Speak Out 10/10/15

Intersection

is a joke

The intersection of Barron Road, 67, and Oak Grove Road must have been engineered by a drunk. We're gonna be paying for that for 30 years? That's a joke!

PB history

is ignored

The Garfield Street Historical District especially with the Wheatley School Museum will showcase some of the talented people that helped build a better town.

There are two big reasons why Poplar Bluff ranked 37th in the state's study and the reasons are: lack of jobs and opportunities and a lame, misguided approach to its historic properties. As long as people complain more about the way trees are trimmed, tall grass and trash than they do about loss of their historic homes then nothing will change.

Poplar Bluff could be a leader in historic preservation, but instead it has a bogus fraud as a preservation policy. If the places on the National Register it may be safe, if not, it's a sitting duck. This approach renders the historical commission as ineffective and irrelevant. Having the preservation planner in the planning department is a conflict of interest because the purpose of the planning department is development.

When the town was looking for a city manager the only one left out was a member from the historical commission. That should tell you something.

The Butler County Historical Society is either inactive or comatose or both. Only a small fraction of the town's historical homes is on the National Register. The deck is stacked against preservation. The town's long range plan was drawn up by a group that had never seen this place before they got here and the focus was grant money. The best approach is to see this plan as a flexible guide. The challenge for development should be how do we modify our plan to leave all historic property and still have the policies, the parking or service businesses we need. What is good for tourism is good for the town.