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July 10
I’d like to know what’s going on in this county. It seems that once people get hired or elected they forget the people in the county exist. I tried to get in touch with my county supervisor; I called repeatedly with no success. I went to talk with the highway and flood plain department and they said they couldn’t talk to me; I had to go home and write them a letter. I wrote the letter two months ago; no response. Do they tell their people they don’t have to call people back? If they believe that, why don’t they tell the public they don’t have to respond to us? You guys think you’re in Washington, D.C., and you don’t have to listen to us. The county supervisors are paid to take care of us. I think you’re all overpaid. Why don’t you take care of us?
I read the letter, “Americans should be ashamed of health care,” by Pat Mencke. I believe she is well-intentioned. However, I’d like to ask her this question. Have you ever visited any Third World countries? If you haven’t, you haven’t missed anything as far as health care is concerned. If you do visit, you will find that our health care is a paradise in comparison to theirs. If you are using Europe as a model to follow, you will find that every country there that practices socialized medicine is financially in the red with their health care systems. Why? Birth control! Europeans just haven’t had enough babies to supply the needed workers to support their socialized health systems today. The principle of cause and effect! As a result, Europeans are reducing their health services and people are forced to buy private plans if they want good service. We are going to have a similar problem with our Social Security system in the near future. Not enough workers to support it. Think about it some more, Mrs. Mencke. Our health care may not be perfect but it isn’t as bad as you think.
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Gary Fry’s letter, “Most of us are complicit in hiring of illegals”, represents one point of view. I remind Fry that tens of thousands of Arizona citizens voted referendums into law that incorporate the same intent of House Bill 2779. We are trying to resolve a gigantic mess. We have not been complicit; it is the employers who have been complicit and unlawful. Yes, the price of strawberries may go up, but we will make it up easily through an elimination of tax money paid for social services, health care and education for illegals. I ask this question: If you yourself came to Sierra Vista needing a job and found none, would you stay? I doubt it. As House Bill 2779 catches on with other states, and it will, illegals will find fewer available jobs. Proof of legal entry will become mandatory for social services. There will be little attraction or reason to stay here. Given human nature, the vast majority will migrate back to their home countries just as fast as they came here illegally. Then we can talk sensibly about developing a guest worker program. Hardnosed? Perhaps, but absolutely necessary.
What Cochise County needs is a Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Our own sheriff apparently is incapable or unwilling to arrest those parties allegedly involved in the July Fourth arson along Highway 92. Even with descriptions and a partial plate number, rumor has it that unless they come in and confess, nothing is going to be done. If you do the crime, come to Cochise County and you won’t do the time. More examples of this leniency is never more apparent than those individuals involved in the stoning of the fire truck responding to an emergency. Those individuals were released on their own recognizance before the ink was dry on the police reports. Judges who are not real. Judges deciding cases and releasing suspects back out on the public to offend again. Where is the hanging Judge Roy Bean?
Sierra Vista has a mayor and City Council without vision. They are responsible for promoting the present chief of police to his position. Twenty-seven years on the force and not one new idea. Crime has soared under his watch. Gang activity, shootings, drugs and tagging is out of control. Can the average citizen use Veterans’ Memorial Park after dark with all the criminal activity unabated going on in there? City buses can not even go down Fry Boulevard because the driver thinks it is unsafe. Lastly it is time to get a new city manager. Eighty-eight million dollar budget for a town this size is disgusting. We have no services to speak of. Nothing for teenagers to do. City cars everywhere, being used for personal business or just parked behind the city offices. What other employer offers a car for its personnel? There is too much development being approved for an area that has questions on the amount of water available. We need to wake up and pay attention to what our fearless leaders are doing. This money comes from the citizens of Sierra Vista by fees, higher taxes, property and sales ad nauseam. It costs more to live in Sierra Vista than any other city in Arizona and what you are getting is a total lack of accountability. From the looks of things all the citizens can do here is complain about Gabrielle Giffords and the base. If the base closes all you will have is a ghost town and devalued property.
So what’s up with the tent city located north of the old riding club across from Wal-Mart? They must be future mega Wal-Mart greeters getting in practice by standing at strategic intersections begging for handouts. How convenient to be located so close to their place of employment. This eyesore visible from the bypass couldn’t be a homeless camp because our public officials wouldn’t allow that.
