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Wednesday, Jun. 03, 2009

SPEAK OUT

If you build it...

I read with interest last week’s SpeakOut caller who thinks it is a waste of taxpayer dollars for the county to build sidewalks in parts of the county which don’t appear to him to have a large enough population to warrant them. That’s pretty shortsighted if you ask me.

There are two kinds of places in Houston County: Those where there are people and those where there soon will be.

It makes perfectly good sense to me that sidewalks and other amenities be located in sparsely populated areas of the county. If there is not a need for them right now, there soon will be.

Sidewalks a plus

I got news for the person who wants to take away my sidewalk. He needs to get a life.

What he doesn’t understand is that we had to wait several years to get sidewalks in our area, and they have found all sorts of uses. Grown-ups use them for walking for exercise, and the younger ones go to school on them.

Critics of things like public sidewalks must be looking pretty hard to find something to complain about.

County planning wisely

You know what; it doesn’t bother me even a little bit if the county gets a little ahead of itself and puts sidewalks in places where there may be few houses or people. I have lived here for a long time, and can remember when there was hardly any planning at all. Now, commissioners are obviously making decisions with an eye toward the future.

Sooner or later, there will be people to use these sidewalks, and it will be in everyone’s best interest for them to already be in place.

Hospital planning

I live with my family in Byron, and we have been following the stories about our Peach County hospital situation in The Telegraph and the Sun News very closely. That’s only natural, given my husband’s frail health and the fact that we have three children we will be looking after for several more years.

We’ve listened to the politicians and the local hospital officials, and they just aren’t making any sense when they talk health care. They have this pie-in-the-sky-notion that they will come up with $20 million or so to build a new hospital in Byron, but even if they do that it seems foolish.

What can they do with $20 million that will in any way compare with the Medical Center in Macon or the Houston Medical Center in Warner Robins? Do our Peach County officials really think that when someone in my family gets sick I’m going to take them to a Byron glorified clinic instead of to Warner Robins or Macon? Of course not, and neither will other responsible parents or spouses.

Our politicians need to rethink this whole business.

Double standards

I am already sick of Barack Obama, and that’s saying a lot. It took me right around 200 days before I got completely fed up with George W. Bush when he was president.

I am worn out by his insincerity and inconsistency if nothing else. He wears a frown and tries to humiliate the executives of the car companies when they fly to Washington meetings in private jets. Then he and his wife and several staff members fly on private jets to New York so the Obamas can take in a Broadway play.

Another example? He tells business executives to stay away from Las Vegas but shows up himself in NYC for a night on the town with the wife.

Sorry, he just doesn’t cut it when it comes to showing leadership.

John and Kate and eight

Early last week, the big news was President Obama’s Supreme Court appointment. That, to me, is big news anytime, but especially since it was his very first appointment to the big court.

Well, I thought it would have been the big news story. But you know what the big story on the TV networks was? “John and Kate Plus 8” and whether the mommy and daddy are headed for divorce court.

We’ve really got our priorities in order, don’t we?

Meet the gangs

We took our two teenagers to a gang awareness workshop put on by the Houston County District Attorney’s Office last week, and it was an eye opener.

I may be just a part-time observer. but it doesn’t take much to realize there’s gang stuff going on right here.

I mean, you don’t have to look to places like Atlanta or Chicago or Los Angeles to see it.

Just open your eyes. There’s what we were told was gang type graffiti written on the sides of big tractor trailers and buildings and bridges all over the county, and you can see people every day who wear the colors and fashions of two or three different gangs.

You think you are safe and your kids are safe? Don’t be so sure, and by all means, find out what’s going on with local gangs.

Decision time is coming

Aren’t Warner Robins city elections supposed to be held sometime this year? Seems to me that it sure has been quiet so far.

I am real eager to find out if anybody plans to run for mayor against Donald Walker or if he plans to run again, for that matter.

(Cranshaw comments: Walker intends to run. He has made that very clear. Prospective challengers are apparently undecided still. Al least, they haven’t said anything for the record. However, official candidate qualifying is only weeks away, and then we’ll all know what’s what.)

Time’s wastin’

I really hate to keep harping on this, but when can we expect to have something done about the weather-alert system in the county? Another Mothers Day has come and gone, and hurricane season starts next week. Am I being unreasonable, or are there other people out there who think we are living dangerously if we are living without a storm warning system?

Frankly, I was very surprised when I read a story in the Telegraph a week or so ago and read where (County Commission Chairman) Ned Sanders said that only a week before he was asked if a consulting firm had been hired to come up with recommendations and an evaluation of the county’s plan. I would have thought the experts would have been reviewing our plan for a lot longer than that.