Cagney letter: Neighbor concerned about barbed wire enclosure

My concern is how this will negatively impact property values and the real estate sale market in the adjoining neighborhood.

The point is what family, especially with children, is going to want a home near an enclosure like that being erected.

I sent an email to Mayor Alston DeVenny and his response on Feb. 4 was “Fencing is allowed by previously passed building code. No council action required. I’ll find out what the building official says regarding the fence construction and the permit to make sure it complies with code.”

I wonder how many members of the City Council live within a few blocks of this neighborhood blight?

In fairness to the mayor, he did call me and in a voice mail reiterated that the fencing does meet code and that he would drive by to see exactly what I was talking about.

Building code permitting aside, fundamental fairness and indeed good sense dictates that this construction should have been disclosed to the neighboring community long before it appeared on Marion Sims.

Michael Cagney

Lancaster

Let’s put ‘buzz strips’ on all two-lane roads

I was saddened, but not surprised, at the news of another head-on collision on a Lancaster County road.

I was a near victim myself two and a half years ago on Shiloh Unity Road myself. Only my vigilance allowed me to avoid a full head-on collision, and only have the left side of my truck demolished when a big rig crossed the center line on a curve.

Many of the roads in South Carolina have “buzz strips” of depressions in the pavement to alert drivers to the proximity of the curb side of the road, so that they don’t go off the edge of the pavement. All this does is help to keep drivers from driving off the road and into a ditch or hitting some trees.

Why is not the same treatment applied to the center line on these narrow two-lane roads, where the risks to life, especially the lives of others, is so great? The cost would be minimal — no new equipment would be needed — and the potential to alert drivers to a potentially catastrophic drift out of their lanes could be averted.

I call on State Reps. Brandon Newton and Richie Yow to propose legislation to require these “buzz strips” on all two-lane roads in South Carolina to help keep (often distracted) drivers in their lanes.

Geoff Russell

Lancaster

LCDP finally gets DNC talking points memo

In Katie Crosby’s recent column, the Lancaster County Democratic Party (LCDP) has finally joined the chorus demanding that District 5 U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman resign because, well, because he is a Republican who will not bend the knee to national Democratic Party. This has been the modus operandi of the far left for decades.

Crosby’s call for his resignation is not a surprise to this humble observer; however, I am shocked at how long it took for the LCDP to join the most recent political witch hunt. Have they not gotten the daily talking points from the Democrat National Committee (DNC) sent to their usual house organs daily?

MSNBC, NPR, CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, WAPO, NYT, USA Today, BBC World News and even Euronews have been getting their scripts, why not the LCDP? If I were the LCDP, I would be asking the DNC why. Why haven’t you been giving us our scripts, too, our mimeograph machine has paper and is working! Why?

Fortunately, the United States is not a democracy; it is a constitutional republic with a citizens’ Bill of Rights. Our allegiance is not to the government, nor to a party, but to the Constitution.

Those of us who have worn the uniform take the oath to the Constitution seriously: “…support and defend the Constitution....against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” This does not include fabricated enemies for political purposes.

Norman should consider any attack by the far left and its house organs as a sign that he is doing the job his constituents elected him to do. Kudos!

U.S. Air Force Ret. Lt. Col. Donald H. Adams

Lancaster