By Staff
Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor,
As the voters in Escambia County know, David Stokes is 100 percent correct on the referendum he discussed in the Oct. 15 edition of The Atmore Advance. This referendum is very important if you want the county to further dictate what you can or can't do with your own property.
The article in the Sunday paper is very misleading. Although it would be favorable to me, I will still vote "NO".
To start with the county health department already has laws to address the unsanitary sewage problem in the county. They just need to enforce these laws more efficiently, fairly and regularly.
Of course there are always a few situations in the county that neighbors would like to see cleaned up. (Perhaps they should be allowed to work this out between themselves.) As far as the rats and snakes, if they cannot survive in the county, then where? There are certain places in this state where mice take precedence over humans, such as part of our beaches.
This is just another way to add to the loss of powers for the property owners. Common sense and pride in your property lets you know when your grass needs to be cut and when the trash needs to be bagged up and disposed of. We certainly don't need another law to tell us these things.
Now, of course, to vote "YES" would mean additional personnel to enforce laws already on the books as well as people's common sense. So how many extra people will this take – two maybe three – so you have payroll, benefits and the all important retirement program, and, of course transportation for the inspections. Now where do you think this money is going to come from, higher taxes, of course, or loss of service in another department?
We all know we don't really get any better services when we have to pay for the new laws to be enforced, just higher taxes to meet the additional payroll and benefit packages.
Wade Cox
Atmore