Teach kids about vets
Many of our stores will be closed on Veterans Day and many people will be off work in observance. We need to honor the veterans who help keep our country free. I just found out that some of my nieces and nephews are off school and some are not. Why aren't all the schools honoring Veterans Day? These children need to be taught the value of freedom and the love of country. I don't understand why this is important for some of the area schools and not important to others. The schools that are in session have done an injustice to the veterans and in teaching their children the values of our country.
Costello's placeholder
It's nice that Bill Enyart is rested and ready to roll up his sleeves and get to work. I'm sure he hopes to have more than one term but that's really up to the Costello family, isn't it? Whenever Jerry II feels like he's ready to step into the job that Enyart is holding for him, that's what will happen. Good luck to him.
Go after their estates
Since the taxpayers of Freeburg had to pay out an enormous amount of money because of the sexual abuse by Dr. Hawkins and the two administrators who covered it up, why doesn't the school board go after monetary damages against the estates of Hawkins and the administrators? They are responsible for what happened. Why should the village taxpayers be responsible? Unless the school board files a lawsuit against the estates, they are letting the residents of Freeburg down. Get on the stick and go after them.
Sheriff's rental space
I think Mearl Justus may live anywhere he wishes to live. St. Paul's Home has apartments that have nothing to do with assisted living or the nursing home. He simply rents an apartment that has an elevator. Why shouldn't he live there? Who says he has to live above the county jail? This is America and fair is fair. He can rent anywhere he wishes.
Cleaning MidAmerica
Mark Kern says there are more than 267 good-paying jobs at MidAmerica Airport. Why do we need all those jobs when nothing has been going on out there? All these years we have been supporting these jobs. What do these people do, sit around and watch one person sweep the floor once a week? Give me a break. No wonder we're wasting so much money.
Bars need smoking
There was an interesting article about video gambling being the "only thing to save bars." The quote came from a tavern owner lauding how it's recently activated equipment is bringing new customers. The question is, why do bars need saving? The answer is easy: those who used to congregate in bars are staying home where they can smoke while having a beer. Which is worse, allowing bars to welcome smoking beer drinkers or expanding gambling to save the bars? The smoking beer drinkers are not giving up smoking. They simply need to gather in homes rather than in bars and many of these homes have children breathing in the smoke. Instead of acting on the obvious solution of revisiting and revising the no-smoking laws, the government is introducing another vice. This makes no sense.
Political prohibition
I'd like to ask the Belleville News-Democrat to give us a Christmas present -- no more political letters, no more political junk in the Sound-off, no political mumbo-jumbo. From now on until after Christmas, I would like to see nothing political in the paper. I'm tired of it, people don't respect the President or anybody any more and you print this stuff every day.
Paying unfair share
We hear a lot on the news about people paying their fair share. How about a person who is retired, has no kids and hasn't had for 25 years, and his real estate taxes are right around $6,500 a year of which approximately 40 percent goes to schools? Down the road there's a trailer park of five families with a total of 14 kids and they're paying approximately $250 a year in real estate taxes. Let's talk about fair share there.
Real right to work
It really bothers me about the misinformation that gets published in the paper. Michael Ray Dillier always wants to talk about right to work states. I don't think most people know what this means. This does not mean that organized labor cannot exist. It means that people in that particular state have a right to work; they do not have to belong to any union or organization in order to work in a job. Union and non-union people work side by side. In non-right to work states such as Illinois, if you do not belong to a union, you still have to pay dues. It's a right for the union to take your money. Since Dillier is a staunch union man, he doesn't like that right to work states don't get to collect all the money from everyone who works and use it for their political campaigns. What it does do is, in states where there are problems, people can still form unions and still have collective bargaining.
Real offshore culprit
It amazes me how people resent Romney because he's rich and that he sent jobs offshore. I wonder how many of those people shop at Wal-Mart? Who has more money than the Walton family? How many products in their stores come from China? I bet 9 out of 10 come from China. They have very few things in their stock that are made in the USA but people don't resent them. What's the difference between Romney and the Waltons? The Waltons come in and ruin your town, put small businesses out of business, put the local merchants out of business, they come in and get the TIF, but no one resents them. Maybe someone can explain it to me.
