Published: April 21, 2007 12:12 pm            

4/22/07 Letters to the editor

Commissioner expresses support in ESD election



Dear Editor:



My name is Mark C. Carpenter, county commissioner of Johnson County, Precinct 3. Many Johnson County residents have approached me with questions on the Emergency Service District item that will be on the May 12 election ballot.

I want to express my full support in favor of allowing residents who were taken out of the ESD to be allowed back in. The affected county residents were removed from the ESD without their consent or vote because they also live in the Extra Territorial Jurisdiction of the city of Burleson.

The decision to remove these residents from the ESD was not made by Johnson County, the ESD or even the resident. I personally believe these residents should be allowed back into the ESD they were removed from without a vote. However, state law mandates that a countywide election be held to allow them to be added back to the service area of the ESD that they originally belonged in.

I have personally contacted State Rep. Rob Orr, R-Burleson, on this matter and explained my concern that current laws exist that could and did allow this to happen to a group of Johnson County residents.

Orr has authored a bill to be presented to the Legislature to ensure this type of action cannot occur again.

The availability of fire protection service in a time of need is critical. Your vote is needed to ensure that all Johnson County residents have fire protection in their time of need. I am voting yes to allow these citizens back into the ESD, and I urge you to do the same.

The volunteer fire departments in our county exist with minimal tax support and rely heavily on the financial contributions of the area residents they support. I have been an enthusiastic supporter of the volunteer fire departments in our county for many years and I urge each of you to get involved as well. You can show your support for our first responders to fire by making a contribution to your local volunteer fire department or joining as a member.

And please remember to vote yes on May 12 to allow affected residents back into the ESD.



Mark C. Carpenter

Johnson County

commissioner, Precinct 3





Rabble rousers at it again

Dear Editor:



The rabble rousers — the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson — have roused the rabble, and the roar has silenced the voice and killed the career of someone who said something of which they disapprove. Albeit what the man said was stupid, since it was said by a white man. If a black man had said it, it would have evoked a good laugh, but Sharpton and Jackson are determined to play the race cards. This is what keeps them in power.

Now the Local Crank has mouthed off. He’s as empty headed as those other two. For a few lousy words, Don Ismus’ ranch for kids with cancer, operated at no cost to them, may have to close. The money his program raised for charity is no longer available.

You idiots have your sympathies in the wrong place. Any harm done by Don Ismus is infinitesimal compared to that done by Sharpton and Jackson.

Things said in normal speech do no harm. It is the Hitler-type haranguing of those two that cause problems. Any normal person would have said, “consider the source and forget it.”



Donald Henry

Cleburne





Thanks from Cleburne Lions Club



Dear Editor:



The Cleburne Lions Club wishes to express its gratitude and thanks to the local merchants who donated door prizes distributed during the drawing of tickets for the GMC Sierra pickup at the recent pickup drawing.

This annual event is the club’s main fundraiser for its several charities, including purchasing vision exams and eye glasses for local school children, Texas Lions Camp in Kerrville, Leader Dog School and Lions Clubs International Foundation, among others.

Donations were received from Cleburne Fitness Center, Colonial Savings, Bennett Printing & Office Supply, Mann Farm and Ranch, Sears, Forrest Pontiac Buick GMC, Lone Star Car Wash, Tuttle & Tuttle Trucking, Susannah’s Home Style Cooking, Expert Tire, Pulido’s Mexican Restaurant, Members Credit Union, Buffet City, Golden Corral, Goodyear Tire Center, Albertson’s Food and Drug, Family Nutrition Center, Texas Hair Cutters, Chaf-In Restaurant, Texas State Optical, McDonald’s, Staples, Rick’s Automotive, Cotton Patch Cafe, Walgreen’s, Peterson’s Smokehouse Cafe, Joe’s Pizza & Pasta, Chicken Express, Dugger Brothers, H-E-B Food Stores, Applebee’s Grill & Bar, First Financial Bank, Doc Holliday’s Discount Boots, CiCi’s Pizza, Big Lots, Chili’s Grill & Bar, Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart Pharmacy, Brazos River Boat Storage, Kroger Retail Store, Lemon Sisters Cafe and Bakery, Vacuum West, Compass Bank, Leach Bros. Pit Bar-B-Q, Cleburne Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Cleburne Association and Lion Rick Blaine.

Thank you,



Rodney Fowler, president

Cleburne Lions Club





Thank you from the Riza family

Dear Editor:



In behalf of our loss of Alexxus Andrea Riza, we would like to take this time to express our deepest gratitude and love, our thankfulness and appreciation for all the phone calls, visitations, beautiful cards, all the food brought in and the after-service dinner provided and served by the ladies at Cleburne Baptist Temple Church. Also, all the beautiful flowers and especially all the prayers that were said and all the love put behind all of these in this time of our loss. At a time like this, you really know your friends, neighbors and relatives.

