It’s city vs. county for the 72nd time
Like all the “Friday the 13th” movie sequels which never seem to end, Friday morning gave us another installment of McMinnville going toe-to-toe against Warren County government. As far as naming rights are concerned, let’s call this latest version “City vs. County, Part 72.”
As reported in the front-page story in today’s edition, the latest controversy is because a McMinnville officer placed parking tickets on three county patrol cars. Sure the tickets are for a mere $5, but it’s the principle that counts.
On the surface, it appears McMinnville officials are simply trying to pick a fight. When digging deeper and hearing from all sides involved, that’s exactly what happened.
What makes this spat different than ones before is it comes at a time when McMinnville and Warren County officials are actually making an effort to try and get along. This is in stark contrast to the times when city and county didn’t like one another and didn’t care to let everyone know it.
But now city and county officials are putting on happy faces. They are making statements along these lines: “We can’t help what happened in the past. All we can worry about is what happens now, and that’s to have the city and county working together as a team, as one well-oiled machine.”
That well-oiled machine must be in the shop for repairs. Handing out tickets isn’t exactly the type of behavior that indicates friendly relations.
Yet the behavior is not at all surprising. After all, it’s been at least three or four months since the last full-blown city/county argument, which ironically involved courthouse ownership and courthouse parking.
The agreement which was finally reached is the county owns the courthouse itself and is responsible for courthouse maintenance. The city owns everything else, including the courthouse parking lot.
That argument settled, it didn’t take long for the city to flex its ownership muscles and to begin ticketing county patrol cars. What makes matters worse is the deputies driving those vehicles were on official business inside the courthouse.
By now it is almost redundant for the Standard to make a plea for the city and county to get along. We’ve been singing that song for so many decades, we are even tired of hearing it.
Probably the most unfortunate aspect of the whole debacle is it could have likely been avoided with one simple phone call. McMinnville Police Chief Joe Melton could have called Sheriff Jackie Matheny and told him it would no longer be tolerated for his deputies to park in those locations.
While that does appear to be an extreme request – especially for deputies who are loading or unloading jail inmates – the two sides could have hopefully worked toward an acceptable agreement. The way events unfolded Friday morning, tickets were handed out first and explanations were provided later.
Now the county is saying it will not pay the parking tickets. The city’s response has been pay the tickets or we will see you in court. Please children, can’t we all get along?