We’re Broke!

“The State Government is going broke and we can’t afford to keep criminals in jail. I hear that education is in danger because of a lack of money. But we can afford to build a major highway to nowhere. I hear that the road will bring great things to us, like jobs and all around prosperity. I just want to know if all this prosperity will come from Somerset. That’s the only town that will be linked to London using 66 and it could be years before the rest of 66 is complete, if it is completed at all. I don’t think our government should spend so much money on 66 and then let prisoners out of jail because we cant afford to keep them there.”

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Legislators actively working against their voters’ interests

“I think it is terrible to have a higway especially near Mammoth Cave National Park as I remember it back in 1959 when I visited there I can’t imagine why they would want to ruin the beautiful forest and National Park lands for an old stupid highway. Must be some Republican congressman with another stupid pork barrel project like some of the others that have been made that waste the tax payers money. A lot they care as they could be doing a lot for Medicare for us older folks and raise our Social Security so we can live like decent people instead of having to figure what we are going to have-prescription drugs or food.”

Steamrolling I-66 Project to the detriment of Kentucky residents living in poverty

I-66 – What a Waste!

I-66 BEING PUT ON FAST TRACK TO “STREAMLINE” THE BUILDING PROCESS-THAT’S NOT STREAMLINING-THAT’S STEAMROLLING! Good ole boy Hal & his pals Mitch & the Guv have managed to put the London-Somerset I-66 segment on the FEDERAL “PRIORITY” list. Doesn’t the Federal Government have much more pressing needs to spend OUR TAX DOLLARS on?

“Leave No Tree Standing”

“I don’t think the politicians will be happy until they have paved over & developed every square inch of this state! How much money has to be wasted before they find out that spending more money for more Industrial Parks and infrastructure will be wasted. MAKE USE OF WHAT YOU’VE ALREADY GOT! At last count there are 207++ Industrial Parks in this state-ALL WITH VACANT UNUSED LOTS, BUILDINGS & SPEC BUILDINGS! I would love to see the study that tells us how much of OUR MONEY is tied up in these blunders. “If you build it they will come…” I don’t think so, that was just a movie, NOT REAL LIFE!” Only when the last tree, plant, animal, fish & reptile are gone and the water, ground and air are poisoned will they discover, “You can’t eat money!”

God’s Country Found in DBNF!

We took the ride from London to Somerset today. For a Saturday, the road was relatively UNCROWDED, we might’ve seen a total of 30 cars the whole trip, until we got to Route 27, then I thought we’d hit mini-Lexington! Two Krogers a couple miles away from each other! That’s economic development? And the “Center For Rural Development” WHAT AN OXYMORON! Driving home from Somerset we took Rt 192 & traveled through some of the the most beautiful countryside this side of Heaven. IT IS GOD”S COUNTRY through there. Makes you wonder what GOD thinks about building a major interstate through His land!

Somerset Bypass bisected a farmer’s field!

“I would like for people to see the mess the core drillers did to my aunts farm in Somerset, Ky. It is awful and they didn’t have to do that kind of damage to her farm land. I am going to video tape the damage and also make pictures of it in hopes that it can be used to fight against I 66 being built.”
“Core Drillers are the people that the state has contracted to drill holes in the land and get soil and rock samples. These pictures were just where they came in to survey the land, they didn’t even drill there. They came in to put the flags up and tore the top soil off the hay fields and cut ruts in the field and they were going to drill down there and my aunt wouldn’t let them because she let them drill on another piece of her farm and they tore up the land so bad that she made them fix it and she won’t let them back on the other part. It sure messed up her pasture and hay fields. A video is also available.”

Let’s Fix the Roads we got!

RE: INADEQUATE SECONDARY ROADS-A CAR WASHES OFF A LOW WATER BRIDGE KILLING A 6 YEAR OLD GIRL. ON RT. 312 IN CORBIN, A SCHOOL BUS SLIPS INTO A CULVERT INJURING SEVERAL CHILDREN. CARS SKIDDING ON WET CURVES-PEOPLE DYING-THE LIST GOES ON & ON. I-66 WILL NOT HELP THESE PEOPLE TRAVELING ON THE INADEQUATE SECONDARY ROADS. THAT’S WHERE THE MONEY NEEDS TO BE SPENT ON IMPROVING THE ROADS WE CITIZENS TRAVEL ON ON A DAILY BASIS. THESE ROADS WITH NO PAVED SHOULDERS AND NO LINES PAINTED ON THE SIDES & IN THE MIDDLE. CHILDREN (AND OTHERS) RISK THEIR LIVES TO RIDE THEIR BIKES OR EVEN WALK AROUND IN THIS STATE! TRAVELED THE HAL ROGERS PKWY RECENTLY? WHAT A MESS

I-66 won’t help!

“I live in Eastern Kentucky, in Prestonsburg to be exact. I see absolutely no need for this useless Interstate road project, especially since nobody west of Kentucky is going to join in anyway. Why would they? They already have a sufficient Interstate highway system. How will it help me for example? None at all! The problems we have in this area of the state are getting northwest to Lexington and west to I-75 (which now takes 2 hours from here). I think that if we have to build anything at all it should be to widen a 1-hour section of the Mountain Parkway from 2 lanes to 4 lanes, and make some adjustments to the Daniel Boone Parkway heading west. I don’t see any need for a new road system that really doesn’t help anyway.”

