Letter Submitted To Editor Dear Editor, Now that the City’s crass denial of water to Wal-Mart for a super-center out Highway 70 West and a neighborhood market down Highway 7 South is front-page news, I see a tsunamic upsurge in angry feelings against the City. People are smart enough to recognize when they are being played and manipulated. This is not about lack of water at all. Rather, it is about promoting the City’s DeGray Water boondoggle and, simultaneously, forcing Wal-Mart and other businesses to build in the City where County residents may have the pleasure of shopping and paying City taxes. It’s all about MONEY! Isn’t it always where the City is concerned? Isn’t it always that the bullying City divides, never unifies? Always attacks County residents, never acts in our interests, never seeks to bring us together, thinks only of its own greed? City Manager David Watkins did not learn his propaganda lesson well from Goebbels. This little shenanigan of asinine arrogance and chutzpah is gonna blow sky high in the Citys face, leading to visceral disgust in the County and a throw-the-scoundrels-out consensus in the City. If you think the City has gone too far and is mis-treating its own taxpayers and County residents alike, I have two suggestions for you: (1) IF no one is doing so (and even if you are a County resident), try to recruit one good candidate for each open City position (this year and in the future). Then make all current officials take a stand on and try to justify the Citys bumbling on the water, annexation, downtown, and other issues; (2) Join the citizen effort to stop the DeGray Water Project by signing the initiated petition to put the matter to City voters in the November general election. You can sign a petition and pick up one of your own to circulate each day at tables outside the Courthouse and public library. Finally, I repeat what I said at a recent public meeting: The City needs an attitude adjustment. ONLY brute force via mobilized citizenry anger can bring this about. Absent such a public humiliation and rebuke leading to a change of attitude, the City is doomed. Sadly, the City may very well take a divided County down with it. Folks, our community stands at a crossroads. The water issue, if properly utilized, can be a POWERFUL lever for attitude adjustment and comprehensive change. Our issue is just. The cause is hot. The City has bungled big-time. Take advantage of the unforced error to effect substantive change. The time to strike and force a new and unified direction for both the City and County is NOW! Cliff Jackson Hot Springs
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 20:06:12 +0000