Speakout 11/24

Sunday, November 24, 2002

I lost a bracelet in Lowe's. If anybody has found it, please return it and there will be a big reward for its return.

I usually agree with your newspaper, but I came home after 12 hours of hard work, opened your paper. It's 10:05 at night. I watched the news on KFVS-12 and everything they're showing, I read in your paper tonight. You guys are doing a good job. We still have some philosophical differences, but not as bad as KFVS-12 and Southeast Missouri does, especially in the southern part of the state.

I am calling in regards to Mike Jensen's article on foster parenting. There are good foster homes just like there are good caseworkers. It's not about the kids. It's about the parents. They do not want to remove the kids when they need to be removed. They do not get the kids out of the home unless they're hurt or almost dead. There are good foster homes as well as bad. Money that the state legislation gives to take care of foster kids is not enough. You only get $369 a month for one child and that doesn't include, you have to buy the groceries and feed them. For two kids you get $754. That doesn't even begin to take care of their food and any other activities they want to get into like the other kids. They get a $250 clothing allowance per year. That doesn't even clothe them for the summer.

In response to Mike Jensen's article about deadbeat dads, why can't you, the state and everyone else talk about deadbeat "parents." There are deadbeat mothers out there too. We are supposed to get support from our child's deadbeat mother, and she's not paying either. But nothing is ever said about the moms, and there are hundreds of thousands of them out there, too. So quit stereotyping deadbeat parents as the dads only. How come, when the dad has to pay child support, he has to pay several hundred dollars a month but when the mom is supposed to pay the support, she may have to pay $80 or $90 a month, and then doesn't even pay that?

Vanduser is still a nice town to live in. It's just that we keep getting a lot of bad influences popping up that we don't need.

I would like to SpeakOut about the big cement plant that is supposed to be built around Ste. Genevieve, the world's largest. It just made my week when I picked up the Nov. 15 paper and saw the Associated Press article. It said the Missouri Department of Natural Resources gave the OK to build that plant. Hooray to you people of the Department of Natural Resources, as well to the people of Ste. Genevieve who have worked hard. I'm sure we've got some state men as well as men in Washington who are working behind the scenes and helping things. My advice to the environmental people is to just stay on the sidelines. You get involved in too much too quick sometimes. You need to stay on the sidelines and be willing to help these people get it going. It will mean a lot of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue for Ste. Genevieve and the surrounding area every year. We need more companies like this in Southeast Missouri.

I'm still asking why the farmers can burn their fields but the county has to go by Department of Natural Resources, so therefore cannot burn their limbs at the county shed.