I am a resident of the Seminole Winds neighborhood in Huachuca City. In 2000 the citizens of the neighborhood signed a petition requesting that street lights not be installed along the Buffalo Drive street. This petition was presented to the mayor and, up until now, honored. It now appears some street lights have been installed, and apparently more are planned. To the person who indicated they would desire lights to help out with the illegal entry problem. If thousands of Border Patrol agents with sophisticated electronic equipment can’t stop them, I doubt if a few street lights will deter them. As for the street lights being free, someone has to pay for the electricity, and I am sure it will be us citizens via taxes. One last note, I was unaware this was project was occurring until I saw the large, bright light to the Northwest glowing from another adjacent street.
July 11
Why does the local radio station have people who cannot do a broadcast with interest to everyone? I don’t think the public wants to know that your dog eats poop or that your best friend’s dog eats poop. And to the people who call in about smokers and Spanish signs and the like: Get a life.
I read an article today regarding the employees at the local hospital taking smoke breaks outside and then coming in reeking of second hand smoke. This brought to mind my June 1952 experience at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital. Many lawsuits were being decided at this time concerning lung cancer causes. Two patients on my ward died during my second week. The doctor on the ward said the cause of death was lung cancer. It’s hard to feel sorry for those people still stupid enough to be smoking.
What is the problem with making a decision to use coal in a new power plant in Bowie? I’ve lived in Arizona almost 11 years and I don’t remember ever hearing complaints against a coal burning power plant in south Tucson. They must have a stack gas scrubber. I worked at Getty Refinery in Delaware in the 1970s. Getty had been polluting the air for almost 20 years. They sent someone out west to investigate a plant having a stack gas scrubber. A scrubber was then built at Getty Refinery. I retired in 1988 and up to then they never had another problem. Coal is plentiful. Obviously the oil industry is behind the delay in reaching this decision.
I absolutely want to congratulate and compliment the individual from Country Club Estates for taking action over the problem with rats in his area and calling all his neighbors to arms to clean up all the trash, set traps, poison, etc., to try to get rid of the problem. I wish Bisbee citizens as well as the city of Bisbee would have the same initiative. Many of those homes have rats the size of javelinas, not to mention snakes, and everything else conceivable. Many individual homes that have trash or junkyards I have been complaining about for years. I wish the city of Bisbee would have the same initiative.
July 12
I just read your article concerning the military buying up land easements around Libby Airfield and the other airfield. Wonderful news. It’s about time it was protected, to protect the fort and keep it out of the hands of Huachuca City. My goodness, they can’t even take care of what they’ve got, let alone buy more property or annex more property. It’s wonderful. By the way, why is Camp Newell owned by Huachuca City? I didn’t think you could have a piece of property island owned by a town.
I commend the Elks and all the other organizations for helping children to get computers. But who pays the monthly bill for Cox, Qwest, etc.? They’re not cheap by any means.
One day last week in your newspaper I’m sure I read of a Fort Huachuca official in discussing the Main Gate location controversy, say, “I don’t think we need to man the gate 24 hours a day.” Please tell me I misunderstood him. The encyclopedia says, “Fort: a strong or fortified place when occupied by troops and surrounded by defenses.” In these times all our long-term values are diminishing. Has it happened in this area also?
According to the newspaper we are using too much water out of the San Pedro River. I think it’s time, right now, to pull the plug on Castle and Cooke. Surely the mayor and the city council have made enough money to stop worrying about it. Pull the plug on Castle and Cooke and get them out of here. I sure don’t want to lose Fort Huachuca.
Regarding the person who called the Democratic Congress a do-nothing congress. First of all, the democrats won a bare majority in the Senate, and although a bunch in the House, not enough for veto-proof. Besides, please name one meaningful piece of legislation passed by the Republicans who owned all four branches of government for the last six years. (That’s the executive, the legislative, the judicial, and Cheney, who seems to be a governing body unto himself.)
