The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.

Is Our Mayor In Focus?

by Dessa Rodeffer, Quill Publisher/Owner

22 February 2006

Is Our Stronghurst Mayor in focus on what is really best for our families, our children, and our community?

For the life of me, I, nor can anyone at the newspaper figure out why our Village "father" would want to open up alcohol trade into a community that is lucky enough not to have it.

I was in complete disbelief to find out that our Village Mayor felt it necessary to pursue an election to bring the availability of alcohol into our small town. Aren't there other things that a Mayor should be pursuing?

I can see challenging an old law that is on the books if it is going to make our community a safer and more beautiful place to live, but not one that can encourage just the opposite.

It seems that the village has been concerned with adequate police protection and drugs within the community, but no one is going out of their way to pursue a grant for a police car, or finding someone that can be in town 24-7 to take control of the park and break-ins such as La Harpe continually does.

It seems very unusual to me that "five young couples" can bring up an idea to the Mayor and he jumps right on it, when in fact, those wishing to have this on the ballot should be pursuing it themselves, not our elected officials. We have elected them to be care-takers of our community.

I and many other long-standing residents who live in our community have felt a sense of pride in the fact that our community does not have to be selling liquor to pay for our parks and our various community projects. We have had a history of community pride and community giving.

I am hoping our Village Trustees will reconsider where they want to be placing their efforts in running our village.

We have already had problems keeping Jo Jo's Korner. We have a restaurant along with a grocery store complete with Deli and the FS station with their pizza and sandwich business. How do you think bringing in a Casey's convenient store is going to improve business if it runs other businesses out of town?

History will tell you that the selling of alcohol is not going to improve things in the long run.

Our Village Trustees should take pride in the values this community has stood for all these years and build on them. We have a great place to raise a family and a great place for our senior citizens to live. Let's not waste time pursuing trouble. Is that really what you want to be remembered for as our leaders? I don't think so.