The corruption is endemic and needs to be addressed by someone. We had an exchange student stay with us last year so we have been exposed to more truth than we wished for. We are told that the family of law enforcement people, including their children, carry cards that prevent them from being arrested by other police officials. Knowing that their family members and the family members of their friends are immune from the "system," the local police are free to be much harder on everyone than they would be if those they loved were subject to the same treatment. There is a deep unfairness in only certain people in a community being held accountable for their actions. Giving preferential treatment to some is, in my mind, simply un-American. When we recite the Pledge of Allegiance, no one says that they believe in "Liberty and Justice for Some."
In the County where I grew up, public officials served the public. When they went to work they were told not to park near the entrance of the building, that was for the public. In Brevard, 60 year old women report to jury duty having to walk, sometimes in bad weather, blocks to the Courthouse. Most of the near parking is reserved for the "public" officials. Can you imagine any private business reserving the best parking for the employees? Tellers at the banks and cashiers at the grocery stores are told to park away from the building to allow the public the best parking spots. Since when does "public service" allow perks that demean and inconvenience the public?
The culture of arrogance is so engrained in the system of Brevard that it has become an accepted practice to allow those elected to "serve" to think that they are entitled to view themselves as superior to the citizens that they are supposed to be serving. That became clear to me when we went to football games and found the best student parking spaces marked as "reserved" for the Senior Class President and for other elected student body representatives. It is no wonder that so many public service employees in Brevard thinks it a "right" to inconvenience the public that must go to the City or Court offices a couple of times each year so that the government employee can avoid walking in the rain.
There are things I find troubling about other places where we have or had homes but sometimes I am simply appalled at what happens in Brevard.
Why do we have property in Brevard? Partly because you cannot know these things about a place before you buy property. There are not many bloggers writing about local issues and the information we were able to gather about Brevard came mostly from local Realtors and promoters of the community. Brevard is a place of waterfalls and majestic mountains, the physical features were a huge attraction to us. Hopefully, those thinking about moving to the area in the future will find my blog or the local officials will find it and make needed change.
I hate to write negative things about any community, most often I write about the good side of life in the United States and that is what I enjoy writing about. Brevard has much good to expose in these writings and in my next blog about the town I'll focus on those things that made us want to retire to Brevard in the first place.
