INVESTIGATE, BUT DON'T JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS ON BRANSON WOES

Branson has received its share of widespread and positive publicity in recent years, and it has been richly deserved. As addictive as such praise is, however, the current wave of negative stories concerning the alleged disregard of building codes in this Missouri boom town must sting a bit. Until all evidence is in, we would caution against believing unsafe buildings abound in Branson. Still, the situation there points out the difficulty municipalities face in those rare cases when events don't allow for orderly growth.

At issue in Branson are claims, specifically those made by the Missouri Board of Architects, Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors, that city officials put tourists at risk by neglecting to enforce building codes. For their part, Branson officials say buildings in their community are safe, but they are willing to sanction a third-party examination of the suspect structures in order to resolve the matter. Meanwhile, the governor has been asked to appoint a task force to look into these safety issues.

Five million people visit Branson annually, creating a $1 billion-a-year tourism industry. Thus, the temptation certainly exists to wink at a code violation here and there in order to take advantage of the phenomenon of this unlikely entertainment mecca. (Since 1990, more than 500 theaters, restaurants, lodging facilities and other commercial structures have been built in response to the demands of the blossoming economy.) But, it is hard to believe that Branson officials, while perhaps overwhelmed by the growth, lacked the foresight to comprehend long-range problems implicit in allowing shoddy buildings to go into place. In the long run, nothing wrecks tourism faster than visitors recognizing they are unsafe. (Ask the tourism officials in gun-ridden Florida if this isn't true.)

Perhaps all this is just in the nature of extraordinary growth, where changes come so quickly that the fundamental things (like safe construction) can't be kept up with. By coincidence, just up the road from Branson in Springfield, it was explosive growth at Southwest Missouri State University that led to a scandal involving huge cost overruns in the construction of a campus building. Officials at the school became so enamored by the runaway success of the institution that they failed to exercise proper oversight on the pursestrings. A university president was brought down because of this failure.

The phrase "unsafe buildings" is an attention-getter and likely misplaced where Branson is concerned. The gap between "unsafe" and "not up to code" is indeed broad, and no one should steer clear of Branson out of fear a structure may collapse atop them. Still, if short cuts were taken in matters that involve public safety, the circumstances should be investigated and things should be put right. Few should welcome this more than officials in Branson. If haste did get the best of them, now is the time to make the necessary amends.