Mentoring programs are just a call away
I appreciated the challenge issued by Judge Donald Graham at Monday’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast for the Salisbury-Rowan community to step forward either to become mentors or to support financially mentoring efforts. Judge Graham may not be aware that two United Way member agencies, Rowan County Youth Services Bureau and Communities in Schools, currently have active and vibrant mentoring programs that provide the services he describes.
In the Times Two program at YSB, adult volunteers spend two hours each week with children doing a variety of activities; in the CIS program, adult volunteers work with students on school campuses. Both programs offer extensive support and ongoing training for volunteers. Both programs also are desperate for adult volunteers to step forward to serve a very long list of children on our waiting lists. And both programs would welcome additional financial support from individuals or businesses.
The reality is that we, as a community, don’t need to create any new programs, such as the 5,000 Role Model Plan that Judge Graham mentioned. We are blessed to have two organizations with proven track records that stand ready, willing and able to accept volunteers and match them with at-risk children. There’s no need to wait for anyone to make a donation or to start a new organization. All you need to do is call.
The children are waiting.
ó Karen Carpenter
Salisbury
Karen Carpenter is executive director of the Rowan County Youth Services Bureau. Contact the Youth Services Bureau at 704-633-5636 or Communities in Schools at 704-797-0210.
A double standard?
In the Jan. 21 edition of the Salisbury Post, Justice Timmons-Goodson endorsed “extremism” during her speech at the MLK celebration.
When former Arizona senator and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater stated, “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice,” he was vilified. Maybe John Edwards is right about one thing ó we do have two Americas. In one America, the media allows anything goes rhetoric from one side of the political divide while demanding “political correctness” and diversity training for those of us unwashed and narrow-minded who dare disagree with their positions.
Justice Timmons-Goodson should be ashamed. She should be held responsible and reprimanded for her comments. The Post should have held her feet to the fire and questioned her remarks.
ó Ken Upright
Kannapolis
Another perspective
Regarding Steve Blount’s “perspective” commentary (Jan. 21), he had three four-year terms to promote the “visionary” ideals of “sustainability,” totalitarian land-use planning, Charlotte “regionalism,” confiscatory farmland preservation and infrastructure financing through interminable tax increases. Our county’s incentive policy rebates taxes for five years or more, and Blount’s solution is to delve further into debt or tax increases to do more? Are we to begin buying and gifting land and buildings in order to finance Blount’s “wish-list” of government gimmies to his EDC chums?
Blount seems to suggest that county commissioners hold the key to controlling growth and development. Yet, as the only non-resident of Salisbury on the Vision 2020 Task Force, he is keenly aware of the Vision 2020 Growth Strategy Map. It shows that by 2020, Salisbury intends to have more than doubled its land mass (and residents’ taxes) by expanding to the north, west and south ó using involuntary annexation. Those as far west as Gheen, Kepley, Barringer, Briggs and Miller roads will be welcomed to Blount’s “visionary” land of double taxation within the next 12 years. And all of this will happen without a vote ó unless annexation laws are changed. Salisbury, not Rowan, will control future growth.
Blount may not realize that time will only delay the consequences for not being completely forthcoming with his former constituents. That “warped perspective” which comparatively inferior citizens and our leaders have developed might come from a lack of media coverage until it’s too late ó the secret $23,000 authorized to investigate political foes, the Charlotte regional greenway trail map he didn’t disclose until angry farmers found out it would invade their lands ó now, the Salisbury Strategic Growth Map that Blount helped fashion.
Welcome to socialized totalitarianism.
ó Rod Whedbee
Salisbury
Rod Whedbee is the co-founder of the Rowan Property Rights Alliance.
A cruel case
To the judge in Cabarrus County ó were you sleeping on the bench by not convicting the owner of the puppy called Merry? Sylvester Conyers should be charged with cruelty to animals.
If the witnesses weren’t in court, why didn’t the judge continue the case to another day?
I think the first thing that should happen to Mr. Conyers is that someone his own size should do the same things to him that he did to Merry. The second thing is that he should be forced to pay the bill. Third, he should be fined by the court. And fourth, he should be sent to jail. The last thing is that he should never be allowed to own another animal.
I firmly believe that if the laws were upheld and forced the person’s punishment, maybe we would not have so much animal cruelty in North Carolina.
ó Joan Batson
Spencer