Editor,
I wonder if Rey Garcia, the city engineer who oversaw the Victory Gardens Improvement Project ever came back to inspect all the flaws committed by the contractors hired by the city. And, I also wonder if the city paid them extra for taking a year longer to complete the project which in all actuality, they should have been penalized for each day they took longer to complete. No worries, the taxpayers can foot the bill.
Councilman Gonzales was going to let me know if the city indeed compensated them for taking longer — but he never did. Now he votes to hire more police, firemen, and city workers. He was going to vote no to give us taxpayers a break but finally succumbed to peer pressure, even after running on the platform of working for the people of San Marcos. No worries, the taxpayers can foot the bill. I doubt I’ll vote for him again.
In fact, I think all councilmembers who keep voting for the city’s needs instead of the peoples’ needs should be voted out. All city departments are a bunch of whiners. They all request more and more funds and do less. Do we really need a fire station in each neighborhood costing us millions of dollars when we only average two or three house fires a year? Or more police when they stop one individual for questioning and four or five patrol cars show up? Or three of our fire trucks on Interstate 35 blocking two lanes for a minor mishap?
Two months ago there was a house fire on Railroad Street and there were like four fire trucks, five police cars, two ambulances and around five or six emergency vehicles. It took one fire truck to put out the fire in five minutes but most of the vehicles stayed there almost all day with the responders shooting the bull and not doing much. The next week there was a fire truck with the high rise ladders and equipment riding around Victory Gardens all day. I assume they were practicing but I sure haven’t seen any hire rise buildings in our area. They should have gone to Texas State University. No worries… I can go on but the Record can only allow me so much space but I would like to add one more thing. Influential people, ie. Paxton, Walt Smith, Mark Jones, et. all who think they can bypass justice and get off scot-free should never get re-elected again. If corrupt judges fail society, then it is up to us the voters to have final say.
Ezekiel Enriquez, Sr. San Marcos
To the Editor:
I just read a news story about the pitifully inappropriate disciplining of Assistant Chief of Police Bob Klett for wholly and intentionally failing to do his job while serving as Interim Police Chief in October 2020. The police take pride in the slogan “To Serve and Protect,” but Klett did neither when a campaign bus was traveling on Interstate 35 from New Braunfels and was attacked by thugs in 50 vehicles while en route to a campaign rally at Texas State University.
Not only did Klett fail to act, but numerous other San Marcos officers thought endangering lives by vehicular assault was a funny event for which they had no duty to intervene.
To be clear about this undisputed violation of law, I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I am an independent. But I take seriously the threat to life and limb occasioned by the action of lawless hooligans, no matter the politics of the victims or the perpetrators.
Bob Klett is fortunate that Police Chief Standridge punished him with only eight hours of unpaid leave. A more appropriate punishment would have been loss of his job or a demotion. Klett demonstrated callous disregard for the well-being of all motorists on IH-35. The campaign event was canceled because of the failure of the San Marcos Police Department to protect all of the public, thus denying students an opportunity to participate in the political life of our country.
My respect for a police department I once proudly represented as city attorney has been diminished significantly because of this incident.
Lamar W. Hankins San Marcos
Editor,
We can’t just stop oil. The protesters who dumped soup on a Van Gogh painting last week issued a statement explaining their actions. They were protesting lack of government action on 1. climate change and 2. energy costs. The name of their organization pretty much sums up their policy goals: Just Stop Oil. But unfortunately, we can’t, or at least not anytime soon. And if we could, we can be assured that their second goal will not be met: the war in Ukraine has made it abundantly clear that we can’t just stop oil (and gas) without incurring widespread economic pain due to significantly higher prices.
The world runs on fossil fuels, and it will continue to do so for many years to come. To shorten that time, we need to just stop oil demand — while at the same time increasing alternative supplies, and crucially, energy storage technologies. We can’t flip a switch and just stop oil. To keep energy affordable and supplies secure, we need an orderly transition away from fossil fuels, with demand-reducing incentives like a price on carbon to help nudge things along. All the soup-tossing in the world won’t change this fundamental reality.
Steve Merritt Wimberley
