Numbers, even Branson style, represent dollars, lives, years etc.

The news abounds with numbers this week. The thing about numbers is that they generally don’t mean too much by themselves and it is only when they are associated with something else that they become meaningful, dollars, lives, years, etc.

For example, the number “6” by itself doesn’t mean much. But, add a dollar sign and a few zeros, come up with $6 million, and you have quite a hunk of change. Take that $6 million and apply it to another number “465,” as in the highway number of the Highroad and the net result is that at least $6 million more is going into a road that over $50 million has been spent on thus far.

“Seagull, what were the safety issues that lead to the building of the Highroad, on a priority basis, at the expense of improving the areas main north south route, U.S. 65?”

“That’s another number, 0, nada, or zilch.”

The number “1” is a low number and generally considered insignificant, unless of course it is applied to a human life. This week’s Taney County Times contained the headline, “One killed, two injured in crash.” The article went on to report that the person “was killed in a head-on collision Saturday morning, March 12 on U.S. 65, 10 miles south of Hollister.”

“Seagull, how many have died on that portion of Highway 65?”

“Don’t know for sure but, it’s not a stretch of the imagination to say a lot more than would have died had the same money and priority given to the Highroad been given to the improvement of the areas main north south highway, U.S. 65.”

On a lighter note, the number “7” has significance in a game of Craps and when the city of Branson is trying to go back “7” years to collect taxes allegedly owed to them by Taney County. According to another article in the Taney County Times this week, the city of Branson has sent “Taney County a bill for $42,221.68 in back TIF taxes.” The bill goes back to 1998. Interestingly enough, according to Branson Director of Finance Deanna Schlegel, the problem wasn’t discovered until an internal audit of her department in 2004.

“But Seagull, surely there were audits conducted between 1998 and 2004 on the city’s finance department. Why did it take so long to find it?”

“According to the article Schlegel said, ‘Our staff is small and this problem was not known to us or to the state until that audit.'”

From an Ole Seagulls perspective, with the hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars at stake, he would consider three more numbers. The number of personnel that would have to be added to the city staff to catch and resolve problems of this nature in a more timely manner, the number “3,” representing the maximum number of years in back taxes that the city should be paid for by the county, and, most importantly of all, the telephone number of another auditing firm.