I read with interest several weeks ago the grandmother’s comment about the school supplies requested by her granddaughters’ schools, and the subsequent remarks by indignant Fayette teachers. Today I happened to glance at some of the supply lists that were still remaining at my neighborhood PTC Kroger. Yes, the lists DO request specific brand names and specific quality items. I live in PTC, but teach in Clayton, where we are grateful for any kind of supply that comes in, whether they’re from the Dollar Store, Wal-Mart, etc. We provide the rest of the supplies out of our paltry allotment, but mostly out of our own pockets, which includes school supplies and all the incidentals that make a classroom look and feel like a warm learning environment. I guess none of this should surprise me. Several years back, I was in a bookstore in PTC on the night a Harry Potter book was to be available. Several of us got to talking while we were waiting on the long line. The ladies behind me were Peachtree City teachers. I mentioned that I was an educator also. When they heard where I taught, their condescending remark was, “Well don’t expect to come and get a job in Fayette! We don’t want any of yours. We hire from our own.” Yaddy yadda. So I guess the elitist supply list shouldn’t surprise me, just goes with the territory. Guess they forgot the point of why they became teachers in the first place.

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Did anyone notice the mysterious shortage of school supplies at area super-stores, drugstores, and office supply stores? We all know that the stores have school supply lists (so they know what we need). Isn’t it strange that all of the above mentioned types of stores were out-of-stock on all the smaller packs or least expensive types of required materials, but amazingly they had jumbo-packs or overpriced versions of the same. I ended up shelling out three times the bucks on plastic folders (certain colors), markers (specific types), etc. Listen: the stores know what school supplies we need and how many children need them. This is price gouging if I’ve ever seen it. People were upset when gas prices doubled. Where’s the public outcry here?

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I know Dr. John DeCotis is a good administrator and deserves to be paid well for his work. However, I question a system that can make one person wealthy at the taxpayers’ expense while the hundreds of teachers, who are the most important part of our education system, under his supervision barely make a living. Something just isn’t right.

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The person who wrote the comment about the “rough” high school in Fayette not meeting AYP standards needs to get his or her facts straight. There are two issues that need to be addressed. The first one is that ALL schools in Fayette County have made AYP every year since the assessment started. Therefore, no transfers can be made that apply to the federal law you quoted. Secondly, exactly which high school were you referring to as “rough”? Is it perhaps the one on Ga. Highway 85 where the student had a trunk full of weapons on school grounds and where a student from Lovejoy High School entered the building carrying a weapon? Or perhaps it is the high school in the South Complex where a couple of years ago a former Creekside High School student with weapons in his vehicle entered the school building. Maybe it’s the high school in Peachtree City where a student was arrested in January for possession of a weapon within a school safety zone, marijuana possession, and underage alcohol possession. I doubt you were referring to any of those. Maybe, as a county, we need to be careful about criticizing or insulting some of our schools while putting others up on too high of a pedestal. You can receive an excellent education at all five of our high schools. And before you go and refer to one as “rough,” try spending a little time there during a typical school day, and you might be surprised at how unfounded your criticism is.

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I heard Doug Barnett and Towne Center Chick-fil-A have been “fired” by WHS administration. Hasn’t Barnett given too much time and money to the students and teachers of Fayette to be kicked out of school? Do I have the facts right? Tell me one of our best partners in education hasn’t been kicked to the curb.

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What a warm and fuzzy feeling it is watching all the bulldozers on Ga. highways 54 and 314 and now Bradley at Jimmy Mayfield. For a minute there I thought maybe the Fayetteville planners were actually going to leave a few trees standing.

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While the blood drive in the Fayette County library was a wonderful gesture, it was poorly run. I see why people don’t want to donate blood now. I sat there for an hour and a half just to be told that —Oops! — we have run out of needles. They did apologize and we got our t-shirt and cookies, but that wasn’t the point. The point was I wanted to save someone’s life and I could not that day because they ran out of needles. The American Red Cross needs to come up with a better staff and better plans the next time they come to Fayetteville or no one will show up to give blood.

