SPEAKOUT

Stuck in the middle

It's amazing that the city of Charleston can do something with the old buildings and 18-wheeler trailers around Charleston, but they cannot do anything about the salvage/scrap yard in the middle of town.

Not fined for trash

I'm calling about Morley. I have never seen such a trashy town in this county. People have trash in their yards, it's along the roadside. You would think the city would be giving them a fine. If you lived in Cape or Jackson, you would be fined for having trash in your yard. If you want to sell a house, it's gonna downgrade the price of it. I think it's a shame that people don't have the decency to pick up the trash in their yard. If you own property in Morley, why don't you clean it up, mow and pick up the trash along the roadside? People who come here from out of town are probably wondering what kind of people live here. City council or whoever is in charge, you need to start writing tickets.

Another Charter rant

On Saturday evening, May 2, prime time channel. Much sports going on. Here I sit without one single channel. They all say, "One moment please. This channel should be available shortly." Well, this has been going on for one hour. When will your newspaper critique Charter Cable for its continuous outages and its continuous rate hikes? And how much does Charter pay to a complacent City Council who sits on their hands and does nothing about this Charter fiasco? I've been trying to call the Charter repair number for one hour and it's busy. I wish your newspaper would do something about investigating why we continually have outages, rate increases and how much Charter pays to this "sit-on-your-hands" City Council. On May 1, a Charter employee came out to disconnect one of my neighbor's TVs because that neighbor was moving. And for the second time in a few months, that Charter technician did not disconnect my second neighbor's TV. Just like the first neighbor, he disconnected my cable TV. Such incompetence abounds. What would've happened if I had not been outside to see that this incompetent technician was disconnecting my cable rather than my neighbor's cable? Who knows how long it would've taken for me to get my cable back on and who knows how long my neighbor would've paid for the cable that was not disconnected. Why can't your newspaper report on these incompetencies of Charter Cable? Where is your newspaper's public service responsibility? That I would like to know. Could you follow up this speakout? I'm very irate. I'm paying all this money and I've got a blank screen. Also, could you advise us of who are city councilperson is and how to get ahold of them. That would be good public service.

The City of Sikeston is divided into 4 Wards with a Council Member representing each Ward: Ward 1 -- Jon Gilmore; Ward 2 - Gerald Settles; Ward 3 -- Karen Evans; Ward 4 -- Maude Harris. A map outlining how the wards are divided can be found on the website, www.sikeston.org., under Map Center. If you would like to contact any Council member, you may email them at cityhall@sikeston.org. If you have any other questions regarding City government issues, please call City Hall at 471-2512.