Berlin Deserves Better
Editor:
When I was growing up and home sick from school, there were two constants: Chicken noodle soup and The Price is Right. It was a bonus day if the game Plinko was played. Who doesn’t like Plinko?
Decades later, this sports center complex discussion has turned into a round of Plinko. Let me explain.
I’ll begin by emphasizing that I love the idea of a sports complex. Love it. I think it could be a great addition to our area, an economic driver and provide some employment opportunities.
I do not love the Town of Berlin being in the dark and uninformed, not involved or invited to any communications, meetings or discussions — no matter how trivial these events may appear. Aside from Wednesday’s town planning meeting, there has been no information regarding location adaptation, use, development, traffic, environmental, or a professional courtesy given to the Town. I’d venture to even say it’s not quite “neighborly.”
Don’t feel the need to rehash every concern; but I will say that I’m confident many fellow Berliners are equally disappointed and frustrated with this backward, exclusive, and rather narrow focused attempt to impose a facility upon the citizenry without, what I would consider, true due diligence.
This complex now is the Plinko disc being bounced around among different entities and people with different ideas and motives and now it’s finally come to rest, with what appears to be extraordinary expediency, in the Town of Berlin area slot at the bottom of the game board.
No Plan. Lots of promises.
I’m a Berlin Town Councilmember and I’m speaking from the viewpoint of what I will assume is an eventual annexation request should this complex continue on its current path. My job, responsibility and passion is first and foremost the health and safety of Berliners.
This complex is currently not safe in terms of current levels of public safety personnel, apparatus and funding as well as traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian.
This complex is currently not healthy in terms of fiscal responsibility to Berliners. Why should Berlin bear the burden on infrastructure and quality of life without even the courtesy of inviting us to a party we would be hosting or a seat at the planning table.
No plan. Little communication.
I was extremely happy to see county representation at Wednesday’s planning meeting; I want to talk. I want to be included in these discussions and I hope that the county will accept the Berlin Mayor & Council’s invitation to schedule a meeting to do so.
Jack Orris
Berlin
(The writer is a Berlin councilman representing District 2.)
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Video Exposes Inequity
Editor:
I recently viewed the police body cam footage from the Liberty County, Georgia Sheriff’s Office where the Delaware State Woman’s Lacrosse team’s bus was pulled over on I-95 for a traffic violation. The 22-minute video should be watched by all who care about justice and respect and equality. I am not ashamed to admit that tears came to my eyes upon viewing it.
The Driver of the bus entered the left lane which was clearly a traffic violation. It was made a tad worse by his statements of not knowing his bus had to follow the rules of the road that applied to trucks. This was pure hogwash or a much-uninformed driver. The men and women who possess a Commercial Driver’s License work hard to obtain their credentials. Our system of professional drivers helps keep our roads safe for all of us. His mistake was unacceptable, but what ensued is the real issue.
The Driver’s passengers were the women who attend Delaware State and play on the University’s Lacrosse team. These ladies were traveling back to Delaware after attending a tournament in Jacksonville, Fla. As most people know, obtaining a spot on a University’s athletic team is an amazing accomplishment. These kids are the best of the best. They study, they practice and they play. And they should be admired. An added wrinkle here is these ladies play for Delaware State which is a notable HBCU (Historically Black Colleges & Universities). We will never know the true intent of the Deputies involved in this stop but we cannot dismiss racism. It reeks of blatant racism.
These young ladies were forced to sit on their bus, while numerous members of Law Enforcement from several squad cars took part in the search. A drug dog made his rounds and countless pieces of luggage were rummaged through by the Deputies. One Player on the team was called forward when the Deputy called her name. She was asked to account for the contents of a package that a family gave her as a gift. Because she had not opened it yet, she honestly answered that she did not know. Her gift was then opened and expected by the law enforcement team. The gift was a simple and harmless item that many households possess. All of these bags were inspected because the driver of the bus made a traffic violation. This is sad and unacceptable.
