We’ve been around the block with Brenda already on the Council. Ms. Itsafederalproblem can’t help us and won’t help us. Time to move on.

There are things she states that I agree with, but others that discourage my vote. She is for the infrastructure of our city and services, but she wants to let outsiders to take our city’s available jobs which will not decrease, or may increase the unemployment of our own residents! This has been a satellite city for years prior and has been a strong city then. Why should we be an urban town that supports income to other town’s sales revenue by having people work here and spend their income somewhere else? Let those towns use the link cards, and have our town have the honor of earning their way and not sitting on the couch letting tax payers support them. I’ve seen what is bought with these link cards; It isn’t used for cheap protein filled meats, cheap carbohydrate pasta, cheap poultry products, etc…, but single serving size chips, name brand soda, candy bars, etc… I have talked with a woman that works as a check-out at a Jewel, and when I told her, after seeing these purchases, that it ridiculous on how they spend our (taxpayers) money, she said that it hurts her to see this also! She sees more than I have! She then continued to say that when she was using the link card before getting her job that she has now, she would buy cheap ground beef in bulk, and would brown it and divide it into freezer bags so it would allow her to have decent meals for her family until she got a job. (Spaghetti, hamburger helper, SOS, etc…) That to me is honor and self-respect!! She got lucky to get a job, but allowing outsiders to take our city’s jobs leaves less for our residents to have their honor and self-respect and get off that couch!

I agree with Brenda about an occupancy problem for safety! I have a house down the street from me that has had multiple people living in the basement; sleeping on mattresses with no bed frames, using hot plates on the floor to cook their food and having only one escape access if a fire starts. The city doesn’t catch these people because the people living in the basement come home after the city’s code administration is off duty for the day, and leave the house before the administration is on duty the next day. The problem there with making a large house into a single family home and not multi-family housing has me on the fence! Being a multi family house allows a more thorough inspection of the property, and increases revenue to the city per property. Not everyone can afford the heating, electric and water for a large house in an older neighborhood! This makes for empty houses and homes that are not secured from vandalism and homeless break-ins for a sleeping area!

As for snow removal, Brenda says that she thinks the snow removal has a problem because of the parking problems. I think the city is so wasteful with its spending! I don’t know where the problem is exactly! Is it that we resurface are streets cheaply and have to repair them again in the near future because snow removal trucks damaged them sooner then predicted with melting agents? Is it that our city doesn’t research where future water main problems will occur prior to spending our taxpayer’s money on minor repairs and not major repairs, which leaves the streets uneven because of patch jobs on our streets and the plows chip away at its surface? Or is it that we cut down on personnel to clear the snow by using melting agents that ruin the streets and causes us to resurface our streets sooner than we have ever had to before using the melting agents we use now-a-day? To me, using these agents is not only ruining our streets, but has cut the amount of jobs for our residents as I stated before about hiring outside residents to work in our community! You want an example of what I am talking about; look at Crescent St. between W. Chicago St. and South St. Cheap surfacing, melting agent, and water main breaks are the best example! This street is used by the W. Chicago St. fire department to access the homes to the south of the station and they have to deal with this eroded street, or go around it to get to (which would take longer) someone in dire need! Where is the safety and responsible spending in that? It isn’t because of the parked cars on the side of the road! Crescent St. doesn’t have that many cars parked on it! If we had more snow removal trucks on the road using their plows and not melting agents to destroy our roads at our cost of repairing, there would be available access to all the residents that need emergency help. We had adequate access to these areas before! Why not now? Most cars are actually thinner than they use to be! Plus most SUVs are not parked on the street! Maybe it is because the average family has to have more than one vehicle now-a-day because of the economy! If that is the case should we punish our community?

This is why I am undecided on Brenda for the seat of city council! She has some good points, but I see bad points also! We need to dig deeper to find out if she can help us, or put us into a deeper problem that our administration has put us in already!!