If you live in the Stratford subdivision in Evans, or know some of the residents who do, you’ve seen a touch of the angst (and anger) over the reported thefts by a former treasurer of more than a quarter-million dollars from the community association’s coffers.

Likewise, you might have seen how many residents in that community lashed out at the association’s board members for apparently failing to notice the funds being pilfered until nearly five years had passed.

It is entirely by coincidence that the Columbia County Board of Education opens discussion of its gloom-and-doom budget options for next year during national Teacher Appreciation Week.

On a week in which educators are celebrated, far too many of them are feeling threatened by ever-tightening budgets and increasingly bureaucratic demands that have little or nothing to do with teaching children.

Columbia County’s school calendar lists the first full week in April as “spring break,” but it really should be labeled Masters Week.

That became evident when school board members voted Tuesday to give students and staffers an additional day off.

The rationale is that, as the Masters continues to grow as the areas’s most powerful tourist draw, its affect on Columbia County is increasing – with students and adults working either at the tournament or in hospitality related temporary positions, or with residents renting their homes to visitors.

One of the problems of government intervention in the free market is that it can artificially limit supply, skewing the balance of supply and demand.

If you want proof, just go to the ammunition aisle of, say, Academy Sports. Those empty shelves are courtesy of a belief that the feds are going to take away guns and limit ammunition. Just that fear has been enough to induce hoarding, like homeowners stocking up on milk and bread at the threat of bad weather.