Letters to the editor

Someone really cares!

I live at I-270 and West Broad Street on a dead-end street. At the end of our street, we have criminal activity day and night. We have had up to 14 different vehicles park there in less than three hours. We have had three different shootings.

I attended a Prairie Township meeting to ask for a street light to be put in at the dead end. That was three years ago and I was told that the township would get back to me.

Well, nobody called and the end of the street is still dark. At that same meeting, I asked two Franklin County Sheriff’s Deputies what we could do about the problem. They said to start calling the sheriff’s office every time a car parked at the end of the street.

Twenty minutes after the meeting, I had to call the sheriff’s office to get a deputy to come and check on a parked vehicle.

I’ve had to call as much as four time a day. The deputies had arrested people and impounded cars over and over on our street. They have patrolled our street day and night.

The deputies have given our street back to us. The only way they could have done a better job was to get out of their cruisers and walk the street – that is how great of a job these deputies have done for us.

My hat goes off to all of them, from the dispatchers to the deputies on the streets. And see – someone really cares.

Thank you, all.

Bob Voss,

Columbus

Valleyview residents not represented

The Valleyview Council failed to represent the residents again. With maybe 24 hours notice a special meeting was called on Monday Aug. 13 by Mayor Tom Watkins to consider an ordinance to raise his salary back to $12,600.

While on council I submitted an ordinance that lowered the mayor’s salary to $7,500 to begin in 2008. This was done because $12,600 is an extremely large salary to pay to a mayor of a village of 600 people. The past financial difficulties of the village had nothing to do with setting the salary lower, it had everything to do with overpaying for a lack of services. That salary eclipses every other salary for all of the villages in Central Ohio. What do we get for that amount of salary?

At the special meeting, the council voted to waive the second and third readings and pass the ordinance as an emergency measure. By doing so, the council has prevented the residents from petitioning the ordinance and allowing the residents to vote on the ordinance to reject or approve it.

I want a member of council to explain to me why it was an emergency and why they approved it at nearly the last minute before the deadline for setting the salary for candidates running for office. If the ordinance had been passed as a non-emergency it would have gone into effect too late for 2008 and the salary increase would take place in 2012. Why the last minute rush to raise the salary when the ordinance has been in place for almost four years?

It could have been passed at a regular meeting in June or July and not passed as an emergency. Maybe the members of council do not care about the future of the village or they were given wrong information by Mayor Watkins. Either way, they just went like lambs to the slaughter and voted yes for the ordinance placed in front of them.

The council members who were elected to represent the residents completely failed the residents in this matter. Last minute ordinances passed in the dark of night without allowing the residents the opportunity to petition their grievences against the government goes against everything that stands for democracy in the United States.  Thank you again members of council for failing to represent the needs of the residents and for your short-sightedness.

Paul Parrish,

Valleyview