The belief is that each one of those institutions keeps the other under control; when one of the estates gains more power, there is a disruption of coexistence.

Here in Newton County, if we are not careful, we are going to have one of the estates assume more control than it needs to have.

In Newton County we have a Chamber of Commerce, which represents the business community.

A few months ago the chamber lost its president. Since then we thought members were actively searching for his replacement.

We published an article in Friday's paper detailing how there has not been much of an effort because the leadership of the chamber has been waiting to see how much more money the city of Covington and the Newton County commissioners were going to commitment.

Such monetary commitments come with strings and both public bodies want a clearer definition of the position's duties and a tighter control on the organization in turn for promising this money.

We think that if the chamber leadership is not careful in compromising, then the chamber will find itself in a position of just being an arm of these local government entities.

We believe strongly that the chamber should be paid well for its services, but not at the cost of losing its independence.

We also are sure that the chamber does not needs to hire a new director and pay him or her $125,000 for his or her services.