To the author of “Driving while black in Fayette County,” you should be ashamed of yourself for playing the race card. Why didn’t your letter include the fact that most crimes committed near where your son was pulled over were committed by blacks? And what about the racial makeup of the area, etc.? If most of the crimes in the area were committed by white males, then you might have a leg to stand on. The police are doing the best they can with the crime that has run rampant in that area. Get over it.

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In response the opinion of Wendy L. Scales-Johnson: Get the racist police off the streets. We are paying their salaries and I won’t have my money wasted. We won’t have it. Stop being evil. And you have the nerve to go to church. Whether you like it or not, Fayette County is a diverse community, and seems to become more so by the day. We have Muslims, Hispanic, Japanese, Chinese, etc. Get over it. The life of God is not white and oppressive. If I hear of another such report of harassment, a march, protest, and lawsuit against the city will be underway. Some of my neighbors may be racist, but they keep their mouths shut.

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Cows for Christ article: I am sure Mr. Pace and his daughter are sick at heart concerning your crass headline. How demeaning to use a slang expression, one that is derisive and conjures up images of a shrill fishwife or B movie gangster, to introduce such a worthy project. Get a new headline writer. For some time now, these silly, irreverent heads have been dragging silt across the pages of your paper. I can’t believe that [you] attached that tacky piece of newsprint to this article that speaks of decent people who have hearts filled with the compassion that Christ taught. Shame on you.

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What has happened to people these days who walk away from legal and ethical commitments? I was recently made aware of two situations in Peachtree City involving real estate transactions where the buyers walked away from their agreement to buy for no apparent reason or explanation, other than getting cold feet. One would assume that the buyers would have done their homework before signing the agreement. While these “buyers” had agreements that were signed and accepted by the sellers, they decided to use an “escape clause” in the contract, despite qualifying for the mortgage and the homes passing inspection with flying colors. In each case, the sellers were left holding the bag and out a considerable sum of money and time and may even lose the homes they contracted to buy. What is particularly concerning about this is that the real estate agents use standard contracts that support this practice. Press your Realtor to explain all of the possible “escape clauses” to you before signing an agreement. These clauses are often glossed over. A word of advice to anyone selling their home, with or without a real estate agent: Caveat venditor — let the seller beware. There are many unscrupulous buyers out there (bottom fishing) that could leave the seller holding the bag and financially over extended. Get adequate earnest money; if the buyer is serious, they will not have a problem depositing a reasonable sum or earnest money. If they don’t want to provide but minimal earnest money, question their motives and be very careful about their true intent to close.

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I cringe each time I read about someone advocating a monopoly trash pick-up service in Peachtree City. The arguments for monopolizing are little more than a distance few voices. Yet each time the issue arises, it makes the City Council think this is what we want. It is NOT what we want. We need to keep competition. Those who argue the noise of an extra trash truck once a week can’t seem to get it through their thick heads that they should talk to their good neighbors and unify on a street wide pick-up choice. The “oh so precious environment” (aka similar to using “the children”) will not suddenly be enhanced by a government dictating our trash pick-up service. Don’t let City Council make that choice for all Peachtree City citizens. A government agency dictating our choices never works well. Any council member who brings up a single trash service for all of PTC will not be reelected. Perhaps that last statement will kill this issue until after the next election.

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I would like to let everyone know that on Saturday night my family and I went to have dinner at [a local ethnic] restaurant. While eating, I looked up at the large glass window which looks into the kitchen and noticed the head chef had a large napkin twisted and stuck up his nose. After looking at him closer, I noticed that it was saturated with blood. I was mortified that my food was prepared by someone bending over a stove while dealing with a bloody nose. By the way, he also didn’t have on any gloves. I reported my findings to the manager and he seemed to think this was acceptable and informed me that he felt it had stopped bleeding. Clearly it had not. I feel so ill. I pray that me and my family have not ended up with a horrible disease.

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Defrocked former County Attorney Bill McNally hasn’t even been on the clock for Tyrone yet and he’s already set them up for an open meetings lawsuit. That’s got to be a record, even for him. The Attorney General will disagree with the old “we weren’t sworn in yet” defense. Since the result of their violation is him getting a job, he didn’t mind having them walk the plank. They talked about the public’s business AFTER they were elected and AFTER the results were ratified. Here’s hoping someone will file a suit, but I know better than to hope these rednecks have learned their lesson. On the other hand, this might be Grace Caldwell’s way of paying back McNally for the time when she was a County Commissioner and he got her out of a little scrape with the cell phones. The folks of Tyrone are good people and don’t deserve to be represented like this.

