I got home last night and was able to catch up some local news. Chief among what I was eager to complete was Stan Swofford's excellent N&R series revealing the extent to which crack cocaine is consumming huge chunks of both our citizenry and our tax money. As a community, we can ill-afford either expenditure.
It is clear from Swofford's reporting that we have a serious problem that is, for the most part, hidden to this this middle class white guy and his family. Although my neighborhood has identified and subsequently worked with the police to erradicate our share of crack houses over the years, around here we view the epidimic as more of a nuicance than a, well... a cancer.
So now that our community has been diagonosed with a potentially deadly disease, what do we do? Do we wring our hands and worry and contemplate how to attack the illness? Or do we go straight to the hard work and pain of curing ourselves with treatments developed by others who have contracted similar tumors - even though those treatments might be viewed as experimental and unproven? I say we take action... immediate action... today.
On Wednesday the N&R asked some of our elected leaders how we should proceed to cure ourselves. Their reactions were mixed.
Greensboro's Mayor Holliday wants to set up another damn "task force" to be led by a "champion" (iI took that to mean someone other than those whom we elected to solve such problems). Council members Perkins, Gatton and Phillips thankfully think a study group won't do anything but give the disease time to spread.
County Commissioners Alston and Coleman are ready to build the hospital so treatment can begin. Building a long-term treatment center is a pro-active move that has proven results in communities similar to Guilford County and Alston is right when he says, "We know that's what we need to do. Let's get off our butts and do it." Now that's leadership.
Inherent in the idea of waiting and studying how to best cure this disease is the fear of doing something that is either ineffective or something that causes the disease to spread further. Regardless of whatever action is immediately taken, the latter of those fears is a non-issue, the former doubtful. There will be plenty of time in the future to form focus groups and study groups to examine how we are progressing with whatever immediate action we take. But let's get started like Skip suggests.
Policie chief David Wray should be directed to form a S.W.A.T team that will immediately respond to the neighbor's suspicions regarding the existence of any suspected "crack house". In addition, we need to re-instate the D.A.R.E program in all of our public school that was eliminated because of a lack of funding. Third, Commissioner Alston should immediatley take the challenge of becoming Mayor Holliday's hoped for "champion" and get blueprints drawn up and a bond proposed to build a long-term treatment center in Guilford County.
All of this will cost a lot of money, but as Swofford's expose' points out, we are already paying through the nose in an attempt to deny we have a problem. So, no matter which way we go, we pay.... a lot.
Let's fix this thing.
10:16:17 AM 
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