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To the parents of the boys who are running roughshod all over the neighborhoods from Hwy. 85 to Hwy. 92 and up and down Harp Road on their four-wheelers and dirt bikes: What in the world are you thinking? Do you not have any respect for your neighbors and fellow citizens and fellow taxpayers? The boys are literally destroying property. You had to have known when you bought the equipment and did not arrange to take them to suitable areas to use them that they would be destroying property and disturbing others. Do you really not care? I am naive but I think some of you would really care and teach your sons the proper way to behave. I have friends, coworkers and a minister who rides these type vehicles, but they do it at an appropriate place and are courteous to others and respectful to our neighborhoods. Please, we beg you, come to your senses and stop this madness.

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I just read the “Fun Facts” in the program for The Fred’s Summer Concert Series. I wonder if Tony Orlando considers his younger sister’s death at age 21 from cerebral palsy or if Peter Frampton almost being killed in a car crash in the Bahamas in 1978 considers it “funny”? This begins to help one understand some of the “decisions” being made at The Fred.

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I have to agree with Cal Beverly regarding the pay increase [for PTC Council members]. As they say, timing is everything and the timing on this one is very bad. Ms. Plunkett makes it sound as though someone increased the work load on her. A woman who previously served on the council told me the work load hasn’t changed a bit and the city charter was actually amended to decrease the duties of the mayor. What?

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For those of us watching the antics of the PTC Council last Thursday, all we could do was groan in disbelief. Mayor Logsdon has turned out to be a huge disappointment. His abstaining on the council salary increase vote makes him a big old non-leader. He came off as totally gutless. Riding the fence and retreating isn’t very pretty, Mr. Mayor. I’m glad Stuart Kourajian is not running for re-election too. Maybe we can get someone with principles in office on the next turn.

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Mayor Logsdon looked completely disoriented at the City Council meeting. His reason for choosing not to vote on the salary increase was laughable. I wish more people could see the guy in action. The meeting ought to be televised.

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How does someone who sells sewer system parts out of their home become chairman of WASA?

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Goodness gracious, just when I thought Harold Logsdon couldn’t make things any worse, he appoints the sewer authority chairman to the City Council. The guy openly said he’s in favor of running the sewer into Tyrone so they can build three times as many houses. This make me sick to my stomach. The Logsdon era will forever be known as the time our standards hit rock bottom.

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Well, it finally happened. For years we have been reading in Free Speech people saying, “Please don’t make us into Riverdale, don’t make us Riverdale II, if we keep on this track we will be just another Riverdale, etc.” Now it has finally happened. A citizen from Tyrone wrote in to say: “We don’t need to be like Peachtree City and clog the roads.” Yep, we have reached that point where other citizens in other towns/cities are writing in saying, “Please don’t make us like Peachtree City.” With all of this development on steroids we have been experiencing since the mid-90s, we have finally turned into the city that other citizens in other towns/cities don’t want to be like. Don’t we feel proud now?

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What is going on at Fayetteville Soccer? They won’t let you be on the team you want to be on. You can’t be on the same team as your friends and classmates. That is not fair. Lightning is really bad. They bring part of a team from another county to play on the second team and put the players that have been in Lightning for a long time on the number 3 team. This is so not fair. They have some players that get scholarships to play because their parents cannot afford Lightning because the players are going to Woodward. I thought Woodward cost a lot of money to go to. I also believe that Lightning has lost several teams because they give preference to out of county people instead of the people that live in their own county. Someone in the county needs to take a look at these practices.

