Well, we had a "Public Meeting" about the huge water tower the Water Department is trying to push down the throats of the Hopeful residents. First, citizens were not allowed to speak to the gathering at this "public meeting."

Unbelievable but true. In Fayette County, I guess "public meeting" is what's called an oxymoron like "jumbo shrimp" or "government intelligence."

We were treated to a number of photographs of unimproved land. Unfortunately, none of these were marked in a way to be easily recognizable. Particularly the site we believe the only suitable site presented.

This site is at Hwy. 92 and West Bridge/Rivers Road, on either side of the road. The picture was of the land behind the commercial buildings and only showed the two cell towers already there.

You could not see any of the three service station/convenience stores, the rows of mini-warehouses, the auto repair shops, the glass company, the lumber yard, the used auto parts place, the new oil change place, the dry cleaners, the propane gas company and its accompanying tanks, or the strips of new commercial buildings in this picture.

Didn't the Water Department want to let people understand exactly which property was being studied? This site is obviously better from our community's viewpoint.

On the positive side, the commissioners,the engineers and others indicated their willingness to listen to our complaints and proposals. The question is was this only lip service or is there an actual desire to do the right thing. Time will tell.

We also are proposing that the Water Department look at the area of 314 and New Hope Road (Fayette Pavilion area) to site the new tower. This would mean that the line to feed the new tower could be four miles shorter and about a million dollars cheaper.

We had our own engineer at the meeting, Mr. John Shepard from Southern Engineering, to help us evaluate our recommendations and look at the situation. He has visited the sites in question and concurs these are valid places to build the tower.

He has also given us additional insight on the related cost involved.

If the Water Committee fails to recommend either of these sites or a decent alternative, the fate of our community will rest in the hands of the commissioners.

Do they want us to look like an industrial center or does our community remain as we want?