Values, not racism
I'm tired of being lectured to by people like Leonard Pitts who accuses conservatives of not supporting Obama because they are racist. Conservatives have values and we have differences of opinions but it doesn't mean we're wrong. It just means we believe differently. I don't care what color the man is. Our values and opinions are different.
Wesley's voting credo
This is not telling you who you should have voted for but how you should have voted in a way based on biblical principles of good citizenship and godliness. John Wesley advised those in Methodist Societies: 1) to vote without fee or reward for the person they judged most worthy; 2) to speak no evil of the person they voted against; 3) to take care their spirits were not sharpened against those who voted on the other side.
I-64 smooth as glass
I'm driving westbound on I-64 around 255 and I wanted to congratulate the workers on a job well done for putting down a new asphalt surface. It's as smooth as glass. Maybe they should teach the Missouri road workers how to do it. They are just about finished replacing the expansion joints on the west side of the Poplar Street Bridge and it's as rough as it can be. If they did that in Illinois, I think they would be fired.
Cahokia gets no grant
In response to the article about the metro-east communities receiving $460,000 in grants for their park projects, I noticed that Cahokia got zero and I was wondering why? I know it's not because Cahokia has not applied for the grants. All the surrounding communities are getting something. Could it be that someone at the county level is not happy with who is in charge in Cahokia now or is this just another example of the corruption that exists in St. Clair County? Come on people.
Bad place for polls
My polling place was located in a schoolroom in a grade school in Cahokia while school was in session. This really surprised me because I feel this could have exposed the kids to possible sex offenders.
Fostering vote fraud
You announced that early voting was very popular in this election. One of the reasons is because the Democratic Club mailed every person in the East St. Louis community two absentee ballots so they could vote absentee. Neither Belleville nor Fairview Heights did this so they specifically targeted the minority population which contributes to the voter fraud which no one is addressing.
Voting ends road work
They have constantly been working on repaving Illinois 158 through Millstadt. Here we have a beautiful day, Election Day, and no one is working. I guess they had to give their union guys the day off so they could go vote. Sad.
Put Boogie in a book
I'm calling about Jennifer Bowen's column about Boogie. Jennifer must be related to one of the owner's of the BND. What a waste of space. Why doesn't she just write a book and be done with it.
Voting lessons
The election is over and I'm still wondering about the busing of the Cahokia 18-year-old students to Belleville to vote under the guise of a learning experience. Realistically, the students should have learned where their polling place was and they could have voted there between 6 and 8 a.m. or between 3 and 7 p.m. They would not have missed any school.
More work for McCoy
Glenn McCoy better sharpen his pencils. He now has four more years of drawing his hate-filled, biased cartoons about our president. Get over it, Glenn. Everyone knows how you feel about Obama. Move on.
Obama's time to lead
Congratulations to President Obama on his reelection. He has our prayers. It is now time for him to show leadership. The Republicans are no longer his excuse. Other Presidents have lead with the other party opposing them but still got things done. Accept some responsibility, Mr. Obama, and lead this country forward.
What's Obama to do?
Congratulations, President Obama. Everything is yours now. No one to blame but you because what you were left with was created by you. What are you going to do about it?
Respect the office
In a letter on the Opinions page, Bob Dagner of Millstadt called the President and the people who voted for him "stupid." He is undoubtedly crazy about the word "stupid." He should realize, whether he likes Obama or not, he must respect the position that he holds. You just don't call the President "stupid" in America.
County pensions?
I would like the BND to report on how many of the new county board members sign up for health care and the pension.
Leaders failed you
This is for the teachers union and the state workers and their leadership. The people who have squandered your future pensions have used the money for their earmarks for whatever they wanted. You're not guaranteed the money will be there for your pensions because you are $85 billion in debt. But you keep electing the same people in the same party that is responsible for taking advantage of you. Why would you do that? You're supposed to be educated but you let your leadership use your money to support candidates who have squandered your future.
Sheriff's problems
Ex-police Chief Rick Watson and former Cahokia Mayor Frank Bergman were run out of Cahokia by united black and white voters a couple of years ago. Frank Bergman now has a St. Clair County job at $70,000 a year and, unbeknownst to most of the public, Watson is now the undersheriff. One wonders where all the recent problems with the once highly effective St. Clair County sheriff's department have come from? Rumor has it that Watson plans to run for sheriff.
