Editorials - 04/17/03

DOT should grant request for traffic signal at SMES

"My husband told me that when the incident happened, he remembered me telling him that someone would have to die before a red light was placed before the school. I hope this will not be the case," wrote Jean Revis on March 14.

Less than a month later, Natalie Elders, SMES PTA vice president, was critically injured as she attempted to enter U.S. 441 after dropping her daughter off at school.

In his March 31 response to Revis's letter, DOT District Traffic Engineer Scott Cook said the intersection had been studied several times, but a signal has not been recommended due to low traffic volume and "very light" crash history. Cook agreed to undertake another study to see if traffic volume had changed.

Given the magnitude of Elders's injuries, we urge Cook and other DOT officials to make the SMES intersection study a high priority.

SMES is the only county school on a four-lane highway that lacks a traffic signal at its entrance. That situation needs to be remedied.

The safety of children, parents, school staff and through traffic on busy Highway 441 will be compromised until action is taken.

Taylor should not be above the law

During three days of testimony, former local car dealer Chig Cagle and Blue Ridge Savings President Hayes Martin chronicled Jones's role in the fraudulent bank loans Cagle obtained in an attempt to get out of debt.

Blue Ridge is owned by U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor, a Transylvania County republican. Cagle is a former Jackson County Republican Party chairman and frequent contributor to Taylor's campaigns.

Both Cagle and Martin have already pleaded guilty and gave testimony against Jones as part of their plea arrangement. While it is apparently true that Jones aided his longtime client in securing the funds, in reality he was a bit player in this drama, not the "linchpin" of the conspiracy as prosecutors claimed.

Jones prepared documents containing signatures he knew to be forgeries. But the signatures Cagle forged should not, in themselves, have qualified him for the loans.

Martin, the bank president, testified that Taylor was aware of all the loans and that he took special interest in Cagle's situation. Convicting Jones without also bringing charges against Taylor just doesn't seem right.

It was Taylor's bank that allowed Cagle to borrow more than the allowed limit, and Taylor's lawyer who introduced Cagle to the bank president who then authorized one large loan and helped Cagle illegally obtain others. When Cagle needed still more money, the bank president helped him refinance a loan he had obtained by forging the signatures of his daughter and her husband.

And Taylor, according to the testimony of Martin and Cagle, knew all about it.

All the conspirators, no matter how well-placed politically, should be treated equally before the law.

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