Too much taxpayers’ money not spent wisely

To the Editor:

Earlier in January, on a very cold night, several people in the Oakland area were without electricity for about eight hours.

Local media reported that there were shelters set up, but nobody utilized them. That’s probably because people didn’t know about them? Where were they?

During the night, my wife and I (who live in a total electric apartment) discussed the fact that Garrett County needs one central emergency shelter (or perhaps two, one on each end of the county) for such catastrophes.

We are fortunate enough to have family members to call on, but there are so many people (many elderly and disabled) in the county, who don’t.

Instead of the county commissioners spending money on a sports center or whatever it is, spending money on remodeling their office, spending a large sum of money to change dirt in the flower pots on top of the courthouse, and so on, why not build a place to go when things like power outages, tornadoes, or so on happens?

This local administration wanted so desperately to build a new county roads facility in the Oakland area, but are still utilizing the office at old one? Why? Perhaps, it’s time for a change in county government?

The county commissioners recently discussed problems concerning Limestone Hill Road with some other individuals. It’s a road between Accident and Friendsville that is maintained only in the summer months.

What do residents along such roads have to do, or how much more taxes do they have to pay, for the county to maintain them all of the time?

Then, there are roads like Preston Lane in the Crellin area, that the county owns, but haven’t taken into their maintenance system. They’re just little roads, and would only take five extra minutes to plow in the winter, and a few loads of gravel a couple times in the summer, to fill in the holes.

The people who live along such roads would be seeing a return for the taxes that they pay, and it wouldn’t cost near as much to maintain, as that of the road leading to the county airport, roads leading into county garbage sites, and so on.

They maintain newly built roads near the lake, but not roads like the one in Crellin, that has been there for years? It doesn’t make sense. Then, when a voter tries to get answers from the county commissioners, the county administrator steps in with a “smart” and often “rude” reply.

I’m sorry, but I did not vote for an administrator. Only the commissioners’ names were on my ballot.

At least when I write a letter to the state governor, he replies back in writing, even though I disagree with him on a few things, such as wanting a pay raise for himself, and not regulating electric company rates.

He is the 11th highest-paid governor in the nation and is making cuts in needed programs (including energy assistance for the poor) and making state workers work a few days for free, while he wants a raise?

When he makes bets with other governors in the U.S. over who’ll win a football game for example, who pays it off if he loses, him. or the people of the state?

Whatever happened to all of the tax money paid into supposedly cleaning the bay over the past several years? From what I understand, little, if anything, has been done.

Bill Detrick

Oakland