Help us stop the super highway
To the Editor:
The people of Jackson County need to wake up and take part in the fight
to stop this senseless DOT road project known as the Southern Loop before
we are surrounded by blacktop. Your help is needed to save our mountains
before it is too late for you and your children.
Look hard at where you are living. God has blessed this place with unmatched
beauty and solitude found nowhere else in the world! Think about how
Jackson County will change forever with a super highway. Do you want
another project like the Jackson County International Airport tearing
up our Great Smoky Mountains?
Let the smoke rise up from our mountains when and where God sees fit,
not from the dreams of a highway commission, extended from the back
of exhaust pipes as a result of more and more traffic on a super highway.
Think again of the increased noise and smog, let alone the inpatient
drivers who cut you off and give you the infamous hand gesture all because
we choose to drive a little slower than they think we should.
How many of you have ever gone through the pains of remodeling your
home? Sometimes it is just a real nightmare with all the how's, why's
and where is this going to end up? Also, you always wonder how much.
Those of you who know me know I always try my best to explain to my
clients the how's, why's and the how much before we start a project
on your personal castle.
DOT has failed miserably to answer the following questions for me and
many other concerned people of Jackson County. Remember: DOT is in the
business of building, not solving problems.
Why is so much right of way needed? DOT says they will need about 1,400
feet, which is close to four football fields wide!
Also, why can't we try other means to ease traffic problems? Do a study
on solving our traffic problems instead of creating more traffic problems
with more roads.
Remember folks, the federal government puts in $3 to the state's $1.
It's all about money! Wouldn't you know it! The big bucks go to another
county if DOT does not use it in Jackson County. Money is what is driving
the urgency of pushing this project through, not solving our traffic
problems and preserving our mountain way of living.
The bottom lines is that the DOT will try to convince us that a super
highway will be good for us all and will solve all of our traffic problems,
as well as create increased commerce, for years to come. I say, "Build
it and they will drive it."
The standard response among traffic engineers to road congestion is,
(surprise) "More roads." In short, when you ask an engineer
what to do about a traffic problem, he/she is going to respond as they
have been trained (being that highway engineers are trained) to build
highways.
As taxpayers, we are throwing money down a rat hole in a desperate attempt
to make a problem go away. The question remains not how many lanes must
be built to ease congestion, but how many lanes of congestion do you
want?
USA Today recently published the following report on Atlanta: "For
years, Atlanta tried to ward off traffic problems by building more miles
of highways per capita than any other urban area except Kansas City.
The fact of the matter is that we cannot tackle our traffic problems
by building more roads. Atlantians now drive an average of 35 miles
a day more than residents of any other city."
Do you want Jackson County to become a "Little Atlanta?" Then
fight back. Don't sign any right of way to DOT. Don't sign your life's
work or your heritage away with a simple pen stroke!
These mountains aren't just dirt, trees and rocks. These mountains are
our heritage; they are a part of our past and all of our future. Our
forefathers tilled this ground, pulled stumps and rocks out of the ground,
grubbed this land with their crude tools and their bare hands. They
worked to make these mountains a better place for their families to
enjoy and to thrive in.
This is a legacy of the mountain way of life. This is what we are about
- mountain people, not city slickers. We don't need our beautiful, majestic
mountains to become "Little Atlanta," do we?
What are we building and leaving for our children? A super highway?
Is that the best we can do? We must ask ourselves, "Do we sacrifice
all the dreams and hard work our mountain families have put into their
homes and our majestic mountains, which our ancestors have held so dear
to their hearts, all to save someone 7 minutes driving time?"
In closing, let's all search the depths of our souls and think for ourselves
and our children's futures. Look through the eyes of a child at these
majestic mountains and their infinite beauty. They don't need to be
destroyed in the name of progress. Once they are destroyed, they are
changed forever. We must keep in our minds that the decisions we make
today, our children will have to live with tomorrow.
Help fight for the betterment of all. May God grant us wisdom and strength
to make the right decisions that will affect us all and follow us into
the future.
Harold Messer
Webster
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Chest-thumping president leaving much to be desired
To the Editor:
I voted for George W. Bush over two years ago. I figured his father
was good man, his mom a wonderful woman and an acorn doesn't fall far
from the tree. Besides, Gore was a bore and George W. emphasized that
our government under him wouldn't be a country of "nation builders"
(Ref: Bosnia, the recent ethnic and religious wars). No, let's stay
at home and take care of our business.
Now I'm seeing George W. (Wayne, as in John) his hands tilted outwards
so he can get his six shooters plenty fast.
He's warned Saddam "to get out of Iraq or we'll toss you out"
with our "shock and awe" air power. If Saddam doesn't succumb
to the USA's rebuilding Iraq and offers any resistance, he challenged
him to "bring them on," which they apparently accepted, leaving
a lot of our cream-of-the-crop military dead. Whatever happened to "walk
softly and carry a big stick?" Why all the chest thumping?
Let's see, for a president who campaigned not to make "rebuilding
nations" a priority, we are attempting just that with Afghanistan,
Iraq, Palestine, Liberia (he won't take "no" for an answer
to oust Charles Taylor) and if they don't behave themselves, Syria and
Iran.
It was my understanding the U.S. intelligence network assured him that
the USA could go into Iraq, shock and awe the Hussein regime into submission,
be received by the Iraqi population with open arms, restructure this
freedom-loving people and our troops would be welcomed home in short
order at the same time uncovering all those nasty weapons of mass destruction.
In my opinion, Colin Powell is the only credible person in this administration.
The acorn has not landed.
Richard F. Campbell
Sylva
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Who will save Jackson County?
To the Editor:
When you top out in a high gap in these mountains and the air is like
champagne, you know you are in the midst of a stand of flame azalea.
The natives call it wild honeysuckle. There are more different species
of plants and trees within a 50-mile radius of where I sit than in any
other region in the world.
That could be one reason so many have called this area a mountain wonderland.
Most of the older people who have lived and made a living here in this
rough locale have passed on or will be leaving soon. Who will be left
to tell the children what really went on back yonder in the far dim
past when it was make it yourself or do without? There were no food
stamps and government handouts.
Now and again you hear someone say, "Oh, how I yearn for the good
old days." There was nothing good about those days, friend. It
was a simple life, a substantial life of hard work from sunrise to sunset
and beyond.
Tourists are roaring through these mountains in their air-conditioned
cars at 70 and 80 mph and it appears to be record numbers this summer.
I wonder what they see? How could they possibly get to know anything
about this country?
Noises are being made to build a Southern Loop highway. If this route
is built, it will not solve the traffic problems. Rather, it will make
it worse and in the process put Sylva in the grave.
Western Carolina University has become a fine institution, the envy
of competing universities. It has also brought horrendous traffic to
Sylva and N.C. 107 South.
The land owners have sold to the Realtors and speculators, and those
who are sick of the rat race are now your neighbors. The people who
bought the Champion tract profess to want to save Ruby City, and, yet,
they have it posted every 50 feet or so all around the property. One
cannot get out of the road to Sugar Loaf without breaking the law.
Which brings us up to those who wish to save Jackson County. Haven't
they noticed? It's already gone.
Allen Fisher
Sylva
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