Recent Editorial in The Leader

Reprinted/published with permission of the Managing Editor/Publisher of The Leader.
This article was published Saturday, October 6, 2007

Following is a link for the actual printed editorial, what follows is a reprint.

http://www.arkansasleader.com/2007/10/editorialsconveniency-in-sherwood.html

EDITORIALS

Conveniency in Sherwood
Former Vice President Al Gore has his inconvenient truths and Sherwood politicians have their convenient truths.

It’s convenient for the Sherwood aldermen to be for saving the green space and hugging trees when it’s about getting the golf course. But it’s also been convenient for city leaders to turn a deaf ear on complaints about late-night construction work and blasting on the Wal-Mart construction site. Wal-Mart is following all city requirements has been the pat answer to residents, and you can’t stop progress, as they say, but nearby residents deserve better.

When it comes to the golf course, it’s convenient for the city to say it would have to spend $2 million to support a development, but it was convenient for the city to ask Wal-Mart to widen Maryland Avenue and reconfigure the traffic signals.

Couldn’t they conveniently ask Ron Campbell, who wants to develop the golf course into a residential area, to pay for some or all of those $2 million in needed improvements?

It has been convenient to place a moratorium on a developer, causing him possible loss of income, all in the name of the golf course.It’s convenient for the leaders to call the golf course the jewel of the city, but what about the long standing, closed, abandoned, decrepit empty storefront across from that jewel? How about spreading more green around Sherwood and in all of our communities?

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Not sure how many of you are familiar with The Leader, it is published on wednesdays and saturdays and they have surpassed The Voice and The Times in local coverage. The editor and staff don't mince words. They tell it like they see it. Thought that this was an excellent editorial.