An obligation to help less fortunate

Maybe there’s some hope for Grayson County, after all.
The three new members of the Grayson Board of Supervisors show definite signs of caring about other people. The courthouse board room was filled with 30 or 40 of us — many of them supporters from Providence and Oldtown — when the board held a work session Jan. 19 to review our much-debated solid waste ordinance.
Good local government is one place we can make some changes that benefit that 99 percent we’ve been hearing about, and it was refreshing not to hear pie-in-the-sky plans for running with the big dogs.
I learned that one-third of Grayson County is owned by people who don’t live here, a fact which should reawaken debate on land use.
About the only sour note came from former chairman Mike Maynard, who was commenting on tax relief: “That sounds like Obama: ‘I’m going to get more of your money because you have more money than somebody else’,” he said.
My answer (there was no provision for public comment at the meeting): Well, yes — that’s how we take care of each other.
In another time it was called noblesse oblige [benevolent behavior considered to be the responsibility of persons of high birth or rank].
Kyle Noble
Independence