THE LIST: 'We hope we know what is in the piece of candy'

I went out to the kitchen this morning to get a piece of candy. At least the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one, right?

Enough about that. What I took away from the experience is that a malted milk ball, which I love, can look an awful lot like a peanut butter M&M, which I can get at the store anytime and actually doesn’t excite me as much as a malted milk ball does. Malted milk balls seem to be a delicacy reserved for Easter time.

I hope and pray you had a great Easter. For those of us who are Christians, Easter is really where it’s at. The message of the empty tomb is paramount to the hope we have. Without that, we’ve got nothing. I hope you took some time to chew on that this week. There are so many lessons to glean from Holy Week’s events we observe that I could go on and on.

I’m not going to lie that I took some time to chew on some candy as well. Kilee’s parents gave us a nice Easter basket, along with our nephews.

I got to thinking that some things in life are a lot like chocolates. Didn’t Forrest Gump say something about that one time? You never know what you’re gonna get, right?

I sat through the Adair County Board of Supervisors meeting, which was on Tuesday this week. I was most interested in a data center that may be coming to a location southeast of Adair. They’re hoping to build it near a sub-station NextEra Energy put up a few years back along Fallow Avenue.

On so many of these issues in the past, the public can get treated like that box of chocolates or that unsuspecting peanut butter M&M. You don’t know what to expect out of the deal until it’s too late. I hate it when I bite into a piece of chocolate and it’s coconut, for instance. We seem to be learning our lessons on that a little.

A couple of guys who seemed to have their facts straight came and told the supervisors what they’re planning to do. Now, I am sure they’re a considerable way into their project and it’s going to happen, but they at least made an attempt to inform the public ahead of time, in an open meeting, of their plan. I wish they’d do it sooner, but progress is progress. We can then pass what we learned on to our readers.

From the beginning, I felt the whole wind turbine deal probably didn’t go as well as it should have here. We found out too little too late, I felt. I’ve also probably learned my job and role more since then as well and know what to look for in situations like these. We know a little more of what to look for as a county, too.

I’m not against the turbines at all, but my position always has been that we live here to exercise our liberties like we can in rural areas. If people want wind turbines they should be able to have them, but let’s work with those who don’t want them to minimize the impact. I get that it’s hard to do that with over 500 of them, but we seem to be trying. One person this morning said something about there being so such thing as a “non-participant,” and I hear that sentiment loud and clear. Still, I feel when we went through the solar discussion a few years back, we were at least a little more prepared to walk through that together.

While a data center might not be as intrusive and it surely will be an economic benefit for the county, just like wind and solar can be, the process seems it’s becoming more and more streamlined. We hope we know what’s inside the piece of candy. In my opinion, that’s good for all involved.