Residents want answers on stormwater

One of the questions on the November referendum could have been: Are you willing for the city of Waynesboro to spend $1.2 million on stormwater management, and if so, how would you propose for the city to finance this project- Options then could have been listed.

Did someone put the cart before the horse by asking for the people's vote without any idea at all how to proceed if the vote was favorable- One council member wants to wait six months to see how the city's finances stack up before moving forward. I, and I imagine many others who voted yes, would have expected to see work actually being done by that time.

Is it really fair to tax residents who will neither benefit from the project or those who were never a cause of flooding in the first place- I say no.

Why should a company that recently bought an existing manufacturing plant here be bombarded with a high fee for something it had no control over- Had the company known there might be an extra tax levied, the company probably would have reconsidered its purchase.

I say developers who built shopping malls and subdivisions with insufficient plans to handle runoff should carry the heaviest load. Many homeowners who were high and dry before are now swamped and flooded because certain developers misdirected their stormwater runoff.

A question to the City Council: Is the money you are requesting for this project to be permanent, short-term or one-time- What can we expect to have to fork out in the future, when and if this project is completed- Will it be forever, as long as more development creates more problems- We deserve some answers, and soon.

Lyle Palmer

Waynesboro

Loophole law won't stop handmade guns

Columnist Nelson Graves has joined the knee jerk reaction to the Virginia Tech massacre by calling for closing the gun show loophole ("General Assembly learning the hard way," Feb. 7). There is no revelant connection.

The basic question hasn't even been asked let alone answered: Why didn't anyone do something- I would have even with the possibility of taking a bullet. What kind of people have we become-

Graves hasn't thought through the consequences of his recommendations. People are going to trade, buy and sell guns regardless. Now it's out in the open. 

As restrictions on guns are increased, the price goes up until it's highly profitable for the thousands of small machine shops around the country to make guns. I have seen this happen already for personal use. These will normaly be smoothbores and have no serial numbers, so they would be hard to trace. Also, they may not resemble present firearms.

I can design a handgun which will pass anywhere in the country and so can others. Mr. Graves shouldn't let emotion cloud his reasoning.

Corbin Dixon

Staunton

Senators not the change we need

Changing presidents = Change-

Wrong.

Think about it.

Everyone believes our government is broken and our borders are broken. Why- Because of our president, but mostly because of our Congress. Why Congress- Anyone with any gray matter (a brain) knows that our Congress has far more control than any president.

Well, guess what, three of our current candidates for president are active members of Congress as we speak. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain are all U.S. senators. Who would have guessed that-

So the same people that screwed everything up now want to fix it. Can you believe it- Problem is, most of us gullible Americans will go for it. After all, what choices do we have when three out of four candidates are currently active members of our illusory Congress-

They are not the solution. They are the problem!

Gary P. McClung

Raphine, VA