Out of the darkness
Dear editor:
As part of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Out of the Darkness Community Walks, I will be walking on Sept. 24 in downtown Hot Springs at the Exchange Street Parking Plaza to promote the importance of suicide prevention. I won’t be walking alone. I will be joined by many who share my dedication.
In 2021, over 420 Out of the Darkness Walks took place in communities across the United States, attended by over 80,000 dedicated people who share my passion. Our movement is growing.
Like many, I walk because suicide has affected me personally. I lost my son, Geoff, to suicide at 33 years old. He was a son, father, brother, and veteran of the U.S. Navy. I am concerned about suicide loss not only as a result of my own experience, but the prevalence of mental illness in this country, and the increase of suicide in the veteran population as well as others. There is help out there.
Since then, I have dedicated my time to educating others about suicide prevention and mental health.
Our goal is to spread awareness of what is currently a leading cause of death in the U.S., and let others know they are not alone. Please help us ensure that mental health is looked upon with equal importance to physical health, and continue to bring hope to those affected by suicide. Join me in this walk. We need you — together we can stop suicide. To register for the walk, please visit http://www.afsp.org/hotsprings.
Jacqueline Sharp
Springdale
Part of the problem
Dear editor:
In Sunday’s Letters to the Editor, R.B. Keener wrote an excellent letter regarding our city’s goals and priorities. We do indeed have a problem in Hot Springs with taking care of the mundane day-to-day operations of the city. Bike trails and walking trails are important but should not be a priority when we have decaying streets, drainage problems, and a convention center that is not living up to expectations.
The main problem with our streets is simply that those who make repairs on the streets do a pathetic job. A drive down Summer Street or Golf Links or even Central Avenue will test the suspension system of our cars. It would not take one cent of city money for our elected leaders and city employees to ascertain that street repairs be done right. It is not always the city doing these repairs — but it is subcontractors who are putting in sewer lines and other underground utilities without any apparent accountability for a quality job when they have repaired their trenches.
When the racetrack installed a right-hand turn lane from Golf Links to Central, the final product is a roller-coaster ride of uneven pavement. Did our city government pass judgment on this inadequate project?
Drainage on many streets, especially Central Avenue, remains a problem with lanes nearest the curbs not draining properly. In most cases, the pavement has not been laid with drainage in mind.
The Advertising and Promotion Commission, a part of city government, collects millions of dollars in taxes — mostly from locals who eat in our many fine restaurants (although they want us to believe that these funds are collected mostly from visitors to the city) and from hotel receipts (which are visitors). They say that the purpose of the tax is to encourage tourism and maintain the convention center. We no longer attract the Miss Arkansas Pageant and it is obvious that Oaklawn attracts more shows, celebrities, and musicians to our city than the convention center. In its effort to justify its continued existence, the A&P Commission used its excess funds and borrowed money to build a baseball park with inadequate parking. The loss of the Boys Blub is an unmeasurable loss to our youth.
Several years ago, the city decided to go into the real estate development business when they purchased the Majestic Hotel site. They used over $2 million dollars of money from our water improvement fund and now they want to increase our taxes more to pay for cost overruns. How is it possible that prices are provided for a public project, bonds are approved to pay for that project, and the money is short by $15 million to complete the project? These same elected city officials continue to believe that the old hotel site can be developed — but it is obvious to others that parking and traffic will forever remain a deterrent.
Yes, R.B. Keener, our elected city officials have become a part of the problem as they apparently are unable or unwilling to provide solutions.
John Grillo
Hot Springs
Party of nothing
Dear editor:
Kansas voters recently voted on a major issue, abortion rights. By almost a 2-1 margin, they chose to leave their laws in place versus allowing a legislature to possibly enact new, and probably more stringent, ones. Now a handful of Republicans, despite the vote being overwhelming, are privately paying over $100,000 to fund a recount that will almost certainly be futile.
Knowing this, one might ask, why? My theory is you will see this more and more from Republican groups, whether the vote is close or not. It is simply an ongoing attempt to deteriorate Americans’ faith in our voting system and further sow seeds of doubt, mistrust and division. Because the truth is, it’s all the Republican party has to run on these days. They have no discernible platform, ideas, proposals. Their playbook at this point seems only to point out problems (and there are problems), point fingers and say “It’s the Democrats’ fault.” That’s fine, we do have a lot of things that need fixing in our country. But don’t point a finger without giving a viable solution or alternative. And I don’t remember the last time a major Republican figure had a good solution to a major problem. Do you?
It’s a shame, because what I call the Alex Keaton (“Family Ties”) Republican Party was about common sense, fiscal responsibility, and working for the middle class American. Whether it be this November or later, I suspect the current Republican party is going to discover that a lot of Americans feel the party left them, not vice versa.
Anthony Lloyd
Hot Springs
A simple answer
Dear editor:
Not sure why Jerry thinks we need more Washington bureaucrats. I guess he was one, but after stating he knows the facts, he gives a misleading fact. Yes, there were lots of people working for the government in 1945. We were at the tail end of World War II and tens of thousands of people were hired aiding the war effort. It was natural for many of their jobs to be suspended after the war was over. Technology has eliminated jobs in all sectors, even in bureaucrat-heavy D.C., although Democrats now think we need over 87,000 IRS agents to check, what, about 800 billionaires they think aren’t paying their fair share?
Responding to Doc, now. First, the crime problem is much wider than he describes. Yes, when Democrat-run cities in Portland, Seattle and Minneapolis were becoming the equivalent of war zones, Democrat politicians in those cities gave into the mobs by handcuffing their police and joined the chorus of many so-called woke Democrats in shouting: “Defund the police.” This went on for about two years, and only when they saw it was hurting them at the polls, slowly they began to change their tune. Also, the people they claim to help were the ones suffering the most from these policies. Polls have shown they’re losing support of Blacks and Hispanics in these hellholes, those who have to live with the blight and crime these policies created. This is not limited to the West as Doc says. Crime is up over 30% in most of the large Democrat-run cities around the country. Little Rock showed a very slight decline in overall crime, but violent crime is up also over 30% with 11 people being shot just this past weekend. I attribute it to weak Democrat leadership even there.
If you really want to help everyone whether it be because of Inflation, crime and the blight caused by crime the answer is simple. Vote Republican.
Larry Bauer
Hot Springs Village