Published: January 23, 2006 08:43 am      

Reader: Adults should pay attention to Six Pillars

In the Clinton Community School District our children are learning that Character Counts with the six Pillars of Character being Respect, Responsibility, Citizenship, Trustworthy, Caring and Fairness.

As I drive from the north end to the south end of town on North Thirrd Street I pass by these Pillars of Character signs on the Horace Mann school fence, I ponder if the adults in this community are doing the same. It starts with me seeing how North Third Street and many other streets in our town need to be replaced or seriously repaired.

I have listened to many people about town and read many times in the Clinton Herald where a multitude of people have asked the city officials to fix the streets properly but nothing has been done. Why not? As we all know there are two economic classes of people in our town. They are the high income and the low income people. They both have different ideas on what to get done in our town.

The key point is we are all people, we all have wants and needs. The lower income people usually focus on needs before wants. The higher income people can usually have both, where the other group cannot.

I am from the low income group but I know people from both groups so hopefully this letter can be a bridge from both groups. It appears that most of our city officials raised their families around the 1970s era. At that time our town was doing very well economically.

Now we are living in the year 2006 and our town as a whole is poorer. The low income people are very concerned about raising their families in this era. They are not only working one full-time job, but up to two other part-time jobs and collecting 5-cent cans on the side to get money.

To the lower income people the Clinton officials are favoring the higher income people. Example: Private citizens are getting three-year tax abatements to build their own homes. These people can afford these bills more than the lower income people who do not get tax abatements but property tax increases. How fair is that?

The higher income people may not agree with our group but all that the lower income people are asking is to work with us so that we all may survive during these hard economic times. This way we will show our children how to practice all six pillars of Character Counts in Clinton.