Heard around the water fountain from the town pessimist:
“Yeah, I know. A quarter-of-a-cent sales tax is nothing. Nobody would feel it. That’s only a quarter on a hundred bucks. Close to zero as you can get and still call it a tax. But what if ….”
And then Mr. P. showed his true colors and let fly: “What if the hospital doesn’t make money? What if the city changes its mind and doesn’t provide its share? What if the government changes the critical access law . . . what if, what if, what if.
“Then we’d really be in a pickle, wouldn’t we?” And with that killer statement, he slunk away, lowering under his dark cloud.
EVERYONE who fights against worthy civic projects plays the what-if game. It’s the easiest way to sow doubt, to raise fears about the future. And it’s fail-safe — no one’s crystal ball is perfect. These arguments can’t be refuted because nobody can foresee the future. It would, indeed, create problems if any of these what-ifs came to pass.
But isn’t it a wonder that folks like our town pessimist ever get out of bed in the morning? Think of all the what-ifs that could befall them. Shouldn’t they just crawl into a hole and pull it in after them?
All of us — every businessman, every community, every family, each and everyone, must face every day with the expectation that things will go as they did the day before and more or less according to plan.
The consultants hired by the county to determine the need for a new Allen County Hospital and, having done so convincingly, how to finance it, showed how it can be done from four sources of income: federal subsidies based on the use Medi-care patients made of the hospital; the profits the hospital is making, which should increase when a modern facility is in operation; a share of the city’s capital outlay tax income (which has been pledged by honorable men) and revenue from a countywide quarter-of-a-cent sales tax.
All reasonable assumptions; but all assumptions that could be what-ifed to death. (What if Walmart disappeared in a sinkhole the day after the hospital opened? Whadda ya say to that, huh, whadda ya say?)
OK, enough of this.
The best response to the pessimists’ what-if game is to play it right back to them.
What if the hospital vote fails on Nov. 2 and every effort to hold a new election falls short and the hospital falls into sharp decline? The answer to that question can be given with great certainty: Iola and the rest of the area would fall into sharp decline right along with it. No crystal ball required.
What happens to a community when its school closes? Take a look at Mildred or let your mind’s eye roam over the other ghost towns you know and pass through from time to time. What a school is to a small community, a good hospital is to a town of Iola’s size.
This is the what-if game Allen County voters should play with themselves when they think about the hospital vote. What if the vote should fail? Don’t even think about it is the only honest answer.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
