Surry County, Where Less Is More

If you watched 20/20 tonight you already know the debate was whether more money to public schools better educates and prepares children. According to reporter John Stossels and his guests, an increase in funds rarely increases knowledge and in fact, often hinders it. When parents are allowed to choose a school system based on its success rate, schools underneath that successful rate will rise to the occasion or risk closing. Makes perfect sense to me.

The scream for more money is often the hollow excuse when someone needs a reason to deflect attention from their inability to do a job well.

You can see where this is going, can't you.

More isn't always better. Sometimes more is just, well, more.

And when government is in the business of handling your personal documents, the amount of money involved has absolutely nothing to do with how well you're cared for.

Meet Carolyn Comer, Register of Deeds in Surry County, NC. Mrs Comer states her county records will be on the internet when she has the permission of each and every citizen of Surry County.

You must be thinking Surry County is a tiny, rural county with low population and backwater ways. On the contrary. Surry County is by no means the largest area in NC, but certainly isn't the smallest, and if backwater means common sense, they have it in spades.

Thanks to millions of dollars worth of technology in the highly intellectual counties of Durham, Wake, and others, anyone in the world can look online and see where you live, when you moved there, how much you paid for it, the tax value, see a photo, and swipe a copy of your signature while they're at it. Same with pseudo-sophisticated Mecklenburg County just down the road in NC, where Commissioner Chairman Parks Helms said he would have to "think long and hard" before exempting even police officers' home addresses from online publishing. (Apparently he's still thinking.)

Not so in Surry County, NC, The Home of Efficient Government. I just gave them that motto but it fits well. Here are a couple of others.

Surry County, Real Time Government in a High Tech World, who avoids high-tech crime by avoiding fast-talking software salesmen and data brokers.

Surry, The Home of Campaign Promises Kept, where, years ago, Registrar Carolyn Comer stated in her Board of Elections bio: "My top priority is just trying to be a good register of deeds and custodian of our records, safeguarding our records".

Or this one; Surry County, The Good Neighbor Place To Live, since employees in Carolyn Comer's office are instructed to look for sensitive information and then call each and every resident affected to alert them and see if they want it blacked out -- even though the records remain inside the courthouse.

Mecklenburg and Orange and Cabarrus and Rowan Counties can all boast of their World Class status and proactive governmental planning, but you have to ask yourself one big question: Where would you prefer to live?

This is generally where I wind things up and remind everyone to get in touch if they fear their personal information is in danger due to online county websites. But if you live in Surry County, don't write. You have nothing to fear. Carolyn Comer's got your back.

Any other resident in the US may want to get in touch by sending a note to FindMyID@mindspring.com so I can check your records, free of charge. I'll let you know what's online and how you can redact it. If, that is, your county has purchased that shiny, new, expensive redaction software.

www.FindMyID.com