Protect seniors from tax hikes
Today at 8:30 a.m. is your chance at the County Commission meeting to stand up for our elderly.
As sure as the sun rises, commmissioners will vote to raise our tax rate above the “certified rate”; this will result in a majority of Hamilton County getting a property tax increase, including vulnerable seniors on fixed incomes and pensions. They shouldn’t have to choose between food or medicine.
The state long ago voted to allow counties to freeze senior tax rates, yet Hamilton county has year after year refused to vote in this help for our seniors.
Please call your district commissioner at (423) 209-7200 and County Mayor Jim Coppinger 423-209-6101 and demand that commissioners pass a resolution exempting our seniors from this coming tax increase once and for all.
Politicians never move on hotbed issues like this without massive public pressure. We need your help. Make those calls, and join us today at the County Commission meeting.
This may be your best and last chance to Save Our Seniors, SOS!
Bill Reesor, Ooltewah
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Why change? Signal schools already fine
In reference to a recent column by Jay Greeson about the possible formation of an independent Signal Mountain school district: Disregarding his pointless, humorless reference to the words “community” and “communism,” my question to him and Signal Mountain citizens is why? What do they hope to gain?
If it is excellence, Signal Mountain schools are among the finest in the state!
If it is about money, wait until the Town Council needs to replace, repair or add to a school building without raising property taxes. Also, lawsuits are inevitable and costly!
If it is about politics, imagine the furor when the town’s new, inexperienced school board tries to solve its first crisis. Crises happen, and solutions that satisfy all interested groups are difficult, if not impossible.
If it is about parental involvement, there’s no question. From individuals to the group-led Mountain Education Fund, Signal Mountain parents are involved!
If it is about good teachers, a teaching job at Signal Mountain schools was and always will be a coveted, plum position.
Again, I ask why? Clearly, the current system is far from broken, so why take the risk of a radical change that may be irreparable?
Fred Kuhn, Signal Mountain
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We bear a sacred trust for war dead
To Mayor Berke:
Dear Sir,
I read with deep dismay of Chattanooga’s intention to renounce its trusteeship of the Confederate Cemetery on East Third Street.
I was graduated from the University of Chattanooga in 1967, and during my four years of undergraduate study, I spent many a pleasant and reverent hour musing on the honored dead resting in this sacred ground.
The current gust of moral self-righteousness sweeping our country cannot obscure the truth that we hold these honored dead in sacred trust. And, while we all deplore and repudiate those evils for which they vainly fought, we adore and embrace them as part of our collective heritage, good and bad.
Whatever our political and moral posture, we yet bear a sacred trust, that their memory should ever be honored, and that their resting place be held forever in trust.
Theodor Leithmann, Milton, Del.