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highway1340 (Anonymous) says…

Once again Native — Thanks for proving my point for me!

highway1340 (Anonymous) says…

I like Native…. It's like watching Jerry Sienfeld. It's entertaining and I get a good laugh, but like Sienfeld, it's a lot about nothing.

But Native, don't take it so personal because people aren't laughing at you, they're laughing with you ………. Uh wait….. Okay, they are laughing at you. But it's not on purpose… you just make it so easy. It's funny when you get all tuff and serious and and think you've somehow just discovered truth and enlightenment and was able to secure the patent and copy rights to it.

It's like those reall small lap dogs that start yapping and showing their teeth at big dogs who come into the yard. Working dogs like Labs, Healers, and Shepherds will usually just come over to see what all the noise is about and sniff out the situation. Sometimes the big dog will walk away and go look for real wild animals and other times they stay because lap dogs make a good snack.

It is interesting to see how impassioned you get about these matters surrounding public works. I just wonder if there is a public works project you wouldn't support. Streets? Sure! Police, Fire, Water, Utility? You bet!! they have a huge return for the money we invest in them. But where do you start drawing the line? When it's no longer one of your ideas? When it doesn't give you the benefit you want? You say you wouldn't use a Rec center, but come one, we know that was just a deffensive tactic.

You speak of a $.01 as being no big deal and I will agree with you on that if that is all we had to pay in sales tax, but it isn't. “It's only a penny” is what everyone said when they first introduced a sales tax. “It's only $.01 and then ….it's only $.02 … it's only $.03 ……it's only $.06.” When will it stop? When someone says “It's no big deal! It's only a penny. It only raises sales tax to $.25 on the dollar”

My point about doing something like using a first-alert button probably isn't dumb to an elderly person who wants to live at home as long as possible, but doesn't have anyone to look after them. Put is utterly stupid to the other 99.9%. Only about 10% of the population of Moffat County came out in support of the last tax increase. This was the best an organized effort spending county tax dollars on the campaign could muster. While less than that apposed the increase openly at the election, the simple fact that only 10% supported it doesn't tell me that it is some small group of narrow minded people who are stuck in the past that don't support your views. Hold the elections today and I am sure the measures would fail at a rate of 2 to 1. Hold it a year from now and it would fail at a rate of 3 to 1. NOT becuase of ignorance, but because of just the opposite …. the average joe would be better informed.

highway1340 (Anonymous) says…

So if I follow your logic, we should all have our entire paychecks sent to the gov. and they can give us monthly allowances to live on. We could all have the same houses, cars, and other material possessions and the goverment could provide for us. Is that right? Hmm that sounds familiar. Where have I seen this before? Oh yeah, they call it communism. Stealing from those who want to work hard and get ahead and giving to the masses as a way of “equalizing society” is a bunch of crap. Label it however you like. “Progress,” or “Community,” or what ever you want to call it — it simply boils down to the fact that we have a lot of people who want nice things and they want someone else to pay for it.

So if that is what you really believe then how come you aren't out champion things like a tax to buy everyone a first-alert button like the bionic woman tries to sell on tv, so if a person falle down and can't call 911 they can just push a button and authorities are alerted. Infomercials have them costing about $7.99 a month. So we can buy everyone in Craig a call button and then the ambulance and police can come running whenever people need them. This would only cost about a million bucks a year. We could arguably save more lives with a program like this, so how come you aren't supporting this? Oh, oh, oh, oh, wait, wait, wait, what about giving everyone monitors to wear that monitor their heart rate and if someone's heart stops or they start getting sick then 911 is instantly called. This would only cost about five million a year and it would do way more toward saving lives than a call button or a hospital . Of course it would need a GPS attached and that might cost extra, but what the hell if it saves a life lets pay for it. Who cares about individual accountability and responsibility. Now the average joe can eat, drink, and let their body go to hell because now they know technology will save their life with no regard to its cost on society.

I will still support the notion that green painted poop, if packaged properly and labeled with a nice appealing name or purpose would be supported by people like Native. Mmmmm any one for some lime sherbert?

highway1340 (Anonymous) says…

Dude they could take a pile of dog poop, paint it green and tell you it was lime sherbert and I am sure someone could get you to support a tax to pay for it.

highway1340 (Anonymous) says…

Welcome to our hospital. While I have worked at TMH for almost ten years, it has only been in the last year that I have been sent to collections, not just once, but three times. Even after I ask them to take it out of my pay check I was still sent to collections. But what can you expect when the CFO and business office manager have never worked in a hospital before. They even hired a company from denver to do our pay checks for us. They get them wrong almost every pay check. They constantly replace tried and tru methods with bad ideas. They also seem to have a problem keeping managers. Believe it or not they just released a really good friend of mine from a management position in one of the departments. She has worked for the hospital for 30 years and knows more about her job than any ten people. I think she intimidated her boss because she knew more than him. They replaced her with someone with little knowledge and no experience. In the last year they have replaced almost every manager they have and replaced them with people who have almost no experience in management and very little experience in hospitals. For our leaders its all about making a profit. They replace good staff with cheap staff and everyone tries to keep up a cheery perception while moral is degrading. The end result is a business office that even sends their own employees to collections.

