"I've just signed my $14,000 check to build a house in the county where I grew up. I guess that's the thanks that I get for going away to college to get an education and wanting to come back to live and work in the community where I grew up. It's truly a shame that our County Commissioners have to fund their lack of fiscal responsibility on the backs of new homeowners. It seems ridiculous that I must pay for the 'right' to build a new home on which I will be taxed, assessed, and then taxed some more for the rest of my life. Isn't $2,000-plus a year for 50 or 60 years enough? Why are my wife and I paying for our 'burden' on the school district, when I have yet to have any children, while a family with five children can move into an existing house in the most overcrowded school district and pay nothing? What about my baby boomer parents who want a smaller house? They're certainly not having any more children. County Commissioners, fix the problem, make it fair, or start tuning up your resumes, because you are certainly not above answering to your new constituents."
Mail Call
- Clear Spring
"Does anyone except the middle class elderly realize what is going on? My husband has been retired for more than 10 years (he is 73, I am 76). We used to live quite comfortably on our retirements. That has all changed. Prices have gone up much faster than any retirement benefits (if any). I am still running my own little business, but even with four retirement checks and what my business brings in, suddenly it is not enough to get by on. What happened? We planned for our retirement, and my business was for the fun things in life, like eating out, maybe one vacation a year. All that is gone. We barely get by, and I couldn't sell my business if I wanted to. This is a disgrace to this country. Like the other person who wrote in said, we never took charity from anyone, raised our kids and paid our own way. Someone out there please listen to us, the middle-class elderly."
- Waynesboro, Pa.
"This goes out to the caller blaming the mayor of Hagers-town for the closing of the ice rink near Fairgrounds Park. I've talked to two people at the rink just the other day, and they told me the facility is going through new transition and new management. They told me the rink should open to the public by September."
- Hagerstown
"That Barry Bonds, with a home run record, is an incredible baseball player. He's like Hank Aaron on steroids."
- Waynesboro, Pa.
"I would like to hear some opinions on co-ed high school golf. How many of you think it is fair for the girls to get a 1,000-or-more yard advantage, and then be declared the winner? If girls want to compete with the boys, they should tee off from the same place as the boys they are competing against. Do you agree or disagree? Your thoughts, please."
"Sunday, I'm watching the History Channel, and they are running a thing on Osama bin Laden, and I can't believe what I'm hearing - that the U.S. had the chance to catch this guy back in the late '90s. The Sudanese government was gonna give him up to the U.S., and they didn't do anything about it. This was after they already bombed the World Trade Center the first time, and they did nothing about it. What kind of political military strategists do we have that could not see something before?"
- Hagerstown
"With the election season coming up, all these primaries and all this stuff, the funniest thing that they keep saying - I think it's hilarious, is that Obama doesn't have enough experience. President Bush was only a governor of Texas, what, two terms? What experience did he have in foreign affairs? I know they electrocute a lot of the people in Texas. And Giuliani, he was only the mayor of New York. Where's his experience? People, you don't understand what you're talking about. Just sit back, relax, and don't vote."
- Hagerstown
"Big conversation now about watering the football fields at the high schools in order to save money later on down the road. Who says we have to have football at all, athletics, anyhow, like that? They're all a waste of money."
- Hagerstown
"When my son died in the war, the government gave me the folded flag, and a pin of the folded flag that said 'Honor' on it to wear. This morning when I dropped it while putting it on, I picked it up and I saw some writing on the gold back. I got out my magnifying glass and read it. It said 'Made in China.'"
