To the Editor:
Attention all Hargray customers: Thank you! By rounding up your Hargray bills to the next dollar for Caring Coins, you help make miracles happen.
The Hargray Caring Coins program provides grants to local non-profit organizations that touch lives in our community in so many different ways, and Memory Matters is grateful to be one of these charities.
On behalf of our board of directors and the increasing number of families we serve, I would like to thank each of you individually, and Hargray Caring Coins for awarding Memory Matters with a grant.
The need for high quality, compassionate dementia care is substantial. Memory Matters is a local non-profit organization that offers a dementia-specific daycare, support and resources for caregivers, and education and advocacy for the community.
Call 842-6688 or visit www.memory-matters.org.
Edwina Hoyle
Executive Director
To the Editor:
Economic development is one of those popular buzzwords that municipal, county and state governments love to pontificate about. Each believes they alone have the vision to diversify and create high paying professional jobs.
Yes, there are many success stories across the country and maybe even in Beaufort County, but you will often find failed dreams along with your wasted tax dollars.
It is a competitive game where huge budgets and thousands of tax dollars are spent.
Beaufort County recently pulled the plug on the Lowcountry Economic Alliance for lack of results. The town of Bluffton voted against a plan by their Public Development Corporation Board, which had the support of the Beaufort County Council and School Board but not necessarily the citizens.
Hilton Head recently hired a professional for its own version of economic development and the City of Beaufort constantly reshuffles its commission seeking anything that will work.
Make no mistake: proper planning with a sound vision and financial commitment can work. Consultants Dover and Kohl created the Bluffton Old Town Master Plan with citizen involvement, under the leadership of then-Mayor Hank Johnston. Ten years later the Old Town Master Plan has succeeded in breathing new life and vitality into a mixed-use community.
Now we need a larger, countywide vision that includes partnerships between our municipalities and Beaufort County Council. Each should sit at the same table, hire a professional, share the cost, define the goals and hold them accountable.
It is a goal worth pursuing.
Dan Wood
Bluffton
To the Editor:
In response to Douglas Delaney’s article (“Jury nullification a ‘safety valve’ against tyranny,” Bluffton Sun, April 14), first let me say our system of justice is not exclusively “bent on incarceration.” And the wool has not been pulled over our eyes.
Our judicial system has gone to extraordinary lengths to provide rehabilitation and, with it, probation. No more sound judicial system has ever been created by man than what we have today in the United States.
Incarceration is not the only result of felonious conduct. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics show state courts sentenced 32 percent of convicted felons to straight probation with no jail time or prison time served. (August 2003) Look it up!
When jurors do not follow the instructions of a judge’s charge to the jury, they are committing “tyranny” in the arbitrary use of power. They are violating their oath of office as jurors and are a discredit to the system. Without an honest and truthful jury system we will never have justice.
As a former prosecutor, may I suggest that Mr. Delaney stick to tax and estate planning and its interpretation and not involve himself in the criminal justice system, which obviously he is not an expert in.
I don’t know what law school he attended but when I went to law school and when I took the bar examination, the law was undisputed that the jury decided the facts and the judge determined the law to be applied to the facts. Delaney’s progressive rationalization that somehow a juror has the right to determine the law and facts is simply outrageous.
Arthur I. Trager
Bluffton
To the Editor:
A recent local paper front page contained two articles reflecting very inconsistent actions by the County Council.
The first discussed the potential purchase of the Pepper Hall property at the exorbitant price of $12 million. Needless to say, the money isn’t currently available, but that doesn’t deter the Council in spending their time discussing the various ways to fund it.
The second article indicates that the county libraries will be operating at reduced hours this summer because the Council hasn’t provided sufficient funds to allow them to stay open with their current already reduced hours of operation. I find this very surprising, as the summer is just the time when more people will be visiting the area and would probably use the libraries.
Also the libraries are the ideal place where our local children could be doing things to enhance their education.
The libraries in the communities I regularly visit in the summer months (Clarksville, Tenn.; Williamsburg, Va.; Atlanta; St. Louis; Chicago; and various cities in Florida) are open at their year-round hours. Most of these libraries offer visitors the free use of computers. I frequently take advantage of this benefit.
I’d suggest the Beaufort County Council find the money within the budget to keep the libraries open at the already reduced hours of operation. They need not continue to look for ways to buy property which we, the county taxpayers, don’t need at the price the Council seems willing to pay.
Michael F. Vezeau
Bluffton
