March 17, 2006
Friday

Here again I must voice my opinion. The new dock expansion plan needs to be done and this is why I say this. I spent my younger days growing up on upper Water St. I now live south of town. Every Thursday my daughter goes to ballet so when the weather is not poring down I go for walks around this part of town. Some times over Millar St. some times over Water St. The thing I notice about this part of town is it's rotten and just falling apart. We have a real problem that is going to hit us in a few more years. We will not be able to drive over upper Water St. - the concrete is falling apart. These are big panels of concrete sitting on wooden piles. On Millar St. some are cracked in half. Our main artery, Water St. by city float is getting repaired from underneath - just temporary fixes. We have some real traffic problems about to happen. We need to get something going in this part of town. Our city will not fix any thing unless it a real danger. Yet after seeing the condition that the road is in, amazingly garbage trucks, oil trucks and even tour busses still use these roads at maximum capacity. We need to bring in people to these areas so we can address the concerns. some may argue maybe we better not bring the people into this area so nothing will happen. But then they will never get fixed. 

Our chamber of commerce, and many others supports our, probably not going to happen, bridge. Yet these people are not being told that they are not going to have any roads left to get down town. I still feel these are way bigger priorities than being able to drive over to the airport. way more local workers working on jobs that pay 40 to 50 an hour.

Back to my observation of Newtown, or should I say rotten town. As you walk along and look around nearly every building is rotted out. I can see every local contractor getting a shot at repairing or totally replacing every building that has not been done in the last few years. As we know, the local contractors work all year round. making for more year round jobs. I am not saying this just for my benefit but for are city's future. The only way this part of town is going to get repaired is if we go ahead with this dock plan. It's all we got. 

However, it just amazes me how they say it will generate taxes. It's like a race. The more they get, the more they spend foolishly. They are never going to be happy. It must be a greed problem, we all get it. As we do better, we spoil ourselves with things to make our lives easer but then we find our self working harder to pay for them. But they say we will not have to pay for this thing. Which make sense - the industry is supporting itself.   

So I say do it. At least my opinion just got heard - more than many of yours.

Robert McRoberts
Ketchikan, AK - USA
 

About: About: Robert McRoberts moved to Ketchikan at the age of 9. He has been involved with logging and construction. He owns & operates a local business.

 

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