The Fairness Doctrine

What a week.

Starting with last week’s county/city workshop during which a BP contractor stood up and pronounced that 100 percent of the 1,000 workers in the county responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil leak hailed from “North Florida.”

The question had been how many were from Gulf County, but it was evident in the number of times that “North Florida” was repeated that regions probably become pretty homogenous when dealing with a catastrophe of this magnitude.

However, the question and more pointedly the answer provided grist for the ensuing days.

This is a county, after all, experiencing 12 percent unemployment when the explosion and leak occurred back in late April and since British Petroleum has arrived as recovery response the money has flowed.

But fairly?

There is plenty of confusion, anger and bruised feelings about what has occurred with the hiring of workers on the beach crews, through the Vessels of Opportunity and other programs BP has established.

The confusion seems almost natural since a BP representative, two actually who spoke during the workshop, does not glean the difference between Gulf County and North Florida.

The fact is BP can’t or chooses not to provide the information about the number of workers from North Florida.

This newspaper has made repeated inquiries along the same lines but has yet to receive a definitive answer from BP in what is clearly a very fluid situation.

Any statement that the beach crews are from Gulf County is laughable by a simple review of license plates of vehicles parked at the staging area at Raffield Fisheries and under the Highland View Bridge last week.

There were license plates from Georgia, Alabama, Illinois, Ohio, Louisiana and Michigan. Plates from surrounding counties such as Jackson, Washington and Bay were also prevalent.

The number of Gulf County plates – not so many. Yes, there are those ubiquitous “Sunshine State” plates, but Gulf County plates were very few in number.

But all we have is anecdotal because BP can not provide answers to basic questions about the hiring practices of its contractors.

So we are left with the disheartened and frustrated individuals who contact this newspaper for any information, any guidance.

They have been through the required courses, received their contract or employment number and pledges from BP and the Gulf Coast Workforce Board that they were high priority hires, yet they remain out of work.

This while beach workers comb clean beaches.

And the ranks of those crews swell with business owners with operating, thriving businesses or an elected officials or a roster of employees from companies doing business with the county.

There are the boat captains from Port St. Joe and Mexico Beach who have undergone the Vessels of Opportunity course, received contract numbers and have yet to receive a day of work, while others, including another county commissioner, have found high-paying jobs by way of the same route.

Among them are men who have worked St. Joseph’s Bay and offshore for years, who were called in to assist the county with booming plans due to their expertise of the bay – yet, they remain out of work.

There is also a food co-op feeding the mass of workers, providing restaurants with precious business. Yet, this co-op apparently ends at the county line though county commissioners demonstrate no such parameters when awarding county contracts for courthouse repairs, work on the consolidation site and advertising.

The anecdotal evidence is not encouraging for any sense of community.

There is plenty to be frightened about with this oil spill.

Our way of life, the future of St. Joseph’s Bay and key components to the county’s economy – tourism and beach property – figure to be negatively impacted when the oil arrives; heck they’ve been impacted prior to the presence of any oil.

And there was already real suffering before this oil spill.

The lack of economic development, the loss of jobs the past few years, the loss in property values, the rise in unemployment to percentages not seen since the paper mill shuttered permanently already had formed a storm cloud.

So when a company comes to town and suddenly money flows in a variety of directions with few strings and little questions, human nature dictates a rush for the piece of the pie. It’s natural, no one begrudges that.

But when a beach crew can include the owner of a currently operating business but not a man who needs to feed his family of four, there are questions about fairness and true community.

When some of the most well-known boat captains in the area can’t get work despite undergoing the Vessels of Opportunity program but a county commissioner can come aboard, something is fundamentally wrong.

The Vessels of Opportunity program, the Hazmat courses, they were intended to be aimed at those most in need, the unemployed, those in need of a paycheck just to keep food on the table and a roof overhead.

Those folks were to be the first, but it seems likely that in too many cases they were the ones pushed back in the line while many with paychecks, influence and friends in the right places cut to the front.

But in the end we are all in this oil leak and its consequences together and a sense of community must win out or like so much marine life we are doomed as a county.

In the end nobody wins, unless everybody wins.

And right now there are too many people who feel they’re on the losing end of the equation.