Transit system? Examine this issue’s bad history

I want to say right up front that I applaud the thinking behind the need for some system of public transportation in Tupelo, for there are surely people who need a ride from time to time, or daily to work, if they have no transportation of their own.

But it is the type of system that we provide that concerns me. We have had at least two route-based bus systems before in Tupelo and Lee County that could not support themselves even back when the costs for everything were much lower than things cost today. We need to learn from our history.

And we need to learn that when you pay good money ($25,000) for a “study” from outsiders, you get what you want to hear instead of a realistic appraisal of the situation. Does anyone in their right mind think that 69,000 riders are going to use these buses in the first year, and 108,800 in year two? Remember that zero people are riding anything today. It’s not going to happen.

The need is still there for some people, so how do we as North Mississippi’s most progressive city address this need? With an on-demand system that is a partnership with local private taxi companies. This would provide low-cost, door-to-door transportation for those who have a proven need for transportation assistance.

We do this by having a discount card that you must qualify for based on your personal situation. With this card you call the taxi and ride at a greatly discounted rate. The city would partner with the private taxi company to purchase new handicap-accessible, metered, GPS- and radio-equipped vans to provide this service. Others using the service would pay the regular metered rate. The city would make up the difference for the people who hold the approved discount cards. 

This provides better service at a fraction of the cost of all those proposals in the Journal last week. Let’s do something that really works for a change.

Jim High

Tupelo

Brumfield gets 1 out of 5 correct on Speaker Pelosi

Patsy Brumfield’s article July 11 about how Republicans nationwide are running against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pulls the often-used liberal tactic of classifying opposition as bigoted, sexist, racist, xenophobic, etc.

Brumfield said many are against Pelosi because “she’s Italian, she’s Catholic, she’s liberal, she’s from San Francisco, she’s a woman.” She does not even quote a source, instead saying “they say.” It will probably surprise Brumfield that she did have the correct answer within her MSNBC-inspired sensationalism. The truth is Pelosi is opposed by a majority of Americans because she is liberal. Period. Many who oppose her are fans of Sarah Palin and Marsha Blackburn (women), fans of Ronald Reagan (Californian), and fans of Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Alito, both Italian Catholics. Heck my own cousin is the Republican candidate in Mississippi’s 4th Congressional District (Steven Palazzo) and part of his platform is “Fire Pelosi.” I feel pretty certain that he and my family, all Italian Catholics, do not oppose Pelosi because of her ethnicity or religion. Except Pelosi’s liberal ideology, I know of no one who opposes Speaker Pelosi for the reasons Brumfield states.

Liberals cannot get over that a majority of Americans are conservative and reject liberalism. Pelosi is the most liberal speaker of the House ever and because of that she is the target of Republicans nationwide. The fact that U.S. Rep. Travis Childers voted to make her speaker makes him an accomplice in the liberal takeover of Congress. This gives conservatives the right and actually the duty to point out that a vote for Travis is a vote for Pelosi. This Italian Catholic couldn’t care less about the sex, color, ethnicity or state of residence of the next speaker. I just do not want the speaker to be liberal, and the Republican candidates will grant my wish if given the chance.

Tony Palazzo

Tupelo

Blue Mountain applauds ICC tobacco-free decision

We at Blue Mountain College would like to congratulate our friends at Itawamba Community College in their decision to become tobacco-free campuses on Jan. 1.

Since BMC became a tobacco-free campus two years ago, we have not only had many more opportunities to promote a healthy lifestyle for our students, faculty and staff, but the overall quality of life on our campus has improved greatly. BMC friends and family – alumni, sports fans, prospective students, and visitors – have all supported the change and also enjoyed our healthier, cleaner campus.

We applaud the leadership of ICC and look forward to welcoming our other higher education cohorts to the tobacco-free party. 

Dr. Bettye Rogers Coward

President 

Do something to save animals from euthanasia

I am sitting at my desk sobbing and trying to type this letter through tears. When I got to my office this morning, I picked up the Journal and unfolded it to read the front page. There was no way to avoid the headline about the more than 100 dogs and cats being killed over the July 4 weekend. What gets done to the animals there is cruel and pitiful and merciless. And worst of all, it is preventable.

About a month ago the Daily Journal had a story and photos in the paper about some dogs that were going to be killed within the week if they weren’t adopted or sponsored in a few days. I, my mother and some kind friends of mine were able to sponsor, at $75 each, seven of the dogs. Their lives are now saved until they can be adopted. When you sponsor a dog or cat, you pay the $75 adoption fee and save the life of that animal until a home is found for it.

What I don’t understand about the people of Tupelo and Lee County is why you aren’t doing something about this problem. If there was a larger shelter and funds to hold the animals longer, so many wouldn’t have to die. There is always something going on in Tupelo raising thousands and thousands of dollars for this or that, for the symphony, the ballet, the birthplace of Elvis, another music event, etc., and my all-time favorite – the dog park. Spend all that money so the dogs with the bandanas around their necks and beds to sleep in have a place to run and play. But let die the ones who are crammed in cages and only wish they had someone to love them and play with them.

A $75 puppy from the shelter will love you just as much as the $200 puppy from the flea market.

Cathy Owen

New Albany

Tax exemption dispenses unequal business treatment

While I have friends who own property downtown and others who are strong advocates of downtown renewal, I strongly disagree with the council’s recent tax exemption for a downtown business. I too want Tupelo to continue to have an attractive, healthy downtown, but not by dispensing unequal treatment favoring one small set of investors at the expense of the rest of us. No argument advocating this end justifying the means does other than avoid the reality of discriminatory rent-seeking protecting the economic interests of a favored few in another form of government taking. Tupelo has no business inflating property values in this fashion.

We are suffering from this same political dishonesty as a result of the actions of the few (Washington) on the world stage, actions from which we have no refuge. No rhetoric can obscure the reality we are and will continue to be experiencing. Our economy lies in ruins, and these may be remembered as the good old days, there being no relief in sight. Millions are jobless with no prospects of new jobs. Those who have worked and saved are seeing their present and future devastated by effectively zero interest rates maintained by the Fed, making interest on our national debt much cheaper and the deficit appear smaller, also providing the big banks and other Wall Street players with no-risk riches only an idiot could screw up. In the meantime, people and governments are being forced to undertake extraordinary risks to attempt to generate a reasonable return on their savings such that they can support themselves now and in retirement. We are being given the forced choice between foolish gambling or eating our seed corn.

Our governments are failing us while declaring that the discrimination they practice is their superior knowledge at work helping us. Look around you. The evidence is clear. Discrimination works only for the powerful few, ruining the rest of us.

Tupelo needs to get out of that business. Racial discrimination was and remains wrong. So is economic discrimination. Downtown (and other) investors should make it on merit, not political muscle.

Don Riley, M.D.

Tupelo