Letter to the Editor

The recipe for the perfect place to live and work

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

To the editor:

I would like to believe that the perfect recipe for the perfect place to live, work and raise a family would have to have some very specific attractions. These would include:

1. River transportation. Let us say, for our perfect recipe, the largest and most traveled river in the country. Capable of moving huge strings of barges and include docks that are designed to transfer most any bulk or liquid to and from those barges.

2. Major highway transportation. Not just any road but a key interstate highway that runs north and south through the heart of America. And another that can move people and products east and west very near by.

3. A railroad second to none that can move volumes of any product from gas and liquid to wood, grain and steel.

4. Enough electrical power and media service to support the highest volume of steel production and processing anywhere in the U.S.

5. An airport that can, and has, landed cargo planes as large as a B-52.

6. A solid educational system with an excellent community college and one of the country's highest ranking state colleges less than an hour away.

7. Only an hour from Memphis, Tennessee, and three hours from St. Louis, Missouri, for those that like to visit some of the bests zoos, museums and family entertainment that America has to offer.

8. Crop land that is the envy of most everyone in the world.

Now we need to ask ourselves why Blytheville is suffering so badly? We cannot walk down the streets without constantly looking over our shoulder. Our friends and neighbors are robbed and shot by those that have no value for human life. Main Street is an eyesore with collapsed roofs, broken side ways and repairs to streets and sidewalks that show no pride in our town or quality of workmanship. Look at the handicap handrail at the corner of Ash across the street from the radio station. They are found all over town just like this. Drive down our neighborhood streets and take a look at the weeds, trash, burnt-out and crumbling houses and other buildings. Read the paper and ask why we seem to always be in the middle of some local government probe or investigation that often includes missing funds. People, that is not their money to constantly mishandle -- you and I gave this money to them to manage our town. Where is it?

I drive through other towns and look at the things that they do. Run over to Manila and look at their new public water park. Now look at our Walker Park worn-out pool. Go to Jonesboro and look at their Craighead Forest Park children's playground. Then look at the pathetic structures that we offer our kids to play on. It is not all government either. It is so sad to see the benches placed around the city lake that are vandalized. Do you realize how much hard work that these vandals had to exert to severely damage these extremely heavy duty steel and plastic coated seats? How sad. It is no one person or organization's fault. It is not the failure of our mayor or government officials, the police, white or black citizens of our town. It is all our fault. We do need leaders that will say that enough is enough, as that is where change will have to start. They need to walk the streets, look and act. They must be willing to spend the money, irritate some folks and make it a place where the bad guys don't want to hang out and look for the next victim or drug deal. We need a leader that will pull everyone together and tell us what we have to do to help make this the Gateway to the South that Blytheville should be.

Danny Dean Harris
Blytheville