Letters to the editor: 08/01/02

Litterbugs should face serious consequences

To the Editor:

Since this is occurring at regular intervals, the time has come to speak up and ask others for help.

It is hard to believe that people who are spending their hard-earned dollars to visit our beautiful country would throw their garbage out their vehicle windows but even more difficult to believe that those who are fortunate enough to reside here full-time would be so intent on destroying the natural beauty of our mountain home.

I ask that anyone who witnesses this disparaging act to please take immediate action. Please notify our local sheriff's office, city police or highway patrol as soon as possible. Please have a description of the vehicle involved, a tag number and also indentif-ication of the occupants if possible.

While we currently have laws in place that prohibit littering, I am proposing that the current fine of $250 to $1,000 for a first offense be raised to $500 to $2,500 along with 40 hours of community service. For a second offense, within a three-year-period, the current fine of $500 to $2,000 be raised to $1,500 to $5,000 along with 30 days active jail time. Any monies collected as a result of these offenses should be given to an educational fund.

Please take pride in our beautiful mountains and preserve the pristine beauty God has so graciously blessed us with.

Carla Robinson

Sylva

Gravesite should not be vandalized

To the Editor:

I try to keep Daniel's grave nicely decorated and covered with love.

To anyone who has ever lost a loved one, I ask you to imagine bringing flowers to your husband and finding his grave robbed and desecrated.

At first, it was only the decorations being stolen and trash dumped on it. Today when I went, our family photo frame had been broken and strewn about, bird feeders and flowers were gone and the flowers my 5-year-old son had picked out himself and placed so lovingly on the grave for the only daddy he's ever known lay broken and twisted. Worst of all, the small metal marker from the funeral home was stolen and the angel tied to it thrown onto the ground.

No other grave is ever bothered, so I must ask you, whoever you are, please think of the family members who must pass Parris Cemetery daily on their way back and from home. And I ask you also to think of Daniel, for no matter how many bad thoughts you have of him, if you try, I guarantee you'll have a few good ones also.

My husband made some bad decisions and did some bad things. Haven't we all? But he was a good man with a huge heart. I beg of you, please let him rest in peace. And please let him have a nice gravesite for me to bring his son to meet his daddy when he is born.

Leecole Hoyle Bryson

Sylva

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