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National Forest land should not be sold
To the Editor:
For those who have not yet heard, you may want to know that the Bush administration is proposing to sell U.S. Forest Service land in North Carolina and 33 other states.
In North Carolina alone, 300,000 acres are being considered to go up for sale, and unfortunately, this includes 3,835 acres in the Nantahala National Forest and 2,780 acres in the Pisgah National Forest. And, to bring matters closer to home, this is 137 acres in Jackson County, 790 acres in Swain County and a whopping 2,463 acres in Macon County. The information can be reviewed at www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/spd.html.
This is a proposition only at this time, but our president, our senators and our congressman need to hear from those of us who oppose the auctioning off of our prized National Forest land. The thought of such a short-sighted move to offset the deficit is truly unbelievable. As if we don’t have enough ugly growth and development ruining our beautiful mountains, this would only generate more.
So unless you want to see more locked gates, more “No Hunting or Fishing” signs, more “No Trespassing” signs and more “Private Land, Keep Out” signs, contact your political leaders and let them know you oppose this obscene proposition.
Melissa Smith
Sylva
Constitution guarantees privacy
To the Editor:
I have heard the argument that there’s nothing wrong with wiretapping, and that if you don’t have anything to hide, you shouldn’t be upset. But that’s not the point. The point is that the U.S. Constitution guarantees citizens the right to privacy, and wiretapping goes directly against that right.
The Fourth Amendment states that no one will be subject to searches, arrests, or seizures of property without specific warrants or “probable cause.” While tapping private phone lines was not (of course) mentioned in the Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court has inferred the general right to privacy from this Amendment. And even if you don’t think that’s specific enough (and there are a lot of people who argue that it isn’t), the Ninth Amendment goes on to say that the list of rights given in the first eight Amendments are not meant to be comprehensive – “there are other rights of the people not actually listed in the Constitution.”
For a long time, it has been accepted by the government that individual privacy is implicit in the Constitution. Why should that interpretation change now?
Teresa Eberly
Cullowhee
Sheriff’s Office
is no help
To the Editor:
For the last five or so years, the Westridge community has had to deal with some serious threats and safety issues.
Taxes have been raised 15 percent for public safety. The Sheriff’s Office has been called on numerous occasions and more than half of the time, they won’t send out a deputy to investigate anything.
It took five months before anyone even came to my house to inspect the projectiles that entered through the siding on my home that my neighbor had shot. They never dug the projectiles out of my interior walls to inspect either.
Our same neighbors shoot guns at least five to six times a week, four hours at a time. This is not a shooting range. They shoot at our dogs and anyone they can with pellet guns.
We have neighbors that have cut the whole top of their car off. The car has no doors, no windshield and no roll bars, and they actually get the vehicle airborne off our driveway.
I have a neighbor that is more than 80 years old, and she was scared to death to walk to her mailbox. That is her exercise.
Some folks on this same road have young children that sometimes have to walk to or from the school bus.
My mother and stepfather both live in this community. Both have had serious heart operations. Both have called the Sheriff’s Office on several occasions. The Sheriff’s Office doesn’t even show up. My mother still works 10 hours a day and doesn’t need to be awake, sometimes until 2 a.m., because the neighbors want to shoot guns and holler all night long.
Several of us have been threatened with violence. My stepfather was shot with a pellet pistol. A friend of mine was shot in my yard twice while visiting. I myself was shot five times with a pellet gun. In my opinion, people like this don’t even need to own a toy cap gun.
This is not a motorcycle race track for the four-wheelers, with no helmets or no eye protection. Three of us residents actually try to keep the road in fair condition by digging ditches and filling in the potholes and ruts with gravel. The same neighbors deliberately spin out the fresh gravel.
Again, I ask the public, what’s the Sheriff’s Office for? They don’t help. A 15-percent tax increase for public safety is a joke.
Randy Marrinan
Sylva
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