As an ardent supporter of Law Enforcement, I ask everyone to please view this 22-minute video with an open mind. While I maintain that the insurrection on January 6, 2021 was one of the darkest days in our Nation’s history, I know many acquaintances that make excuses for the actions of these so-called “Patriots”. In all seriousness, I ask that each of these “Patriots” watch this video. Hypothetically speaking, do any of these “Patriots” think if the passengers on this bus would have been a bunch of white boys on a sports team who attended the University of Maryland or Delaware would be subjected to the same treatment as the ladies from Delaware State? If you answered yes, this is exactly the reason why Black Lives Matter exists. This may make you feel uncomfortable but it is true. You cannot continue to back the blue at all costs and assume that persons of color are wrong whenever accused. Again, this 22-minute video would not even exist had the passengers been a bunch of white boys because the bus would never have been search for this period of time. Let’s just please admit that an inequity exists in this world. Once we do that, we can take a leap forward towards dignity, justice and respect for all.
Scott Chismar
Ocean City
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An Upside Down World
Editor:
Nothing makes sense anymore. Our values, morals, and civility are under attack. People are dying of a Chinese virus, but it’s racist to refer to it as the Wuhan China virus even though it began in China.
We are clearly living in an upside-down world where right is wrong and wrong is right; where moral is immoral and immoral is moral, where good is evil and evil is good, where killing murderers is wrong but killing unborn babies, very often painfully, is legal and your right. I will give you examples unlike what the left does. The left just level accusations on their enemies and never back them up with examples supporting their pejoratives.
- If a guy pretends to be a woman, you are required to pretend with him.
- Somehow it’s un-American for the census to count how many Americans are in America.
- Russians influencing our elections are bad, but illegals voting in our elections, by the millions, are good.
- It was cool for Joe Biden to “blackmail” the President of Ukraine.
- Twenty is too young to drink a beer, but eighteen is old enough to vote and go to war.
- People who have never owned slaves should pay “slavery reparations” to people who have never been slaves.
- People who have never been to college should pay the debts of college students who took out huge loans for their degrees.
- Illegal aliens with tuberculosis, polio, and the Wuhan China virus are welcome, but you’d better be able to prove your dog is vaccinated.
- Irish doctors and German engineers who want to immigrate to the US must go through a rigorous vetting process, but any illiterate gang member or terrorist who comes across our border is welcome.
- $5 billion for border security is too expensive, but $1.5 trillion for “free” health care is not. (1 trillion seconds is 31,709 years).
- If you cheat to get into college you go to prison. But if you cheat to get into this country you go to college for free.
- If you cheat in an election nothing happens to you. But if you point out the mathematical errors of that election and how many people took part, you are a conspiracy theorist & disdained.
- People who say there is no such thing as gender are demanding a female president.
- We have witnessed other countries abandon capitalism, go socialist, collapse and be miserable. But it seems like a great plan for us.
- Some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born. Other people are not held responsible for what they are doing right now. Consider the 633 riots, burnings, murders, and destruction of private property in 2020.
- Criminals are caught-and-released to hurt more people but stopping them is bad because it’s a violation of their rights.
In many left governing cities, it is illegal to protect yourself with a gun.
- We have Biden’s Department of Homeland Security calling half the population possible domestic terrorists for having an opinion that differs from their own. They are called “MAGA” extremists. How are the people that believe in “MAGA”, make America great again, extremists??
- Parents complaining at school board meetings are labeled “domestic terrorists” but not ANTIFA, BLM, and thugs hitting, shooting, and killing people on the streets of our cities.
- It is ok to cut clean domestic oil production and buy dirty Russian oil thereby bank rolling an illegal invasion of another country.
- Pointing out all this hypocrisy of the left somehow makes us racists!
Wake up America, there are Marxist/ communists drilling holes in the hull of the good ship “Titanic America”. It’s taking on water and is sinking. We need to demand election integrity so we can still speak up and vote for the party whose foundation, for the most part, is set in the Constitution. This document, written by our founders who had to be inspired by God to write it with an uncanny realization of what law makers might try to get away with in the future, our time. Our founders wrote the Constitution to curb the rights and freedoms of our law makers, not the freedoms of America’s citizens. They foresaw the need for article 5, a Convention of States, to allow the states to amend it, not just Congress which may have become corrupted. God had to help them.
Always remember the immortal words of Edmund Burke, British statesman, parliamentary orator, and political thinker prominent in public life from 1765 to about 1795 and important in the history of political theory, “all that is necessary for evil to flourish is that good men do nothing.”
Dennis Evans
Berlin