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Dear Editor,

Let me start out by saying it took me awhile to calm down enough before I could write this. I have lived in Johnson City for over 17 years and at the same address for over 11 years. I am truly amazed that I have to deal with this issue from neighbors. In the past 11 years I have had to live with my pets either being shot or poisoned. I have had enough of it.

The last straw is due to te fact that I had take my cat to the vet for a gunshot to the leg, which after x-rays, showed the leg with numerous buck shots still in his leg as well as being severely broken.

I paid for the surgery to have the leg removed because it could not be saved, only to have the poor thing pass away. I do understand that you as a land owner have the right to shoot an animal if it is on your property, but what I don’t understand is that I have their dogs, cats, chickens, and turkeys come over to my home to eat or do whatever and none have of them have died or been hurt by my hands.

I would think if you shot someone’s animal you would at least have the nerve to tell the person and not let the poor animal suffer, but what do I know? I have definitely learned my lesson as to what kind of people I live near…… I just hope that they can live with themselves knowing what they have done to a poor defenseless animal.

To the Editor -

As Blanco County citizens who have invested our life savings (and more) into Johnson City buildings to house our businesses, we have been greatly affected by the tax increases in our County. While we understand that with our property improvements come higher taxes, we also expect our local government to spend money wisely - and with our knowledge. We continually try to make our businesses successful, which in turn will provide much needed sales tax revenue to the area.

We also continue to pay escalating taxes to support the county government projects (for this we have no choice). In return, we would just like to ask one question of our current county government.

"Gentlemen, why did you each vote to take on a large debt for us and the rest of the citizens of Blanco County to shoulder - and not even allow us the knowledge of it, nor any input into the decision making process?" This is a question to which nobody we know has received a public or private answer.

Dear Editor,

I am writing about the decision to build a new 48-bed jail in Blanco County. As a retired businessman and Blanco County resident, I grew concerned about the controversy over this project and tried to determine for myself whether this was a good or bad use of taxpayer money.

Here is what I learned: Currently, Blanco County spends about $72,000 per year renting jail space from other counties due to our insufficient capacity. In addition, we use the equivalent of one full-time officer to transport our prisoners to and from these other facilities.

This problem is not unique to Blanco County. Several other counties, including Gillespie County, are forced to rent space for their prisoners due to a lack of jail capacity.

A new jail is clearly needed to solve our space problem. It seems to be a good time to build one, because interest rates are low and construction companies are competing hard for business to avoid laying people off during the economic slowdown.

Our sheriff’s department was advised, by counties that added jail space in recent years, to build enough capacity to meet our needs for at least as long as it takes to pay off the construction costs (i.e., 20 years).

Doing this meant that Blanco County would have excess capacity for a while in our new facility until we "grew into" the new space. However, instead of being wasteful in the short run, this excess capacity can actually help us offset our building costs by renting jail space to other counties.

Our sheriff’s department believes that by doing this Blanco County can generate several hundred thousand dollars per year in revenue, which is more than enough to pay the interest for both the new jail and the new courthouse annex. When you add the fact that it costs about the same to operate a 48-bed jail as a 30-bed jail, building the larger facility seems to be a no-brainer.

So when I look at the business rationale for this project, it seems to be a good decision that will benefit the county financially and help keep future tax rates as low as possible.

Sincerely,

Will Shelton

Johnson City

Johnson City must be proud of it’s people! From the small sample my wife and I saw last Wednesday, we were certainly impressed with the friendliness of the folks there.

We had a blowout on 281 just north of town. When I was changing the tire, the security lug nut broke, and as I was trying to figure out what to do, a gentleman who said he owned a ranch nearby stopped to see if we needed help.

After we looked at the situation we both agreed that I needed professional help. He said there was a tire store just down the road and he would go get them to call us. He left and a few minutes later, Scott, from Hobbs Tire called.

I told him the problem, and he said that I had a real problem, but he would come out and check. About that time the rancher returned to check on us and report that he had made the contact and someone would be by shortly. I thanked him and we exchanged a few pleasant words as he left.

Scott form Hobbs Tire showed up and agreed we had a difficult problem. He tried a handful of novel approaches and after some time, freed the rim from the car.

He obviously knew what he was doing and seemed as glad as I was. He then put on the spare for me. I was embarrassed to pay him what he said the charge was so I gave him a little more.

When I run into friendly, caring and helpful folks like this, it makes me glad I’m a Texan.

Solon Williams