Thanks to all the pallbearers and honorary pallbearers. A special thank you for Dr. Roger Noel, pastor of Cleburne Baptist Temple Church, for a perfect service message and a big, big thank you to Jimmy and Carol Wray and their staff at Crosier-Pearson Cleburne Funeral Home for all they put in and went out of their way to make everything as comfortable and supportive as possible.

Our hearts go out to all. Thank you. We love you.



The Rizas and family





We should be able to carry guns

Dear Editor:



The campus shootings at Virginia Tech are a tragedy. But you should also consider another ongoing tragedy, that in the time it took to kill the 33 people there, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the women of America had 230 babies legally aborted because they were an inconvenience, and remember that this rate continues all day every day all through the year.

Notice that I said legal abortions, since the CDC believes that illegal abortions have recently increased dramatically due to many states having passed laws requiring parental consent on underage girls. One in five of the women/girls were 19 and under, two out of three had never been married, and 36 percent had a previous birth or abortion.

I have commented before that the Democrats favor abortion as well as the elimination of privately owned firearms, so it was predictable that our current Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, immediately started demanding that the assault rifle ban be reinstated, ignoring the fact as did Sen. Feinstein in the 1978 Harvey Milk shooting, which lead to the original assault rifle ban, that the weapons used were handguns.

The young man who did the shootings apparently had passed the current nationally required FBI check before he was able to purchase his weapons. We must remain vigilante that the Democrats do not succeed in their effort to disarm the American people. The recent federal appeals court decision that the Second Amendment truly meant the American people are to never be disarmed is but a temporary victory, since it now looks like the Democrats will take control of the presidency as well as Congress, and once again start their vendetta against an American’s right to own a firearm.



W.V. Bonds

Cleburne





Do outlaw bacteria have their rights too?

Dear Editor:



Bad spinach and peanut butter made the news, but I won’t lose my taste for good peanut butter or clean spinach. Seems like we are witnessing more food poisoning lately than is real healthy. I haven’t read or heard of much evidence concerning all probable sources of the contamination. There is plenty of evidence, however, that points to the fact that some of these intestinal disturbances can be caused by bacteria carried by field workers here or abroad, as well as by U.S. restaurant workers and other food handlers and field workers.

Wonder why you are advised not to drink water or eat uncooked food in Mexico and some other lands? Some of the causative organisms newly acquired by people or carried chronically are passed from the intestines of these people to contaminate exposed plants and water sources and to contaminate hand skin and food. A vicious cycle.

It came to my attention several years ago that Texas does no longer require tests and physical examinations of food handlers or restaurant workers. Local city health environmental personnel informed me that the State Health Department allowed this to happen. I have a suspicion that lobbyists of some ilk were working toward this end. One of the reasons given was that “most of these type workers did not remain at one place very long, therefore it would be difficult to keep records on them.”

That figures, since the state doesn’t have any kind of records on many of them, period. I found also that tuberculosis is much more prevalent in the population of Mexico and several southern border Texas counties than in the rest of Texas.

TB is mostly spread from one human with active TB to another person by exposing them to coughed up material. Mexico and other countries are somewhat behind this country in animal and human disease control and eradication.

I certainly do not want to proclaim that foreign workers are all disease carriers, nor am I aware of such specific infections being diagnosed in Cleburne patients. But since the incidence of human TB has increased in Texas, it seems foolish to slide backwards in disease prevention, particularly since we have so many undocumented foreign workers involved in food processing, handling and preparation.

“No physical exams or tests required” does not seem to fit into a definite disease preventative mode, does it? I can’t imagine professional health people going along with this lapse of precautionary practices. This lapse does, however, save time, effort, money and paperwork for the employers of these workers, the state and for the workers.

It might be advantageous for the state health department to publish contagious disease diagnosis information monthly in all local newspapers. However, this might infringe upon the political correctness that is so popular these days!

Some legal immigrants are subjected to physical exams upon entering this country but many are not, including, of course, the elusive but sanctioned and protected ones, the “illegal entrants” who observe no regulations nor requirements. Those are the ones about whom so much fuss and complaints are made and yet about which very little collectively has been done nor apparently will be done other than fussing and complaining and excusing.

What a blessing it would be for our president and our state and national representatives to pay attention to and act on such important issues rather than trying to pass “hidden amnesty” legislation. That’s my two bits worth. Have you written or, better, talked to your congressman lately? If you find a way to get his or her rapt attention, let me know.



Monte Swatzell

Cleburne

        

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