors, lawyers, research scientists, politicians, and inventors. These are the ones who will propel America to greater heights, through better technology, supportive public policy, and improved health care. The nation must assist these talented students, to ascertain that they are able to pursue their lofty goals without financial inhibition.

One factor that would help Alabama's students obtain more merit scholarships is a greater funding for Advanced Placement classes and Advanced Placement Examinations. Many states not only fund their AP classes heavily, but also pay or reduce student AP Exam fees. If students lack support at home to pay these fees, they must pay for the exams out of their own pockets. Often this means that even the brightest children are unable to take these exams, which could offer substantial college credit, because of financial difficulties.

Alabama, which does not fund AP Exams, had more than 5,000 students take AP Exams in 2001, according to the College Board. Though these are excellent numbers, most students took only one exam. The state of Alabama should consider helping students by reducing AP Exam fees. This would encourage more students to participate in the AP Program, which would help Alabama's children as they enter college.

Beyond the obvious financial results of merit-based aid, academic scholarships also combat the stigma society places on being more academically minded. Suddenly, the brightest students are rewarded and held in high esteem. This commendation may inspire other students to pour themselves into the world of knowledge, which suddenly has become "cool." A new generation of successful and dedicated members of society will arise, because of the credence these scholarships lend to the realm of academia. I hope that Alabama will continue to invest in the nation's future through the funding of AP programs and merit scholarships.

Rebekah Rogers
125 Lancaster Road
Florence

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