Thursday, October 16, 2014 DeWitt Era-Enterprise • dewitt-ee.com
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COMMUNITY NEWS John Thurston Speaks At The Lions Club Meeting By Dawn Teer John Thurston, Commissioner of State Lands, spoke at the DeWitt Lions Club meeting on Tuesday, October 7. Thurston spoke on what the Commission of State Lands does. The main thing they are known for is holding public auctions on lands, which are delinquent on taxes. Thurston did clarify that lands do not go up for sale until after approximately four years. The counties hold them for two years, attempting to collect taxes, and then they are passed on the COSL for two additional years. When they are transferred to COSL, they attempt to contact land owners or their heirs to collect the taxes, they do title work on the property, and when they fail to collect the taxes the land will then go up for auction. Each county holds one public auction once a year to sell these properties. At this time, there are approximately 50,000 properties on the delinquent taxes list. This is twice as many as the previous land commissioner had on his books. There are the same amount
of employees doing the work. In the past, when they would receive the certification on parcels, they would have to manually input the parcels into the computer. They receive approximately 24,000 parcels a year that must be put into the system. Thurston, when he first was elected, decided efficiency must be the key to his office. They are trying to electronically certify parcels but it has been a slow transition. His second year in office they electronically certified three counties, the third year in office they did 15, this year they have done 60. There are 75 counties in Arkansas, but they are happy they have had this many electronically certified. In the past, the only service they offered is the legal description, and the parcel number. You would have to go to the courthouse to get the assessment information, and do legwork researching the property. Now they have the online mapping feature, on their website, you click on the county you are interested in; it will bring up all the parcels available. In addition, in about 55% of
the counties, you can see a Google map image of the property, click on it and it will show you each boundary line on every property in the county. If the property is delinquent it, will have a red balloon and you can click on that and it will bring up all the assessment information on the property. The reason they want this information available to the public is because the excess proceeds, what is over the taxes, penalties, are called excess proceeds, and those dollars will go back to the original owner. If the original owner fails to collect those monies, the excess will go to the county. Around 80% of the monies go back to schools in that county. Last year about 21 million dollars went back to counties. Arkansas County received $115,000 in 2013 from this. Another area the office is responsible for is housing historical documents that date back to the Louisiana Purchase. The previous administrations had worked on cleaning and digitizing them, but they were in various offices and sites around the Capitol. The office ap-
“What Happened In The Garden of Eden” By William Wood Something terrible beyond description happened to God’s lovely couple in the Garden of Eden. God had created Adam a perfect being, he had no sin, and therefore he could Fellowship with his Creator in the cool of the day. Adam was not God, and he knew it, and he desired to have a helpmate so they could worship their Creator together. God, having forseen that this desire would be in Adam, had therefore placed this helpmate in Adam at the time of His Creation. Adam was created at first as a being that was both male and female. In other words Eve was in Adam, but Adam knew her not. And so as Adam’s desire to fellowship with another being, like himself, increased, God saw it and declared, “It is no good that the man should be alone, I will make him a helpmate for him.” Gen. 2:18) God had already created every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, (Gen. 2:19) but for Adam there was not found a helpmate. (Gen. 2:20) It was then that God caused a “deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and He (God) took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof.” “And the rib which God had taken from man made He a woman, and brought her unto the man.” And now life in the Garden of Eden became even more Perfect, as Adam received his helpmate as his constant companion. Adam and Eve, and their Creator, God, were in Perfect Fellowship. But now comes a part of the Bible that some do not seem to understand. God now had a Perfect Pair, in a Perfect Place, who had been placed there by a Perfect God. All of this had been done by God Himself, and it was glorious and wonderful beyond description. But there was something in God’s heart that was not yet satisfied! He had made His two People with a will of their own. He had so far not required anything of them, He had Himself made everything Perfect, including His two Human Beings. But He did not want them to be robots, or puppets on a string, having no say about their life and how they would live it. So He gave them a will of their own, to see if they would, by their own choice, decide to love Him and obey Him. If He had used His Great Power and Might to force their obedience, there would have been no joy, no Glory for Himself, but if He gave them a choice and then they decided to obey Him and follow His rules, He would have that satisfaction of Heart that all men are free moral agents. We must choose to follow our Creator and in this way bring Him Glory and satisfaction of Heart for Himself. God must place before His couple a chance to choose whether or not to obey Him. There was a Tree in the Garden that God had placed there, and gave orders that it was not to be partaken of, nor even touched! (Gen. 3:3) This was the trial of their faith, and both Adam and Eve failed the test. Now we are down to the terrible tragedy in Eden. When Adam purposely disobeyed God something terrible happened to his mind.Where he had once Fellowshipped with God, he now had so lost his spiritual experience that he supposed he could hide from God. (Gen. 3:10) That mindset is still on some people today. They suppose they can continue in their sin, and then hide from God! Or at least they seem to think He will ignore their sin. Either way, dear lost Friend, you are wrong as wrong can be. But it is your choice, God has “Set before Lifes death, Good and Evil, choose ye.” (Deut. 30.19) Choosing time is drawing to a close, have you decided? Amen
plied for, and received, a grant to finish the previous work and display the documents. Thurston told the group, “These documents are priceless. Now they are safeguarded for future generations to enjoy.” “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, but an instrument for the people to restrain the government.” Thurston said, “This is one of my favorite quotes from Patrick Henry, and is very relevant today.” Thurston then opened the floor for questioning from the group. Thurston is running for re-election for Land Commissioner. To learn more about parcels for auction or about the historical documents that are at the Commission’s office go to the website: www.cosl.org.
John Thurston, Commissioner of State Lands