And as for the Democrats being the party of corruption, please tell me you’ve read a magazine or a newspaper in the last six or seven years. Aside from Jefferson in Louisiana, who hasn’t gone to trial yet, the Republicans have full claim to the sleaze department. Get your facts straight. It’s comments from people like you who make this column such an asset to this community.
Hello, is there a government out there? It has been reported in various news media that we have somewhere between 15 and 20 million uninvited persons currently living within these 50 states. Who they are, where they all came from and what they did in their previous countries we do not know. Now some high-ranking government employees say there may be an al-Qaeda cell among us. I begin to feel that our nation’s security is somewhere on a back burner behind the next national election. In the meantime bin Laden, Mullah Omar, Hugo Chavez and his Iranian buddy are planning to kill us and our nation. Do I have to ask Allah to protect us?
July 13
To read the mainstream media and our government about mom and apple pie and the Iraq war, you would think we are fighting the good fight, honorably and well. Check out The Nation and “The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness” (online) and you will find, in the grunts’ own terrible words, how violently and indiscriminately this war has been waged by our soldiers, resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis.
I read today in the newspaper that Pope Benedict, henceforth known as the “Christian divider,” has decided, in essence, to scrap the ecumenical council. Pope John, a great Pope, started the ball rolling many years ago by uniting the two great Christian churches for the first time. My wife and I married in 1950 in a Roman Catholic rectory. The priest told us then we wouldn’t make it five years. Pope John changed the Christian world, making for many years the Catholic Church the greatest deterrent to a Communist world. After this edict by Benedict the Divider, I guess we will have to eventually decide between being Shiite and Sunni. Just kidding, I hope. This has been his program since the year 2000.
I noticed a recent TV report where the Rev. Al Sharpton is undertaking a movement or crusade to do away with what he terms the “F-word”, the “N-word” and the “B-word”. I’m sure this courageous and surprising movement will leave many in the black community speechless.
To the employee(s) of the SVRHC (Sierra Vista Regional Health Center): You chose to work in a medical facility. It is unhealthy to smell like nicotine. Have you heard of second and now, third hand smoke? People are dying of lung cancer who have never smoked but they have lived or been around others who have it in their clothes, hair, car, home, etc. Also, President Bush did not lie about WMDs and Iraq, again, he and Congress went with the information they were given and, yes, it is better to have them fighting over there where terrorists are born and made than here in the USA. And I love On Your Mind. Also, too bad president of (the Sierra Vista) chamber is a Castle and Cooke developer, and most of their board and Herald reporters shop in Tucson and Phoenix, so do not tell population to shop locally.
Is anyone surprised the John McCain presidential bid is going nowhere? The man has become too unpredictable. He further proved that when he and Sen. Ted Kennedy wrote and supported the 2007 “amnesty” bill that they tried to shove through Congress. Now, McCain’s presidential campaign coffers are empty. Perhaps the illegals aren’t contributing as much as his campaign manager thought they would! I doubt he will even be able to retain his Senate seat in years to come. The citizens are speaking, and his ex-POW status can only carry him so far.
July 14
I’m calling in reference to the SVRHC employee complaining about management firing them for smoking. Good. They’re health care workers. They’re supposed to be clean and sanitary. Smoking is unsanitary. Nothing is more maddening than to visit a loved one in a hospital or nursing home and have a doctor, nurse or aide smell like smoke. It’s ridiculous for people in health care to complain they can’t smoke. Maybe when they get lung cancer, they’ll quit complaining.
I’m concerned about all these people who still insist President Bush lied about Saddam having WMDs. Every intelligence service in the free world believed it. Both (former President) Clinton and (Al) Gore believed it. And these people vote. Bush’s problem is that he still doesn’t understand Islam and he thinks Mexico is our friend.
(U.S. Rep. Gabrielle) Giffords released her earmarks funding request on Friday the 13th. And, of course, Bill Hess wrote a long article about it, failing to inform us that only a week earlier she said she would release all the earmarks as they get funded. “Just because I have a neighboring congressman who decides to do something, I don’t necessarily feel pressure to do the same thing.” She was talking about Democratic Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who released his a week ago. Apparently she felt the pressure, and also has learned the ways of Washington. She knows how to flip-flop already.
