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Town parking laws need some ‘teeth’
To the Editor:
Be they children or adults, people are just not going to “act nice” unless they are compelled to.
Adam and Eve had a beautiful, large garden to explore and “act nice” in, and they “showed out” completely.
So, solving the parking problem on Main Street in Sylva will never occur, as long as the town acts nice. There must be some “teeth” in the bite.
I, while working at Belk’s Department Store, was at one time on the town board and president of the Sylva Merchant’s Association. The very first “wartime prosperity problem” was that 33 taxis occupied Main Street.
The “wartime prosperity” presented its ugly head, and seemingly everyone in the country had a motor vehicle of some kind. Parking became a problem. Solution? Parking meters. Penny parking meters. This worked “religiously well,” with the town police helping regulate both meters and traffic.
Until someone came up with the gracious idea that our “good people” are now well enough educated in the way of honoring one another’s rights that the penny meters were removed.
Guess what? You’re right ... the very first business Saturday, Main Street was again filled with vehicles – merchants’ vehicles.
Only young “Lawyer” Stillwell nicely and politely parked his old Chevy down in the railroad parking lot. All others, especially those who arrived in town first, parked in front of their businesses, as if they secretly had pulled a big one and no one else would notice.
This time, up went more parking meters, but not the penny but nickel parking meters – “purty” ones.
So, like Adam and Eve, you can bet your boots that Main Street of Sylva will never “act nice” unless some kind of “chastisement” is forthcoming.
Lloyd Cowan
Sylva
Being a good neighbor is more important than property values
To The Editor:
I am writing concerning the article in the Dec. 14 edition of the paper about the Webster town board meeting.
I am alarmed and saddened over the comments made by the Webster residents regarding the tractor-trailer driven by Roy Stephens. Bob Cochran, who is noted to oppose the truck, is not a taxpayer in the town of Webster.
Stephens is a man who is raising four young children on the income made from driving the truck mentioned. He passes my house on Buchanan Loop and as he drives by we do not notice the noise even when sitting by the window in the front room. Two of Roy’s children ride the school buses mentioned in the article, and I fail to believe he would ever put a child or a school bus at danger. I have always noticed him driving slowly and respectfully through the neighborhood, and in most cases slower than the school buses that pass by. I also feel if you looked at his driver’s log you would see that he rarely, if ever, travels during the time the buses are running.
My biggest concern is that neighbors are not following the commandment “love your neighbor as yourselfâ“ with this issue. This is a family’s livelihood. After reading the article, I feel safety is not the true issue at hand. It seems aesthetics and property values are the main concern. I fail to see how one truck can possibly ruin the beauty of the mountains we are blessed with or cause your property value to crash.
If there is concern of increasing presence of trucks in Webster perhaps an ordinance that grandfathers the Stephens truck could be written. One truck, however, cannot be cause for such alarm.
I hope the involved parties will stop and ask themselves what will be more important at the end of their life. Were you good and kind to your neighbors or did you get top dollar for your home? If it is the latter, I am sad to realize this is the type of community in which we will raise our daughter.
Sylvia Morgan
Webster
(Editor’s Note: Morgan is the wife of Webster town board member Neal Morgan.)
Letter about WCU students was narrow-minded
To the Editor:
I found Heather Queen’s opinions about university students to be very narrow-minded. A few bad experiences shouldn’t constitute that most all Western students are disruptive and rude. That’s stereotyping Western students.
I’m not trivializing in any way her experiences with students at Western. I’ve lived next to the WCU for years; I cannot relate to her numerous experiences with college students. A lot of the students work in our community at Wal-Mart, local restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores just to be able to attend school. What’s her opinion on them? How about the students that collect money for local charities or those who volunteer at the Community Table? Maybe Queen should turn her experience into a positive one by visiting WCU and sitting in on a class or maybe calling WCU and getting involved with their charitable events as a volunteer helping the students to better our community.
I feel very fortunate to live in a county that has a local university. It has benefited our community economically by contributing to the revenue of Jackson County, bringing hundreds of jobs to our county and giving our local youth the opportunity to get a college education that they might not be able to get otherwise.
I was raised to love your neighbors and forgive them for their misgivings, just as God forgives us for ours.
Kathy Penland
Cullowhee
Correction
Jackson County Sheriff Jimmy Ashe has advised The Herald that a column he wrote for the Dec. 7 edition contained misleading information.
According to Ashe, the information about stolen UPS uniforms came to his attention via an e-mail alert sent to the Sheriff’s Office. He learned it was an Internet hoax only after it had been published, he said.
Lisa Miller of Sylva called attention to the incorrect information in a Dec. 14 letter to the editor in the Dec. 14 Herald, and Ashe Monday confirmed that she was correct to do so.
“In the future, I will be more diligent in researching information received in my office,” Ashe said.
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