This is Viewpoints for Sunday, April 1, 2018

Don't blame Kroger

When Kroger built it's store on Pio Nono Avenue, it did so in good faith to support the demographics of that area at that time, but times have changed. Continued urban flight has resulted in further urban blight and the remaining demographic does not have the disposable earned income to support an “upscale” grocer like Kroger. In other words, Georgia SNAP can't keep that Kroger solvent, and folks like C. Jack Ellis and his unofficial constituency would be better served by soliciting Walmart Neighborhood or Dollar General Grocery to fill the void and save their protestations for Macon-Bibb Urban Planners who continue to allow the urban center to fall into decay while allowing for further expansion and rezoning of prime agricultural and residential areas to the west.

That is, true Urban Planning should include a moratorium on abandonment of the urban core by insisting on and incentivizing retail and residential developers to locate in those areas, as well as providing the police protection and quality school system to sustain it. And listen up ... Warner Robins, you could do with a dose of that advice, too.

Before and after

With all the noise about the proposed OLOST, which our leaders tell us will result in a rollback of property taxes, I decided to look at my property taxes before and after consolidation. The results were interesting and informative. These numbers, on a house within the old city limits, have been normalized to a levy of $1,000 in 2013 - that is, if you paid exactly $1,000 in 2013, your tax bills for the next four years would have been as follows: 2013/ $1,000; 2014/ $942 ;2015/ $754; 2016/ $800, and 2017/ $866.

Note that your 2015 levy was just $4 over the aimed for 25 percent reduction mandated by consolidation. Way to go, Macon-Bibb.

But wait ... last year your taxes were 15 percent more than the low year of 2015, and if the trend continues, you'll be back to the 2013 level ($1,000) in 2019. The OLOST would not even get you back to 2015 levels and you would be paying California level sales taxes. I think it's time for some new, competent leadership.

Satire

I saw a letter to the editor recently with the title of “The Case for Trump.” I did not read it, knowing it must have been satire.

Misunderstanding amendment

There is a common misunderstanding about the Second Amendment that needs to be cleared up. The Second Amendment states: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The Second Amendment does indeed protect the right of one to keep and bear arms. However, it does NOT protect one's right to purchase or build a firearm. If the federal government decided it wanted to ban the sale and manufacture of a particular model of firearm, it would be within its constitutional right to do so.

Egg-drop lunacy

Well, I hoped that someone else would have called out the sheer lunacy of dropping X000 Easter Eggs out of a helicopter. There are so many things wrong with this activity, I do not know where to start. Let’s state three:

(1) The pilot was very young in this cockpit – age 26 is not classified as a “seasoned” veteran (2) It is known that flying a helicopter is fairly difficult – requiring most, if not all, of your undivided attention, and (3) The proximity to many children in the area, perhaps even under the helicopter. A helicopter that loses flight ability rotors down, and the blades just keep on turning – tragedy averted.

To the well intentioned event planners – how about an affordable, safer way to conduct an Easter egg hunt next year. Helicopter delivery is certainly not what the kids expected…they wanted to hunt and find. Besides the expense alone of helicopter delivery makes one wonder about who paid for this, and how much.

Right to have a gun

Today there is talk about taking the Second Amendment from the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson said the right to have a gun was necessary. Why? He said the people needed to protect themselves from the government. Look what happened in Germany in the 1930’s. Now we have a greater number of bad people. If all guns were taken from the people the government would have complete control over everyone. Who could complain against a government that had the only guns? By the way when I lived in Chicago, several of my friends made homemade guns. Zip guns as they were called. If bullets were not available they made black powder and it worked. Of course they were just playing, but a few gang members were known to fight with Zip guns. Now guns are sold on the black market every day and used too often. God help us!

Base Parking 2

I too have worked on base for many years, I can see that Mr. Duckworth evidently is retired from the base; he is not in the global email listing anymore. The parking situation on base has gotten worse in the last few years. I am not disputing the advantages of working on base. There are many that I can agree with. But what Mr. Duckworth fails to understand is the parking situation is terrible. Building 905 is the base library parking lot, which is a long way from the work area for most of us. As for buildings 300 and 301, go to lunch or leave for a doctor’s appointment (and) you will end up parking a great distance from your work area.

Whining is not the intention of my original letter rather (than) to let the leadership at Robins know that we workers want action. If I am not the first to bring this topic up, it must be a problem. Many of the spots are too small. With all the big SUV’s and trucks you can barely get out of your car when your park. As for exercise, I found that statement really funny. I don’t expect to park next to the door of my work center, but I sure don’t want to walk clear across the base after parking. Get serious. There is a real problem

This story was originally published March 31, 2018 at 3:47 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Sunday, April 1, 2018."