Speak Out 7/12/14

Tick illness

killing dogs

Dog owners, please be aware: there is a tick born illness now in our area that is killing dogs. It is call ehrlichiosis. I had read an article in the DAR a couple months ago, but didn't pay enough attention, thinking this couldn't be in my yard. We had always checked our dogs over and tried to pick off whatever ticks we found. It only take one tick carrying this disease. Our dog just spend 2 1/2 weeks at the vet, at great expense, and almost died, but other dogs have died. Please, don't be ignorant as we were, go and buy the flea and tick stuff that goes on the dog's neck, and get the good stuff if you value your dog's life. Be warned that humans can contract this illness also. Please, DAR, reprint the article on ehrlichiosis.

No sense to

college's plan

[mail] Representatives from Three River College asked the City to provide "in kind" work to complete a 5,000 seat event center on the campus in Poplar Bluff. Why should the City or Butler County take our workers and machinery and abandon their regular work to help build an event center that will be in direct competition with the city owned Black River Coliseum?

If the college can afford to pay the architect $400,000 dollars up front for a drawing, they should be able to cover this own costs. The college needs to take a course in basic economics. The following comes from a front page news story in the DAR (June 15). The College debt is currently 18.5 million and that alone will require a minimum re-payment of well over a million dollars a year for the next twenty (20) years. Where will that money come from? Also, they voted to spend $100,000 dollars on a building they did not own in Kennett. They spend well over $800,000 to remodel only 17,000 square feet it and now they are going to buy the whole building from the city of Kennett for $750,000 dollars. That's spending over 1.5 million in Kennett.

Sikeston is ever more shocking. TRC is building an "Eastern Campus" in Sikeston and have admitted spending 5.4 million plus a fema grant of 2.5 million and whatever else they need to spend from the 8.5 million junk bond sales to build a classroom building in Poplar Bluff and complete the Sikeston campus. They got over two million from the TDD deal to build a GRAND entrance off Shelby Road. The college first said they would spend $200,000 dollars to landscape the entrance. That figure climbed to $300,000 and the latest reported figure is $377,000.

Now they want to spend a whopping 13.5 million dollars to build an event center in Poplar Bluff. They can't seem to raise enough money or sell any more junk bonds since they are so heavily in debt now. Their answer is to hit the poor local taxpayers and increase student tuition. The college is stretched from Cape Girardeau in the East to Willow Springs in the West with no end to spending in sight. Everyone who lives in Butler, Ripley, Carter or Wayne counties has been paying property taxes to the college for over forty years. All these out of district counties do not pay a dime in taxes to Three Rivers. Let some of them put up the money for the event center.

Our Mayor has often noted that the Black River Coliseum is operating in the RED. She appointed "new faces" to bring new ideas to help the bottom line. Are we going to give city or county money or "in kind" work to compete with what we already have? Surely not.

Issue with

sidewalks

Maybe the people who don't see anyone walking on the sidewalk is because they're having to walk in the street which is very dangerous. Thank you.

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