“Ah yes my little chickadee,” the missing Link between Alice and Wonderland and the city of Branson!

A July 7, 2006 letter, from Branson City Attorney Paul D. Link to James Strahan, the Taney County Assessor, was purportedly sent to address specific concerns that Strahan had raised at a May 31, 2006 meeting about the current sewer agreement between the city and Taney County that was entered into on February 28, 2000. After addressing these concerns in a precise professional manner, and for reasons known only to him, Link, like the character Alice, in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” appears to fall down a hole into a fantasy world.

Link’s letter says, “My research has uncovered some interesting facts concerning sewer construction in Taney County.” The terms “research” and “fact” have a fairly objective meaning to most people, “Research” means a “close, careful study” and a “Fact” is “a truth as opposed to fiction or mistake.” On the other hand, the term “interesting” is a relative term meaning different things to different people. Unfortunately, in the opinion of an Ole Seagull, the only “interesting fact” that Link’s research reveals, having relevancy in 2006, is just how low the unelected leadership of Branson will lower the bar on professionalism and ethics for their own purposes.

Link’s alleged facts and his conclusions are reminiscent of the discussion that Alice had with the Pigeon in Wonderland when she said, “But I’m not a serpent, I tell you!” The Pigeon said, “`Well! What are you? I can see you’re trying to invent something!” And try to invent something Link did.

One of Link’s interesting facts was a statement that in 1994, over 12 years ago, the Coon Creek Sewer Project included “sewer lines into undeveloped properties some belonging to elected officials.” The letter cites as one of these three lines “A 21″ line extended 2765′ into undeveloped property which to this day has no flow in it. (Strahan $82,970.)”

When one considers that the property mentioned above appears to belong to John Strahan, the father of James Strahan and Eastern District Taney County Commissioner Danny Strahan, who was a Taney County Commissioner in 1994, it doesn’t take a Solomon to see what Link is trying to invent. To an Ole Seagull the insidiousness of Link’s insinuation is as obvious as the mean spirit of a city’s leadership that condones and encourages such activity.

Unfortunately for Link and the quality, depth, and professionalism of his research, official maps of Taney County indicate that the sewer line in question does not go into the Strahan property. It’s not even close and stops about three quarters of a mile away from the Strahan property line. Said another way, Link’s stated fact is simply not true.

Another of the facts stated in Links letter was that, “If the county’s matrix would have been followed and these monies put to the top project, then the monies would have been spent correctly, lowering the overall cost to the project.” The “top project” being referred to is the Bee Creek Sewer Project but does the letter contain one iota of evidence to support, what the Ole Seagull believes is, his inane and baseless conclusions?

Interestingly enough the letter remains silent on two major points. The fact that, for whatever reason, the Coon Creek Project was only one of multiple Taney County sewer projects to be built between 1994 and the present even though the Bee Creek Project still remains to be completed. Even more telling, in view of Link’s insinuations, is the lack of an explanation as to why the city of Branson elected to enter into a new sewer agreement with Taney County on February 28, 2000.

Link’s logic, about the 1994 costs for the Coon Creek Sewer Project lowering the overall cost of the Bee Creek Project in 2006, makes about as much sense as saying that the $5 million dollars that the city of Branson paid to the Australians for their participation in the early stages of the Branson Landing Project lowered the cost of the Branson Landing Project to the city of Branson by $5 million. But then if the city says it’s so it is. Isn’t it? Sure, and if you believe that you probably believe that Pointe Royale drive will remain a public street and that Branson will support the Rockaway Beach casino gambling effort.