Tuesday's Letter to the Editor

No need to apply

Dear editor:

I read last week's letter congratulating the new board of directors appointee, citing her "youth" (which could also be termed inexperience) as a positive factor. I don't know her, but it sounds like a typical "go along, get along" appointment. The two other candidates, Dennis Magee and Mark Toth, were certainly not good fits for the position.

Magee successfully owned and operated a wonderful business, Magee's Cafe, starting in the '80s in downtown Hot Springs, and has always been both an advocate of downtown merchants, which often put him at odds with the city board. Currently, he has a vision of opening a real downtown reptile and amphibian preserve for tourists to enjoy, which will probably be successfully operating well before our current city leaders decide what to do with the rubble heap and eyesore that used to be the Majestic. So Magee has way too much intelligence and common sense to ever be eligible for a seat on the city board of directors.

Toth is a frequent letter writer who is often critical of the ridiculous sums the board spends on hiring out-of-state consulting firms to do the job the board is supposed to do, and the sweetheart, under-the-table deals the board makes. If you've read his letters, he has far too sharp a pencil and would be way too much of a guardian of taxpayer money to ever be considered for a position on the board. Definitely not a "go along, get along" kind of guy.

So best of luck to these two men, and since those are the puppet criteria Bill Burrough and the rest of our city leadership look for, Jim Pumphrey and Bob Driggers need not apply, either. Way too much integrity and honesty to be considered.

On another note, after I retired, I took it upon myself to pay a weekly visit to several other veterans throughout Hot Springs who are in bad shape. Last week, a letter writer wrote about the tremendously deep manhole cover at Summer and West Hobson, which I've often hit on my way to visit one of my veteran brothers who lives in Little Chicago. I noticed yesterday it has been fixed.

So if it takes public shaming to get out city leaders to do something, I'll point out there's another, almost as bad, on Third Street, just south of the intersection of Third and Hobson. As the letter writer last week succinctly pointed out, our current city leadership under Burrough and our streets under Gary Carnahan are an absolute embarrassment.

Gunnery Sgt. Ron Collins,

USMC Retired

Hot Springs

Editorial on 06/04/2019

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