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No mola Smola. When Tyrone Councilman Michael Smola announced his candidacy for mayor of Tyrone, he said he was a good listener, takes a balanced approach, is entrenched in the community, controlled development, had a plan in place, did a good job as councilman and has given back to the community. Notice the generalities in his statements. Let’s look at the specifics. In 2004 he voted to take away all land uses in all zoning districts. This one act has caused enormous financial losses to all businesses, constant turmoil at council hearings and large lawsuits. This one act disqualifies him from representing the people. His so-called balanced approach consists of always voting against Grace Caldwell and Gloria Furr, who are the real representative of the citizens. He supports everything Barry Amos does, who is easily the most despised person in Tyrone. If Smola is a good listener, he certainly pays no attention to citizens’ voluminous complaints, which includes his smart-aleck attitude toward people who speak at council. He certainly is entrenched in the corrupt government circles but not in the community at large. He definitely has a plan to control development. It’s sewer for high-density downtown development and taking property in violation of fifth amendment property rights without just compensation, which is a conspiratorial plan with Amos. Smola considers all of this a good job. Tyrone definitely needs a new mayor, but its certainly not Smola. No mola Smola. Vote for Don Rehwaldt for mayor.

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Not again! Mayor Sheryl Lee was the tie-breaking vote (along with Mike Smola and Paul Letourneau) on another high-density development issue. This is a repeat of Lee’s flip-flop Wieland vote. She now wants three times more sewer capacity than the city currently has and for what? It can only mean double the houses. Tyrone is a great place to live, so don’t screw it up with high-density housing and lots more cars on our roads.

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When you start calling folks who are pro-choice pro-abortion it is the same as calling so-called pro-lifers “anti-choice.” Anything that goes against the “religious rights” notions of what is right and/or wrong just doesn’t fly. No one is actually pro-abortion but a woman’s right to choose what is right for her and her unborn fetus is that woman’s individual choice. That is one of the great things about living in a free society. The same as not choosing to use proper contraception due to any number of reasons (ignorance, so-called religious beliefs, etc.) and then having to rely on assistance from others (you and I, the hard-working taxpayers) to foot the bill for them their whole lives. Mr. Giuliani is one of the only Republicans worthy of the office in a long time. He cleaned up the greatest city in the country, if not the world, and led it through one of its most difficult times (9/11, I was there) and brought it back to its rightful place where it is safe to walk and do whatever you please (can’t really say that about so-called downtown, or most anywhere in, Atlanta; I know, I worked there for close to three years). As for his pro-gay rights championing, and believe me, I am a red-blooded, working-class, blue-collar-town-raised as a “tough-street kid” who happens to be a professional as an adult — They are people. And some of the most hard-working, upstanding, G-D fearing people out there to boot. As the old “gay” slogan goes (to paraphrase), ”They’re here, they’re queer, get used to it.”

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The Aug. 15 issue of The Citizen contains a good amount of submitted writings from readers (both in letters to the editor and in the Free Speech categories) on the subject of religious interpretation of biblical scripture. It is disturbing that the genre of most of the writings are arguments refuting other views, and presupposing that their views are superior in value than others. Some writers even state that they would fight to the death in support of their views (assuming that the opposition would rise to defend their views). Forgive me if I am wrong, but is this not what the genesis of the religious warfare of the Middle East is all about? It would be assumed that religion and theology would be all about an understanding of who we are and how we live just and fruitful lives. Instead the nasty tentacles of poisonous vitriol seems to infect the zealots who are more interested in putting down those who do not share their vision. What we are reading in these pages is nothing more than low-grade religious warfare, without realizing that it is no different in intention than all of the nasty and horrific inhumanity that has gone on before and what continues today. There is nothing good to be gained by foisting your absolutism on others. Some of you say that we are all God’s children. Some others say that we are all human beings and we are all part of the whole world, and no exceptions. I think we can and should all live under the basic understanding of the Golden Rule.

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A particular class of people in this country throw the term “racist” around so loosely that they cry racist at anything that don’t suit them. How can prosecuting someone for a despicable and cruel crime such as dog fighting be racist? Give me a break, folks. The real racists in this country are the ones that constantly use the term.

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For all those critics of the VA Hospital out there, I have a message for you. First of all, VA medical care for veterans is not free by a long sight and it is first class care in most cases. As a result of the physical and mental scars I brought back from three years in the Korean conflict, I have never had a normal comfortable day in my 73 years of life. I wasn’t buried over there, but I gave up my life in defense of my country as did millions of other guys. No, VA medical care for veterans is definitely not free.