H. I just wanted to say I paid my outrageous city taxes the other day and because of the large increase on my tax bill, I had to make some adjustments in my finances. I downgraded my cable to just basic and my Internet to a cheaper plan. I think those that run our city government do not know how to budget our money but they sure know how t spend it. I also have a question: I’d like to know whatever happened to the hot patch machine that this city had about five years ago. Thank you for taking my call today. The Westfield Public Works Department still owns the hot patch machine. It is only used in the early spring when the asphalt plants are open, to patch random potholes.
I enjoy your paper, Mr. Berry, and of course I have a question here that I would like answered to our Engineering here in Westfield: I would like to know when our sewers will be attached on Shaker Road. Could he give us an estimated time, place, whatever it may be? You’re looking at 20 some years without a sewer system here off Tannery Road. If he has a designated area that he can follow his map through, or whatever his plans are, and we’d like to be informed as to just when it is going to be. And thank you again for taking my call. – Concerned Citizen of Westfield. We spoke with Westfield’s Chief Engineer, Mark Cressotti, and here’s what we learned: Connecting the Tannery Road end of Shaker Road is a difficult proposal. While it is in the city’s strategic plan for sanitary sewer extensions to residential neighborhoods, the Springfield Aqueduct poses a serious obstacle. The plan involves extending lines from the Southwick transmission main under the Columbia Greenway and would require serving neighborhoods in-between before getting to the area in question. Overlay this with the limited funding of $750K annually via the sewer use fee distributed through a political process of having to do some improvements to each ward before repeating and, unfortunately, we are looking at decades.
Thank you, Patrick. I can’t go to the meeting of the PVTA on Wednesday (people do work) but could you have PVTA shovel all their bus stops? And keep the buses out of the Walmart disaster area? And city execs should look at the disaster traffic and safety for pedestrians at the Walmart. Finally, our great Governor is finally looking at abuse and rentals at the housing in Hampden County. Thank you.
Hi PulseLine, Adding more gun laws because of the shooting in Newtown CT. IS NOT, going to solve the problem. The lawmakers should ban ALL violent video games. The parents of children in this country need to take more responsibility for their children. I read an article in the paper of someone asking the state transportation department to remove the violent video arcade game from a rest stop on the turnpike. The state removed all the video games from the rest stops and replaced them with better ones like Pacman. Good for someone speaking up and taking action. More people need to speak up and take action against allowing video games to this countries youth! These youth get soooo wrapped up in the violent video games that they have no concept of reality from fantasy. Getting rid of violent video games would solve HALF the problem. Thank-you.
In regards to the misguided, uninformed person who attempted to provide a rebuttal in Saturday’s paper to my previous post on Thursday: After reading your silliness, I at first felt it wasn’t worthy of an answer, because you made a fool of yourself in front of everyone who reads the paper. But clearly, there are still things you did not understand from my previous post and I will attempt to clear that up. Mr. LaPierre is doing his job, that’s what he is there for… not one inch backward. The President is trying to infringe on our rights by restricting the number and types of guns allowed for civilians to purchase. The second tactic he is using is the classic ”divide and conquer”… we don’t want your hunting rifle… just the bad assault rifles…. well, I recall it was previously the “Saturday night specials” they wanted to eliminate… now its another type… then it will be handguns, rifles and finally shotguns… and then, there will be nothing left, because everyone believed “they wanted HIS guns, not mine”. And yes, that constitutes an infringement on my rights… unalienable rights guaranteed by my forefathers that I will fight for if necessary, as they did… I am a free man and intend to stay that way… I will not leave my country in her hour of need, and as Patrick Henry said,”if this be treason, make the most of it!” So, driving a car is a right? Since when? Show me the passage in the Constitution, or Declaration of Independence where I’m promised the right to drive? LOL! The wording of the Second Amendment is somewhat archaic in that the meaning of “militia” was every man of age capable of shouldering a firearm, until he was too aged to do so. There was not supposed to be a standing army to force the will of any future tyrannical government upon the people, who were to be privately armed to respond to any threats upon our liberties, foreign or domestic. The right to rebel thereof is found in the Declaration of Independence if you care to read it. Loosely, it says, we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, and that to secure these rights, governments are instituted deriving their just power from the consent of the governed, and whenever they become destructive of these rights, it is our right, and duty to alter, or abolish them and replace it with one that the people see fit. Is that perfectly clear now??? We did it once, we can do it again. I don’t know how many times I’ve had this same argument with “sheeple.” Mr. Biden was asked by the press what were his thoughts about putting policemen in schools, and he replied he did not want to see “rent-a cops” protecting our kids, that was a slap in the face to the police by the administration…. and not one network or paper picked up on that??? Incredible! As for the police themselves, many of whom I know personally, pretty much unanimously they are not in favor of these anti gun proposals… and when forced to appear “in solidarity” behind the politicians, it is usually at the behest of their union masters, and not their personal opinions. And finally, an assault weapon is not a full automatic machine gun, they have been banned since 1934, a semi-auto fires one bullet per trigger pull, same as every other gun. While cosmetically they may look the same, internally there are great differences you cannot see that ensure they CANNOT fire automatically. In addition, did you know an assault rifle bullet is smaller than a hunting bullet, contains less gunpowder, and has less range? See, there is no need for name calling when you are armed with the FACTS, and the TRUTH.
