Make changes; don’t overburden
I just left the Thursday meeting of the Blue Ribbon Committee charged with reviewing the Chattanooga’s stormwater program. As an administrator for a local church, I became concerned when our tax (the city prefers to call it a “fee”), increased 700 percent from $830 to $5,990.
In the course of three meetings, I have heard city administrators blame the problem on the changing standards and unfair enforcement of regulatory standards. I have listened to the mayor monopolize the time of Dr. Richard Urban, from Tennessee’s Department of Environment and Conservation, as he explained the city’s recurring violations cited in annual inspections. I have seen the $22 million stormwater budget presented with no explanation given why Chattanooga’s stormwater budget well exceeds the same budgets for Nashville, Knoxville and Memphis.
Based on all I have learned about our city’s stormwater program, I find it unreasonable and unjustifiable. What has been enacted by city leaders will hurt Chattanooga much more than it will help. I challenge the City Council to follow the forthcoming recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Committee and make the necessary changes to meet the environmental standards without overburdening its citizens.
JOHN BARBER
Senior Associate Pastor
Brainerd Hills
Baptist Church
Why are games more important?
What is wrong with us? Tens of thousands of people lie dead in the rubble, and former University of Tennessee football coach Lane Kiffin occupies our thoughts, our hearts and gets the big, bold headlines and fully half the front page?
Are our games so much more important to us than matters of real life and real death?
No wonder people say our nation is dying. Maybe it is.
HERBERT K. LEA
Chickamauga, Ga.
Drop the matter of Kiffin departure
It is very hard to understand why the sports department and other staff writers of the Times Free Press have wasted as much time, newsprint and ink on the departure of Lane Kiffin.
Read your front page headline and listen to what it says: “He Quit. He went. Big deal.” Drop it and consider it good riddance.
MELVIN WILLETT
Make right choice for your future
These are interesting times in which we live. For years, there has been a group of people who have been anxious to see them coming. These are a people who have been patiently waiting for what we are witnessing today, a people who have believed in keeping the commandments of God (not of a man), following the teachings of Jesus and avoided the footsteps of the rest of the world in its downward spiral.
Many have scoffed at such “weird” thinking of these people but that’s all right because that, too, is an indication of the attitude foretold in Scripture. Scoffing is a God-given right when He gave the power of choice. He also gave us the right to choose to follow the thinking of what appears to be the majority of the population. It’s a way for Him to thin out those who wouldn’t be happy living in His Kingdom.
So, depending upon what you wish for your future, it is your choice. I can only say that a wrong choice is not the one that God would have for you. God-given wisdom is called for, so tap into it and enjoy the fruits of it.
JIM ORRISON
Cleveland, Tenn.
Thanks to Al, we don’t freeze
I wish to thank Al Gore for his global warming, without which we would freeze. Thanks, Al!
G. PAUL SHAW, M.D.
LaFayette, Ga.
What’s available controls situation
We respond to situations with what we have available. That is accomplished within our ability to understand the true nature of the situation.
Air power is the ability to project what we have available to attain the goals we seek. It includes aircraft, supplies such as fuel, spare parts, hangar facilities, level of trained mechanics, pilots, etc.
The earthquake in Haiti provides an opportunity to view an example of air power.
The event occurred. Many countries responded to provide aid. However, there was only one airport located at Port-au-Prince. Aircraft quickly filled the available parking space. There was insufficient equipment available to unload the needed supplies. The unloaded supplies could not be rapidly transported to where they were needed because of the blocked road conditions.
Then the fuel supply needed for the departing aircraft ran out. It became apparent that there was no leadership to manage the diverse aspects of the situation.
The situation was controlled by what was available. Air power for the United States is defined by what we have available now, in terms of leadership, equipment and personnel. Haiti provides a unique situation as an example of the unexpected on foreign soil.
ARTHUR
MacFADDEN, Ed.D.
Lt. Col. USAF (Ret.)
Reid’s comments are not racist
Republicans say that Harry Reid’s remarks are the same as Trent Lott’s and that there is a double standard. Not true.
What Sen. Reid said about Obama being a light-skinned black without a Negro dialect is not “politically correct,” but what he meant — that Obama wouldn’t scare white folks — is probably true. It is not racist.
Trent Lott said that the country would have been better off if segregationist Strom Thurmond had won the presidency in 1948. That is certainly not true. It is racist.
NANCY BISHOP
Birchwood, Tenn.
9/11casualties were defenseless
We should never forget, as devastating and somewhat unsuspected as the attack on Pearl Harbor was in December of 1941, there were 571 more people killed in the 9/11/01 attacks (2,973, not including the 19 hijackers) than died in the attack on Pearl Harbor (2,402). The overwhelming majority of those being killed in Pearl Harbor were military personnel, who had an opportunity, as remote as it was, to defend themselves. The men and women working in the World Trade Center complex and those emergency responders were defenseless.
WAYNE MAILLIARD
Soddy-Daisy
Why not use war funds for Haiti?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, rather than committing the billions of dollars and countless lives toward defeating a bunch of radical Islamists halfway around the world from us, we could be utilizing but half of those resources toward helping the earthquake victims in Haiti next door?
It appears those Muslims have different goals in mind.
LOUIS SCHUBERT
Blue Ridge, Ga.