These rules and regulations have
the force of law and the power to touch the lives of ordinary Mississippians in very personal ways - from child visitation
guidelines to the taxes they pay to how they run their businesses.
All of this is true, so why is it
so difficult to obtain information.
It
like the Mississippi Bar Association, when a complaint is filed
against an attorney it goes to Mike Martz, general counsel. But since
the Mississippi Bar Association investigates it's own attorneys I
doubt if an investigation is really conducted.
The
way they have been getting away with this for many, many, years is the
word, "CONFIDENTIAL." Since you will never know if an
investigation was ever conducted and you will not win toward your
complaint, it seems to me it's a stacked deck against you.
And while Mississippi law
requires agencies to offer a public comment period, Secretary of State
Eric Clark said the average person would have to work full time to
keep track of what state agencies are doing.
How many of you so called ordinary
Mississippian's have ever heard of a public comment period. This is
the first time I have ever heard of this law.
Let
face the facts, our elected officials & state agencies believe
they work for themselves. The pay checks they receive from the
taxpayers is just a payday. They don't think about the reason they are
working where they are is because the taxpayers provided a job for
them.
It all goes
back to where government & state agencies believe, "We The
People," work for them.
"They come and file a piece
of paper with our office that goes into a filing cabinet," he
said. "But in terms of letting the people know what's going on,
what good is that to the people of Mississippi?"
I believe the last statement,
"what good is that to the people of Mississippi?" tells the
whole story.
After many attempts in the past,
Clark is once again pushing legislation that would create the state's
first comprehensive list of state agency rules and regulations. House
and Senate panels could take up the legislation next week.
I think the words, "once again pushing legislation that would create the state's
first comprehensive list of state agency rules and regulations."
Since it has not happened tell me it will not happen.
When
your elected officials & state agencies become so corrupt, and by
giving the ordinary Mississippian's a way of learning of there
corruption, well, lets say it will never happen.
Clark's office would publish this
"Rule Book" in paper form and on its Web site, along with
notices when an agency is considering a new rule or a change to an
existing rule.
I will believe it when I see it.
But don't hold your breath till it happens.
According to Clark's office,
Mississippi is one of only two states in the country without any
official compiled publication of its administrative laws and rules.
I wonder why this does not surprise
me.
The legislation would also
standardize the ways in which agencies could enforce their rulings,
and outline how citizens can challenge agency rulings.
Believe me when I tell you even
if this passes, the Secretary of State, Eric Clark, will make it so
difficult to challenge an agency the ordinary Mississippian's will not
even try.
It like when
out legislatures did not want to give the people the right to petition
Initiatives. And when the law was passed it was made do difficult to
do the ordinary Mississippian's don't even bother. Did you know that
you can up to five (5) Initiatives per statewide elections.
INITIATIVE
click here
"You have laws scattered
throughout the Mississippi code that relate to this," Clark said.
"What we would do is combine them and consolidate them into one
place where the citizen can find them and know what in the heck is
going on."
First of all your cannot get into
the Mississippi Code of 1972. And even it you could it has been copy
righted.
Letter
from Secretary of State on Miss-Code
click here
While the legislation may seem
like a common-sense proposal, some agency heads say it would be too
costly and time-consuming to implement, and would add a layer of
bureaucracy to a system that's working just fine.
This goes back to where your
legislatures & state agencies believe the ordinary Mississippian's
work for them.
I
also believe it is the legislature & state agencies which have
created the bureaucracy we have today.
Ed Buelow, head of the State Tax
Commission, said he wasn't sure if all the agency's rules are on its
Web site, but that they're readily available to the public.
I was audited, I requested a copy
of the audit report showing that I was being audited as a random
audit. I was told that that information was not given out.
So
I can see why the State Tax Commission has a lot of reason not wanting
how and who they audit become public knowledge.
He said the legislation Clark has
proposed would be an "administrative nightmare" for his
legal staff, which would have to be beefed up from five to seven or
eight.
Ed Buelow, head of the State Tax
Commission, sounds like he is scared it might just happen.
I still would like to know if my
audit was a random audit or a planned one.
QUESTIONS ON SALES TAX AUDIT LAW
click here
Under the new system, he said,
the only beneficiaries would be trial lawyers.
Like our legislatures and state
agencies are doing such a great job. Trial lawyers have nothing to do
with this, but nice try changing the subject.
"The thing was drafted by
trial lawyers, it's supported by trial lawyers, and it's a trial
lawyer's dream," he said. "First of all, the system's not
broke the way it is. Right now any Joe Blow can walk in off the street
- he doesn't have to have an attorney - and be heard as to why he
doesn't think he owes his taxes."
Ed, I firmly believe you are out
of touch with the ordinary Mississippian. I am one of those unusual
ordinary Mississippian's which believe the paycheck you receive is
coming right out of my pocket.