highway1340 (Anonymous) says…

What happen to the Nitty Gritty Dirty Band and Tom Petty? Both were on the list of bands/singers considered for the birthday. How did we end up with Sixty-Three Hog Fright for the entertainment? I mean a 100 year celebration only comes around once every 10 or 12 years and we end up with a band that isn't even representative of the type of music and life style most Craigonians listen to. Why not a working man's band? Why not someone like Niel McCoy, Sammy Kershaw, or Tracy Lawrence? You might as well have booked Barry Manilo……

highway1340 (Anonymous) says…

One other note — It is great to see more people are concerned with a Sonic coming to Craig than whether one of our local citizens robbed us of what is likely closel to a million dollars if you add up all the money he never paid. Sadly, we will never know exactly what was taken to fund Kelly's “activities.”

highway1340 (Anonymous) says…

I can't wait to hear what Kelly has to say next week. I bet money that he doesn't explain nothing and if he does it will be some load of crap. We used his business and he took us for about $10K. I am sure that if the County had informed the citizens of the fact that he was defaulting then I and many others could have been spared the money we lost. Why wouldn't the Hospital go public with this earlier? (don't tell me your attorneys said you couldn't - that would be as big a load of crap as what Kelly would say) I started doing business with Poznet at the end of 2005 and had I known Kelly had stiffed a bunch of other people I would never had used his services. Where was the Hospital Board during all of this? We keep hearing how the Hospital is under new management, but where is the Board oversite? We agree to give them money and they aren't even being good stewards of the money they have or being straight forward with the citizens they serve and work with! I know it's not the Hospital's fault that someone took them for a ride, but why wasn't the public warned earlier about Kelly's actions. As a division of the County the Hospital and County has a feduciary responsibility to warn others when riminal and predatory business activities are going on. I wonder what would have happened at the last election if this had come forward earlier? How long has the Daily Press been sitting on this?

highway1340 (Anonymous) says…

It all boils down to incidence and prevlence. While both illegal and legal citizens drive illegally, carelessly, and get in wrecks, it would appear that a small share of the population (illegals from mexico, germany, brazil, australia — where ever…) have accounted for a disproportionately large portion of the trafic fatalities in this area. Most legal citizens do have to take drivers training, pass a written and driving test, and then carrie auto insurance (not all, but most will just because of the accountability factor), while illegals have little incentive to take driving courses or tests to prove they are good drivers.

This begs the question, as more immigrants come into this country, are our roads safe? We pass laws to keep people who are impaired from drinking off the road and they have stiff penalties that follow. Is someone who hasn't had training just as dangerous as a drunk driver?

Now being mexican or chinese does not make you a bad driver, but not having the proper training and experience does.

Yes we have an immigration problem in this country. It is impacting everything from public works to highway safety. To say it isn't or to say people are ignorant because they are tyring to bring it to others attention is in it self ignorant.

Ask yourself this question - If we have Germans, British, Mexican, or Columbians on the road driving and they have little or no experience does it make our roads less safe? What if 1 in 5 of the cars on the road were driven by 14 year olds? Would our roads be even less safe? It's really not much different between having a 14 year old behind the wheel and 29 year old who hasn't driven before.

highway1340 (Anonymous) says…

 Native,

I appreciate your passion for these issues. Don't get me wrong, I believe we need a new hospital and I voted for one. As a voter and a tax payer though, I should not have to go ask why our hospital is doing this or that. They should be straightforward and forthcoming in everything they do. It seems like they have had both a past and recent history of springing things on the people and the people are left to their imaginations because they do not voluntarily come forth with better information. You say if we want the truth that we should go ask questions to get the truth. The public shouldn't have to ask these types of questions, the hospital should already be providing details and be as open as possible.

As a 52 year resident of this county I have seen my share of people running our hospital come and go. I find it interesting that this group keeps blaming the past administrators who ran this hospital, but didn't they work for the same company? I can't wait for a new group to come in and start blaming this one for all the ills of the hospital.

I believe there are few people in this community that hates the hospital. Most have used it and have had good results. But going on the offensive and saying that just because many people question what is going on and want more accountability that they “hate” the hospital and are living in the past is just pure ignorant.

The fact of the matter is that we are seeing some of the same stuff going on now as we have seen in the past. Those who don't learn from the past are condemed to repeat it. And while I look forward to a new hospital, poor management in a new building will still have the same results (and it's a lot cheaper to have hired hands driving the old pick up than it is to have them driving the new Dodge if they can't cowboy).

For all of our sakes, i hope you are right Native.

P.S. Can you tell me where I can get a new doc to take care of my bad leg? As of next month, I have to drive to Steamboat (again).