Shameful History of Hal Rogers Parkway

Editorial Published in London Sentinel-Echo 8/25/03
Only one mystery remains
Dear Editor:
“Daniel Boone was a man, what a big man…,” went the song that introduced the successful television show and popularized the coonskin cap. “Hal Rogers was a man, what a big man.” The latter version is inaccurate because the symbolic meaning of the lyrics cannot be applied to Hal Rogers.
Consequently, only one mystery remains about the travesty of reverence and common sense that resulted in the removal of Daniel Boone’s name from the Parkway. How did Hal Rogers lift his big head up on that bulldozer, a crane perhaps? That will remain a puzzle, but the travesty itself poses no such problem. The vast majority of today’s politicians are constantly pursued by groupie-like people eager to curry favor, to make Brownie points. Unfortunately, their sycophantic, brown-nosing behavior is effective, often to the detriment of the average American.
Hal Rogers has been well paid for his service to Eastern Kentucky, not to mention the fancy, unnecessary perks that cost taxpayers millions of dollars each year, the health and pension plans that the average taxpayer can only dream about but never hope to achieve, thanks to self-serving politicians.
There are some people, particularly those in the groupie category, who will defend Rogers, citing all the wonderful things he has done for Eastern Kentucky. I would remind them that Rogers would probably grade no better than average when compared with the other representatives in Congress with equivalent seniority.
For example, take our $13 million that he single-handedly appropriated for the long-overdue purpose of removing the tollbooths. Make no mistake, while he was up on that bulldozer, $13 million were spent in eastern Texas, eastern California, eastern Washington, eastern Minnesota, eastern Maine, eastern Florida, eastern here, and eastern there. Get the picture?
“You vote for my project and I’ll vote for yours.” It all boils down to swap-outs and trade-offs. The truth is, the vast majority of politicians walk in lockstep; thus creating a stupid, close-minded arrogance that promotes mediocrity and limits them to photo-ops and throwing their constituents an occasional crumb, just enough of a crumb to stave off starvation. And for that, they get highways named after them.
Once upon a time, my job responsibilities too me to Washington three or four times a year to provide testimony to congressional committees, work with counterparts from other states, etc. I recall talking to a Representative, from another state, at the close of that fictional show on C-SPAN that our politicians pass off as debate. The hot item of business that day was the Omnibus Communications Bill.
To refresh your memory, among other things that bill was supposed to reduce our cable television fees. What a joke! The Representative told me that the telephone calls and letters coming into his office were 7-1 against the bill. “I’m going to vote for it anyway,” he said. I was in no way surprised to hear that he was going to vote in lockstep, but I was surprised that he had admitted that to me. I figured he had either suffered a momentary loss of memory or he was feeling guilty about not doing the job that the voters in his district had elected him to do. He had to tell someone, and I was handy.
I could present many other salient examples of the same conduct, but they would serve no worthwhile purpose here.
Given the way Daniel Boone was removed from the Parkway, it is easy for me to imagine that a man of his caliber would not want his name associated with that Parkway any longer. I can see him respectfully declining the honor, and I would not blame him. The honor has now been watered down to nothing more than a warm fuzzy, a convenient way of scoring Brownie points. If that groupie bunch wanted to show their appreciation, they should have given Hal Rogers a teddy bear. It would have more accurately represented his contribution to the removal of the tollbooths.
Yes, indeed, Daniel Boone was a big man, the foster son of Chief Blackfish who adopted him for his bravery, and a man who blazed a trail through the Cumberland Gap and established a settlement in Kentucky when our state was truly “a dark and bloody ground.” Compare that with the swirling hot tubs, the warm spas, and the stimulating massages that the pampered, over-perked members of the U.S. Congress must endure every day, then you can fairly judge the contributions of the two men in question.
And what about the final resting place of Daniel Boone? What a smack in the face. He lays within yelling distance of that political circus that takes place in Frankfort. I would guess he spends a lot of nights tossing and turning, especially when the legislators come to town, and now they come to town once a year. Lord, help us all. Have you noticed the horizon lately? The dark storm clouds of additional taxation are gathering there.
At the minimum, Daniel Boone should have been treated with the same deference as Buffalo Bill, whose only contribution to the West was the fact that he was a crack shot with a rifle. To get to his final resting place, you must follow a winding, picturesque road up to a mountain-top park, which features picnic tables, a museum, a gift show, a wonderful view, and the grave of Buffalo Bill.
It would be so right if Daniel Boone was moved to the hilltop in Cumberland Gap that overlooks the Station Camp Creek area. If Hal Rogers is only half the legislator that his groupie bunch would have us believe, he should be able to pull that off with a single snap of his fingers. Consider what that would mean to Daniel Boone, Mr. Rogers, and also think about all those additional jobs that would be created. You might even get to cut another ribbon.
Until big money stops flowing into politics, the laws that come out of Washington will continue to offend our common sense and reduce our net worth directly and indirectly. If by some trail-blazing miracle the money stopped someday, that would enable some real Daniel Boones to make their way into the U.S. Congress.
Looking back over the years, I don’t know why I was ever surprised or disillusioned as I watched my heroes cut down, one by one; as I watched my idealistic bubbles busted, one by one. I should have anticipated those events, for I have known since childhood that Judas Iscariot sold out a Good Man for 30 pieces of sliver. The vast majority of politicians are doing the same thing this day, selling out good people. And in the process, another one of our true heroes has been blindsided with a cheap, irreverent punch.”