It
is not your money to do with as you see fit, although you do. Have you
been reading about our Harrison County Supervisors here on the
Mississippi Coast.
LINKS
Harrison County Corruption
COUNTY DILUTES POLICY ON CARS
SENATOR THOMAS ARLIN GOLLOTT & WIFE - ZELMA
Council reviews car policy
Supervisors tap special account
Buelow said the new procedures
would open up the Tax Commission to having its rulings constantly
overturned on technicalities.
If the Mississippi State Tax
Commission is being run fairly and by the law, their would be nothing
to worry about.
"Under this (new) system,
everybody will have to have a lawyer, including us," he said.
Their is no need to talk dirty,
the word attorney is the worst words one can say in Mississippi. But
that is another true story.
Judy Rhodes, head of the
Mississippi Department of Education's accountability office, said the
103-page bill is difficult to understand.
And I would bet the Mississippi
Department of Education's accountability bill is not difficult to
understand.
But like
the Secretary of State, Eric Clark said, he will make is easy of the
ordinary Mississippian's to understand.
"I've been analyzing bills
for a long time," she said. "(For) this one I had to ask for
assistance from our attorney because it is so technical."
There you go, talking dirty
again, don't you know that the Mississippi Bar Association is the most
corrupt association in Mississippi.
If
you had to get assistance from one of those types you may want to find
other employment in Mississippi or another state.
Rhodes said she didn't object to
making the DOE's rules available on the secretary of state's Web site,
but questioned how Clark would juggle dozens of different agencies
with different timelines for adopting rules.
That why the Secretary of State,
Eric Clark, get paid those big taxpayers paychecks. I do not believe
Eric Clark will juggle anything, it will be you having to comply to
his web site.
State Superintendent of Schools
Richard Thompson said: "I don't think there's anybody in the
state government that wants honest, open and accessible agencies more
than I do. We appreciate that."
Then why is Mississippi's
education number 48th, 49th, and 50th every year. It seem to me that
if their is one agency which need overhauling in the worst way its the
education department.
Thompson said adequate procedures
are already in place, but that the real problem is they haven't been
enforced.
I think you just told on
yourself.
"We just don't believe it's
the best way to get the public involved," Thompson said of the
proposed Mississippi Administrative Procedures Law. "It's going
to require a significant amount of legal work."
Look at all the legal work our
elected officials and state agencies have all ready used on your
behalf.
And what
makes matters worse is the taxpayers paid for your legal services.
Believe me when I tell you that our elected officials and state
agencies could care less about how much of the ordinary
Mississippian's money is used for any service.
Clark defended the overhaul as
sorely needed to protect private citizens and businesses in dealings
with state agencies and government regulators, however, and criticized
resistance from agency directors.
The Secretary of State, Eric
Clark, is not without corruption. I have asked several times under the
Mississippi Public Records Act of 1983 for document but have not
obtained them.
Like how
does the $70,000.00 in grant money from the Mississippi Tidelands
Trust Fund get to the Wildlife Rehabilitation & Nature
Preservation Society, and having the checks written by the Mississippi
Department of Marine Recourses.
MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF MARINE RESOURCES
click here
Said Clark: "It has frankly
surprised me the attitude of some of the agency heads since we started
working on this: 'Look, I know how the system works. I can work the
system fine. The less the public knows about it, the less the public
is involved in it, the easier my life is.'"
I did not know "We the
Taxpayers" of Mississippi were here to make life easier for our
elected officials and state agencies.
But
now that he has made the statement, I can see how once the Mississippi Administrative Procedures
Law becomes reality, Mississippi could for once have a smaller
government.
Clark blasted claims that his
plan would be costly as "substantially untrue," allowing
that agencies could experience a "marginal start-up cost,"
but saying it would likely be a minimal, one-time expense.
Now we are getting into having to
wait for many, many years before anything will ever happen. But does
the ordinary Mississippian think that it was really going to happen
anyway.
His office points to a 1998 study
conducted by the Stennis Institute of Government on the long-term
costs of changing Mississippi's administrative procedures.
Look at all the corruption inside
Stennis Space Center, corruption is everywhere where government and
state agencies have a hand in it.
The report found that there was
"no appreciable long-term increase in real per capita state
expenditures," and that "uniformity could actually bring
greater long-run efficiency."
I have found that reports can me manipulated
to say what ever you want it to say. That is was is known as controversy,
where one thing says one thing and another says another thing. Like
Democrats and Republicans except they are know for doing nothing
except argue or dead lock.
Clark said the legislation is
necessary "so citizens can go to one place and access what their
government is doing for them or about them or to them."
I fully agree with what the
Secretary of State is wanting too do. But I doubt if it will become reality
during my life time.
Mississippi has kept its ordinary
citizens in the dark for so long under the, "Good ole Boy
System," that it may never recover.
STEVEN A. McCALEB
COMMENTARY