Speak Out 08/26/04

Traffic control

I WOULD like to send a huge thank you to the Jackson Police Department for its efforts to help control traffic in the school zones. You did an excellent job. Your efforts aren't going unnoticed, and your hard work is much appreciated. Thank you.

Make all the cuts

I WAS on one of the budget-cutting committees last fall for the Cape Girardeau School District. This is when the board only cut half of what the task force proposed. It seemed to be a situation if you had enough people come to the board meetings and whine, that cut wasn't made. Now the board is going to raise our taxes without making the additional cuts that were proposed. How will the public go about making sure that the cuts that were implemented were really done and not simply ignored once the dust settled?

Skatepark's expenses

I READ Jon Rust's "Fact or Fiction?" answer about the $15,000 spent on the skatepark equipment. Balderdash, I say to his answer that the $14,700 cost of the equipment was justified because it had to be bought from someone approved by an insurance agency. There is nowhere near $15,000 worth of steel, concrete or labor in this skatepark. The Evening Optimist Club might have paid that, but I'm not very optimistic that it got its money's worth.

Go back in time

THERE'S BEEN a lot of talk about changing traffic patterns in downtown Cape Girardeau. I don't understand why the traffic next to the floodwall has to go north to south. I prefer to drive Water Street south to north, because it puts the passengers in my car closer to the wall, and we love going back in time. Either way a person drives, it's chronological. Of course, this would mean that the small stretch of Broadway between Main Street and Water Street would have to be one-way or it would create a nightmare for turning around.

Waterpark isn't needed

THERE'S NO need for a water park in Cape Girardeau. If a water park was a money-making idea, there would be three or four in Cape already. It's an asset for about three months a year. The other nine months it's an eyesore.

Quality of life

WAKE UP, people. You need a balanced diet of carbohydrates, fats and proteins, especially young people. A large portion of the brain is comprised of fat. Thirty percent of each well-developed muscle cell is fat. If you're going to die, why not live before you go? I'm one to value quality of life as well as quantity of life.

Where are the papers?

IT'S NICE to know that our family wasn't the only one stopped by a trooper who took the registration papers for our utility trailer. We were stopped on I-55 and have yet to see our pink slip that we gave the trooper. Would someone please tell us what's going on with this? Several of our friends with utility trailers have been stopped also.

Divide the competitions

I'M CALLING in reference to the Homecomers' talent show in Jackson. It seems like to me they need to have a singing competition and a separate gimmick competition, because it seems the gimmicks always win, not people who can sing and have talent. And have a costume competition too.

Curbs on pets

WHAT A sad state of affairs our great community is in when a group of pet owners is protesting that having a limit of no more than four cats and four dogs is not a good law. The Humane Society should remember that a large body of pet owners do not have the resources to have their pets spayed or neutered. The recently enacted law should stand as it is.

Classic picture

THE PICTURE of 5-year-old Randa Norman is a classic. The expression on her face tells it all. This picture should be picked up by all the newspapers in the United States. She is adorable from the top of her blonde head to the painted nails. I shall keep this picture, and I don't even know her.