Dear Editor:
Thank you for such a thorough covering of the Sept 12 public meeting on the shopping cart enforcement plan. With all the outrage that has eaten up hours of City Council time it is a pretty pathetic statement when only 6 people show up. It appears, at least to me, that since the heaviest penalties and costs weigh on the businesses that offer shopping carts for their customers convenience they are no longer the victims of a city soft on petty crimes but have now become the criminals. All those new costs will be added into the stores pricing so the honest consumer pays for them in the name of ridding our city, not of the homeless, but of the eye sore of them using shopping cars laden with their belongings. It does absolutely nothing with regards to the despondent state of those using them as they now appear to have wagons. Who is paying for that upgrade? Where can I get one?
As far as those prosecuted for possessing an apparently stolen cart the article states that municipal court is all of a sudden going to get tough on this crime and force people into treatment programs which the cost of will be another burden on the public since most of those on the streets are not financially capable of paying a fine. Inn essence this makes the taxpayer complicit in the crime and thus pay the fine in their taxes as the success rate of forced treatment without long term mandated continual overview is extremely low.
Unless the City and its complaining citizens quit focusing on appeasing poverty and turns to focusing on prosperity generating economic development we will continue down this bottomless rabbit hole as is shown by the failure of all poverty eradication programs that billions of dollars have been wasted on over the decades.
Rob Wood
575-635-0803
3427 Chimney Rock Rd 88011
Prayer Guide