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I would like to thank the Fayette County Board of Education for again wasting thousands of dollars of our tax money in a time when education cannot afford to throw money away. A few years back the board decided to redistrict a few of the overcrowded elementary schools and spent thousands of dollars to come up with some maps that were obviously affected by neighborhood political pressure. In the end, the board decided to table the redistricting, due to the fear of a lawsuit from a neighborhood a stone’s throw from Peeples. In this case, the board’s answer to these schools’ problems was to go with special permission for anyone at a crowded school. That did not help Peeples Elementary at all and it put about 100 kids at Kedron on special permission. The next year the board needed to redistrict for a new middle school. In the process they upset a lot of families in the North PTC area by moving them from PTC to the middle of the county. So, some parents gave the board some input: ”Next time you redistrict, let the community have some input and use expert advice, in the name of Kelley Carey.” The board listened to the parents of north PTC and brought in an expert and put together a community advisory group. This expert was not cheap, and running a community advisory group was not cheap. Each time the redistricting committee met they had five county employees with them. The committee went through thousands of copies of paper and a lot of huge maps (very expensive). How much did this cost? Did the county employees get overtime or comp time? How much did those meetings cost the taxpayers? The expert cost about $42,000. Where did the results of this committee and expert go? Down a very expensive trash can. Fayette taxpayers, wake up and smell the waste of your money. Now, next year the county will be running an elementary school at half capacity: Sara Harp Minter. How much money will this waste? Inman Elementary will open with more kids than Minter and is built to hold 160 less children. The board had the opportunity to get it right this time, and they did not. Had they listened to the community advisory group and consultant, the schools would have had balanced enrollment. Instead, we have a few schools still overcrowded and a few way under capacity. Taxpayers, you need to be informed.

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I really hate to see Dan Tennant running his big mouth in the newspapers like he had anything to do with Rep. Ramsey’s victory. Nothing could be further from the truth and the indignant Mr. Tennant should be thankful that Rep. Ramsey showed pity upon him and accepted his light financial contribution. His claim to have played a part in Rep. Ramsey’s victory over the hapless Steve Brown is laughable. Mr. Tennant foams with ignorance and disrespect and his poor behavior in the past to Mayor Lenox was inexcusable. Mr. Tennant is weak and the only reaction anyone should give to his dribble is a liberal dose of hand sanitizer.

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Have you been to the Kroger Braelinn Shopping Center lately? Everyday it seems another store either closes or moves out. Kroger and Kmart are the only remaining anchor stores, and Kmart is so dirty and foul I am surprised it remains open. I know of at least five different restaurants that have closed, leaving a shopping center filled with more vacant spaces than occupied spaces. What has happened to this once thriving shopping center? I hear the rent is way too high for tenants to pay, so they leave or close. The Retail Planning Corporation is to blame for the demise of this center. We used to cart over to Valentino’s for dinner, then walk to the ice cream store for dessert. The planning committee bigwigs of Peachtree City need to take action and save this shopping center. They should require the Retail Planning Corporation to lower rent and entice quality stores and restaurants back to Braelinn so this center does not continue to look like a dilapidated strip mall located in a neighboring county where shopping center vacancies are common place and crime and violence are invited to the once filled but now empty parking spaces. How many robberies or assaults will it take before something is done to bring back the quality shopping once enjoyed at this center?

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If you own a blue golf cart with the registration 08885 and are wondering if you child is being careful on the golf cart, she’s not. She is being very reckless and nearly ran us off the path. Just thought you should know.

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Thank you to the wonderful man who stopped his car on Peachtree Parkway the day after Christmas to let us cross at the boat docks on a walk with our 3-year-old daughter on her new bike. Because of neighbors like you, we live in a safer and friendlier place.

