Note: follow link for revised and expanded article: http://dewayne-allday.blogspot.com/2011/01/making-positive-u-turn-with-statistics.html
I just read an article in the New York Times titled “Alabama Town’s Failed Pension Is a Warning” written by Michael Cooper and Mary Williams Walsh,December 22, 2010. The first thing I noticed about the title is it left out exactly who it was a warning to. After reading we see it is clearly a warning for city governments and the voters who elected them to office; to be good stewards of both their office and their vote. It seems it is also a warning for county government, state governments and federal governments and the voters to be good stewards as well.
I just read an article in the New York Times titled “Alabama Town’s Failed Pension Is a Warning” written by Michael Cooper and Mary Williams Walsh,December 22, 2010. The first thing I noticed about the title is it left out exactly who it was a warning to. After reading we see it is clearly a warning for city governments and the voters who elected them to office; to be good stewards of both their office and their vote. It seems it is also a warning for county government, state governments and federal governments and the voters to be good stewards as well.
A few excerpts from the article:
“PRICHARD, Ala. — This struggling small city on the outskirts of Mobile was warned for years that if it did nothing, its pension fund would run out of money by 2009. Right on schedule, its fund ran dry.”
“Then Prichard did something that pension experts say they have never seen before: it stopped sending monthly pension checks to its 150 retired workers, breaking a state law requiring it to pay its promised retirement benefits in full.”
“The city’s rapid decline began in the 1970s. The growth of other suburbs, white flight and then middle-class flight all took their tolls, and the city’s population shrank by 40 percent to about 27,000 today, from its peak of 45,000. As people left, the city’s tax base dwindled.”
Census Bureau statistics show Selma’s population in 1980 at 26,700. By 2009 the Bureau’s estimate shows a drop of 32% to 18,278, an average of 1.1% a year.
According to the Census, Selma’s decline began around 1970 just like Prichard but for twenty years it was only around 3% per decade. Starting with the trouble within the school system around 1990 this loss drastically increased to over 10% per decade which is where it still is today.
Prichard lost 40 percent of its population since the 1970s and Selma lost 32% in the same time frame.
Dallas County has lost around 11% in the last decade where Elmore Countyhas gained 20% in the same time frame.
My advice to Selma is; don’t leave, don’t move away. If you leave, we all lose. Let’s rebuild this battle scarred city and quit stirring up controversy and polarizing the city. This only gets everyone angry, discouraged, and makes them want to move away. It’s called escalating an argument – you know, that’s when you start cussing and throwing stuff. It’s not healthy and it doesn’t encourage business and growth. Quit reopening old wounds and rubbing salt in them, quit all the selfish, childish stuff and quit supporting and encouraging those who do. Get on your work boots and roll up your sleeves. Start or continue rebuilding side by side with people of all races, and make Selma a better, more pleasant place to live. Then start encouraging positive, progressive and intelligent minded people to move here. Even if you have to work with someone you don’t like, do it because you love your city more, and yourself less, to benefit the good of the whole.
Because, if we don’t start working together in a positive direction and turning these statistics around, we could all be looking at losing at lot more than our pensions.
Dewayne Allday
Selma, Alabama
