Views from readers: Representing the people + school funding

Better representation

Do we get represented by the folks we elect to local, state, and federal positions?

On the news, we see meeting after meeting with business people hosted by the chamber and held at casino ballrooms.

When do they hold meetings for our citizens to discuss our needs?

Biloxi is looking for millions to build a new Popp’s Ferry bridge and new roads to U.S. 90 while people along Division Street wait to have the repairs made to the mishandled work that causes them to jump driveways to get in and out of their homes. East Biloxi has many streets torn up..

The harbors and piers suffered major damage, yet politicians have done little to fix them.

The politicians want to build more and more roads while they can’t maintain the existing roads.

Look anywhere and you will see the evidence of pot holes, sunken manholes, and major intersection which were misdesigned years ago. While the state goes through the motion of diving up the monies coming from the feds, real problems are not being addressed like education and public safety.

The federal elected officials keep pouring more and more money we don’t have to get votes. The activist get TV coverage and news reports everyday yet the needs of the citizens are never addressed, only small groups of chanters and screamers.

So I ask when will monies be spent on existing problems? Who will represent the existing citizens problems?

Rick Brown

Gulfport

School funding

The $37 million dollar bond being promoted by the Bay Waveland School District (BWSD) is about much more than the construction of buildings and grounds. It is a referendum on continuing and expanding a Pre-K 3 and Pre-K 4 curriculum that is not mandated by the state of Mississippi.

Without public input and without workshops attended by citizens and political leaders of Hancock County and the cities of Bay St. Louis and Waveland, a non-mandated program was initiated by the BWSD. Now they are requesting millions of dollars to support this program.

In their bond proposal, the BWSD has as their number one priority to add 12 classrooms to the Waveland Elementary School for the Pre-K program. The board gives no dollar value as to the cost of this building construction.

Of course, if you add more classrooms and students, you have to increase staff, which will then increase the annual budget. As it is, in the last three years, the BWSD expense budget has increased from over $23 million dollars annually to over $33 million.

During those years, 2020 and 2021 enrollment of students decreased and we will probably see the same for 2022 by the end of this school year.

The BWSD Pre-K program needs to be reassessed with community input. Dramatically increasing budgets with decreasing enrollments need to be stopped. Taxpayers deserve leaders who will utilize their money wisely. The BWSD is not doing that.

The BWSD bond proposal needs to be defeated.

Ron Thorp

Bay St. Louis

How many?

In that we call our country

Early death summoned nearly 900,000 of our souls

Our teacher, the mom down the block

The retired cop, the neighborhood’s best barber

Now closer, our cousin, my wife’s uncle, and so many others we well knew;

Such is our hubris, to swear and and acclaim:

That Covid did not take them

That masks do not work

That vaccines do not help

That government should not assist

That health experts do not know.

Query: How many shall perish before denial dies?

Charles A. Boggs

Long Beach