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To anyone running for public office at the local, state and federal level: If you have no plans to better the life for middle class, or the forgotten class, I have a message for you: Do not run. This is our story, which I am sure is very familiar to many, many families out there: My husband makes about $95K a year, we have a small amount of credit card debt, at no interest, only one car payment (the other car is old and has 182,000 miles on it), and we have only one child. We are renting because we just moved here from another state, and our rent is about what our house payment used to be. We live in a middle class, safe neighborhood, and yes, we do pay a bit more money to live in Fayette County in comparison to other counties in order for my son to go to a great school. You would think we would be able to get ahead because we do not have to pay property taxes and homeowners insurance for the first time in six years, but you would be wrong. With the cost of gas expected to hit $4 a gallon in the next couple of weeks, the soaring rate of groceries, and the increased expense of every other household cost that every family has to face in order just to live, we are barely getting by. By our terms, and those of any financial advisor you ask, we are doing everything right: Contributing to the 401(k), saving what we can, and using the paying cash for everything method. As each month goes by, the financial outlook for the middle class worsens. Healthcare is a mess. Of the previously mentioned credit card debt, about half of the amount we owe is due in result of a minor, but necessary surgery. And yes, we are paying every month about $400 for insurance for our family, but as everything else, the cost of that is going up as well. But do you think our coverage is getting better? No. What is the middle class to do? We are already cutting back the thermostat a couple degrees, we have been using coupons for almost everything, and we are not eating out. There is nothing else my family and I can do to decrease our expenses. What makes me really angry is the idea that for the first time since my son was a year old, I find myself facing the fact that I will HAVE to go back to work just to help my husband pay the bills. This is the United States of America, the greatest country in the world. I should not be faced with NOT having a choice to stay at home with my son. Every family should have a choice in how they want their children to be raised. At home, or day care — there is no wrong way — but there needs to be a choice. It is this choice that is the most fundamental idea of this great country. I hate to see what this place will be like in 20 years if there is no such thing as the stay at home parent. Therefore, if you are a candidate reading this and you cannot solve these issues if you are elected, please do us all a favor and remove your name from the ballot. All of the wasteful spending of that is done in this county, state, and country is doing nothing to help families like mine. Believe me, families like mine who know how to budget and know what is important to the future of the great nation could do a lot with those wasted tax dollars. From a fed-up, financially responsible, cash drained citizen, and stay at home mom.

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Starting Jan. 1 the Texas legislature has decided to impose a $5 tax on anyone entering a strip club, the proceeds of which are to be used to pay for rape counseling programs. I fully support this but believe it should be taken one step further to include a tax on all church-goers. The proceeds could then be used to help counsel all the children that have been raped, abused or molested by priests, ministers and other clergy.

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I agree with the writer who boycotts businesses that refuse to recognize Christmas and call it Happy Holiday instead. I have a question for those Happy Holidayers. What do you celebrate on your birthday? How would you like it if I demanded that you recognize me on your birthday? Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ and it is therefore Christmas and nothing else. Not Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc. If those people want to celebrate their belief, no problem, but leave Christmas alone. I don’t come to your house and butt in when you celebrate your particular holidays, so stay out of mine, that being Christmas which is the basis of the Christian nation we live in. Stop trying to push it aside in favor of some Johnny come lately celebration. Happy Holidays is appropriate when referring to the season beginning with Thanksgiving through New Years but Christmas is special and should be recognized as such. After all, Jesus is the reason for the season.

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How is it that the Republican Party has set themselves up as the only “Christians” in this political mess we have nowadays? I know more good and true Christians among Democrats than Republicans.

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I served in a branch of military intelligence during Korea and Vietnam that required a top secret clearance. If your background check revealed even a distant relative that might have had the slightest connections to the Communist Party or any other subversive organization, you were immediately rejected. Today we are considering a candidate for president of the United States that was born to and indoctrinated as a child by a radical Islamic terrorist father. I think Americans have a death wish or are incredibly stupid.

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McCain objects when Romney characterizes giving a Z-card and a path to citizenship for millions of illegal aliens as an “amnesty.” I wonder if he would parse his favorite phrase, “My friend.” He uses it for his political foes and for citizens whose votes he wants.

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The United States has recently given Pakistan about $6 billion in military aid as a way of helping us support our war on terror. I just noticed where Lockheed in Marietta just got a military contract to supply $5 billion worth of F-16 fighter planes to Pakistan. Of course that wasn’t the reason given to Congress: that reason was mostly for “coalition support.” Plus several lesser amounts for such things as drug enforcement, anti-terrorism fighting, and fellowship. So, in effect we are subsidizing Lockheed (and Halliburton) with our tax money, things we criticize other countries for doing. What does Pakistan need with a handful of F-16s (18, I think)? At any given time, providing they have spare parts and pilots, they could keep maybe two per shift in the air. Be hard on us also, when we bomb the nuclear bomb sites.