Published: July 17, 2009 09:19 am      

Timing keys importance to costly decisions

At a time when citizens need help the most, it seems some governmental bodies and businesses have horrible timing.

The art of timing is difficult to master. Just ask Howard Dean, who sputtered through an awkward motivational speech, ending his presidential run, to President Barack Obama, who emerged on the scene as the nation soured toward Republican politics.

Although I may not have mastered the art of timing yet, I learned everything about it from my dad. (What I didn’t learn from him, though, was how to finish a golf match, after I choked away a sure win last week for my partner Ryan and me against my dad and Tim Hartsock. The young Creston natives couldn’t overcome the experience from the older Creston crew.)

My dad spent most of my pre-life and childhood as an official. He umpired Minor League and college baseball, mixed in with high school football, baseball and basketball. When my brothers and I asked questions about officiating, he would always reference the importance of timing.

“You can’t make it too fast, but you can’t be too slow, either,” my dad would say, usually after a botched call in the game we were watching. If you call it too fast, you risk missing an obvious sign that may solidify or negate the call. An official can do nothing worse to lose the trust of the players, coaches and fans, than to change the call quickly after making the original decision.

On the other side, though, a lack of ability comes into question when the official makes their verdict too slow. Sports are fast, allowing a small window for thinking. If an official must analyze each call for seconds at a time, the game has already sped past them.

These subtle techniques led me to scratch my head after reading the area and national news during the past few months. Around the area, we have the City Council and Mayor asking for higher salaries, while Iowa American Water received a temporary 27 percent water rate increase to pass on to its customers. Compound that with a cap and trade bill and health care bill that could cripple a high percentage of small business employees, and it looks like our representatives may have missed the boat on timing.

In a time of unemployment figures expected to top 10 percent this year, it seems disenchanted to ask for raises as a public officeholder. Granted, local representatives have not received a salary increase for 19 years, but I fail to see the logic behind better, more-qualified candidates running for a council seat at $6,000 compared to $3,000.

Many employers are freezing salaries, cutting positions and placing employees on furlough. Maybe in a better economic climate, the public could rally behind raises. But when everything in the financial sector appears to be faltering, the timing could not be any worse by the city officials.

For Iowa American Water, it’s all about funding. I know businesses must adhere to mandates and keep cash flow going, and I suspect the outrageous 68 percent request was to allow for such a high proposal that the Iowa Utilities Board could go only so low, but in this climate, a 27 percent increase on an essential utility such as water is over-the-top.

No one likes an increase, but a proposition made when the economy starts to rebound would have been a much better choice for the proposal.

The federal government, on the other hand, is currently in the process of taking the country from slight right politically to far left in the matter of months. With that shift comes the politically charged arguments of stealing from the rich to give to the poor.

I’m all for energy independence and improving our health care system. But the cap and trade bill is nothing but a tax on everyone, maybe not through income taxes, but through raising energy prices through the roof for low-income families.

Also, to add more than $1 trillion to a budget that just recently hit that number, may be a bit much for health care reform. Also, I’m not sure about the government enhancing its health care authority over private industries.

When numbers creep past 40 million Americans without health insurance, I wonder how many of those citizens could actually afford coverage if prioritized higher on their level of importance.

Do they own televisions, have cable, Internet or a cell phone? Times are tough, but eliminating wants, and replacing with needs (such as health care) could go a long way in the health of our country. Planning like that happens with education.

Citizens should learn about healthy ways to live, and how costly not owning health care could become in the future.

After initiating all these proposals, with foreclosure rates still climbing and the notion the worst may still not be behind us, it looks like some of our representatives need to go back to the drawing board, and learn a little more about good timing.



Scott Levine is the Associate Editor at the Clinton Herald. He can be reached at scottlevine@clintonherald.com.