LETTERS EDITOR TO THE

Shooting violence solution

The solution to the shooting violence is certainly multifaceted.

In the late ’60s, the state mental hospitals were full. Soon thereafter, they began a new medical treatment and released the patients to their homes. The solution didn’t have the full desired results. Often the meds were too expensive, they had inconvenient side effects and many patients did not have the discipline to complete their meds.

Shortly thereafter, the Congress passed some “feel good” laws to protect individual privacy. Since then, police are reticent and threatened about any interference without a crime.

The solution could begin to ameliorate the problem if Congress would permit corrective police work so they were able to interfere with individuals who give clear indications of being a danger to themselves or others, whether their problem is mental or psychological. There has been a successful private vs. public policy of arranging house parents to monitor medicines, workforce activity and general health practices and conduct. Rev. Robert Miskimen Bella Vista

Opportunity missed

One of the greatest things about Bella Vista is the opportunity to get involved in the governance of the city and the POA. In preparation for next month’s election of four POA board members, the POA held a candidates’ forum last night (March 20).

There are 30,000 residents in the city of Bella Vista, and the vast majority are residents of the Bella Vista Village POA. At the forum, the audience was 34 people. When you deduct the spouses of the candidates, the current POA board members and spouses, the election committee and POA employees, there were less than two dozen members of the community there. I am beyond disgusted at that turn out.

Our POA board serves on a volunteer basis, with no compensation. Board members spend 10-40 hours every month working to make our community a better place to live, yet so few residents could be bothered to spend one and a half hours listening to them speak and deciding who we want to elect to serve on our board.

Where were all those folks who voted against the assessment increase, to the detriment of our community? Where were all those folks who write such demeaning and often inaccurate letters to the editor in this paper? If you have the time to be so negative, then you surely can give up one short evening to help make Bella Vista the community you want it to be.

You can indeed be part of the solution. Hopefully, those thousands of people who did not bother to attend will take the time to go to the POA website and review the biographies and statements from the candidates, call them, email them and have a dialogue so that their choices can help guide us into the future. Oops, I am assuming residents will even bother to vote next month!

You are missing an incredible opportunity to get involved and chart our future. Linda Lloyd Bella Vista

Bella Vista not using its money effectively

Not long after Mr. Christie became the mayor of Bella Vista, I asked him to come to my house to look at a drainage problem caused by the city street. If it wasn’t for the speed bump at the edge of my driveway, I would have all the water from the culde-sac blacktop run into my house. I showed him how the road slopes in my direction, causing the problem.

He informed me he had a study done to determine how much it would take to fix the roads in our fair city. He said the study showed a total of $12,000,000 worth of work. Then he advised he wants to try to do that without raising taxes.

“That will be great and how soon are you going to get started?”

He didn’t know yet. But back to my problem, he said Cooper Communities is the cause of the drainage issue and the city is not responsible. Wow! It seems they took on everything else to do with the city except controlling the building of buildings, repairs and, I guess, the roads as well.

I now have a sinking cul-de-sac. Water comes up through the blacktop cracks and the water still drains up to my speed bump. I called the Property Owners Association out once in the summer and once in the winter; and they say it is groundwater. So, I called the city street department; and what do I get? Yes, they informed me it is bad and all they can do right now is put my street on a consideration list. That doesn’t mean it will be fixed right away and it could be taken off the list at any time. (It probably will be after this letter.)

It seems the city can give our tax dollars to the POA even though we homeowners have monthly dues and amenity fees. The money goes for things like bike trails that maybe only about 5 percent of the Bella Vista population uses and other issues our dues and amenity payments should go to.

Why do we have an almost $8 million surplus, yet we can’t get roads fixed? A new city complex

is being considered and I am sure it is going to be a big-dollar complex. We

have the money; don’t spend it like the POA did, on a lot of things that didn’t need to be done.

I think it is time for the city to clean this town up and fix what we have. Then look at building a new city complex, with costs

being a consideration, so we don’t have something that looks like it belongs in Washington, D.C. Think creatively! Because this is taxpayer’s money — use it wisely. Clayton Thurman Bella Vista