Arizonan’s plea: O give me a spot, where my dog won’t get hot, on any in town parking lot or even a nearby street, where the shade of a tree is God’s gift (it’s free!) to keep us from dying in heat.
I attended Sierra Vista’s fireworks display this year and thoroughly enjoyed the 36th U.S. Army Band Concert and the fireworks — especially Niagara Falls. Congratulations and a job well done to the Rotary; band; Jim Chambers, who narrated for the band; and all others associated with this spectacular display of patriotism. After living in Washington, D.C., for many years, attending the fireworks on the National Mall, and viewing videos of this year’s fireworks in Nashville, New York and Washington, I have but one suggestion to improve Sierra Vista’s 2008 Fourth of July fireworks display. I think it would be even more awesome if the 36th US Army Band played during the fireworks, featuring music such as “Star Wars”, “Star-Spangled Banner”, “America the Beautiful”, “1812 Overture”, “Stars and Stripes Forever”, etc. What an awesome way to rev up the great American spirit.
July 15
I sure wish somebody would explain to me why the price of gas in Tucson is $2.75 and here it’s $2.92 or higher. It doesn’t cost that much to get a truckload down here. You guys must be making a killing.
EDITOR’S NOTE: According to a recent Associated Press report, Tucson’s gas prices were the cheapest in the nation. Regular gas prices average $3.06 nationwide, according to the July 15 report. At the time of the story, Tucson had a gallon of regular gas costing $2.80. The high was in Chicago at $3.46 a gallon, according to a Lundberg Survey of 7,000 stations nationwide.
If the Democrats are successful in forcing the retreat of our troops from Iraq by withholding funding as they did in Vietnam, it will be a humiliating defeat for our U.S. military because politicians in Washington lost the will to fight. And it will be a gala day for Iran, Syria, al-Qaeda, and Iraqi terrorists who can all claim the stunning victory of defeating the most powerful country in the world. It seems now that one who becomes a member of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate automatically acquires the wisdom of a military general and can dictate military strategy. Even as our trained U.S. generals in Iraq are pleading not to pull out troops right now because it would be catastrophic for both Iraq and the Middle East. “Generals” Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, leaders of the House and Senate Democrats, are calling for an immediate retreat. Here we have a perfect example of the Congress trying to usurp the role of commander-in-chief, although the U.S. Constitution allots that role only to the president of the United States.
Can (Herald/Review columnist) Lee Basnar be that naïve and unaware of Russian history that he could believe “If those over age 50 had their way, Russia would return to communism.” They are more likely to be thankful they were not one of the millions sent to the Soviet Gulag and never lived to see the day of wishing for the return of communism. Basnar probably read the New York Times’ Soviet apologist, Walter Durant, during this murderous period and believed him also, because it was in the New York Times.
Uh, I don’t think 1,000-word obituaries are interesting or necessary. Personally, I couldn’t care less about what road they lived on, whether they were overweight, or what they dreamed about at night. Come on.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Obituaries are submitted and paid for by loved ones in an effort to remember a person. We do not have a length limit on obituaries.
Huachuca City’s Highway 90 is so congested most of the time it is hard to make those left hand turns to go into Sierra Vista. If only the drivers passing through our small community would take the speed limit seriously. Many of them drive through HC going 50-55 mph — maybe faster — and expect us to travel just as fast and even get angry if we go the posted 45 mph limit. Many of us go to Dollar General and other businesses on the opposite side of the highway and in order to do that we have to get on the fast lane ASAP and then just as quickly onto the center left-turn lane. This is reversed going back home. Please keep us residents in mind when going through our town, and slow down to the posted 45 mph speed limit. Please, slow down in our town.
July 16
I see the Herald is once again sponsoring the city golf championship played at Pueblo del Sol Country Club, a private golf course, and Mountain View Golf Course, a public course. Hmmm, let’s see, PDS members can play any time they want at Mountain View and practice for all such events that utilize both courses. Of course, Mountain View golfers, or, for that matter, any other golfers in the county who are willing to pay for the honor, find it very difficult if not impossible to breach the sanctity of the very exclusive PDS for some needed practice. Sounds fair to me.
Ha Ha wrote on Jul 30, 2007 12:06 PM: