Dear Editor:
Linn needs a mayor who does the bidding of all the people in Linn and not just State Tech. Linn needs a mayor who fixes all the streets not just the one’s in front of his house. Linn needs a myor who not only has city ordinances written, to make the city look good, but who enforces them as well. Linn needs a mayor who demands that the police department enforce speed limits without bias. Driving down “Massey Expressway (aka Jefferson Street) twice a day will not reduce the speeders on one of Linn’s main thoroughfare. You can set your time every day when the cops come down “Massey Expressway”. It is always after rush hour in the morning or before rush hour in the afternoon. Only a few speeding tickets will reduce the speeders on “Massey Expressway”. You let mom or dad pay a few traffic fines for their high school child and they will ensure that Johnny or Jane will obey speed limits. It is not just high school students or Linn Tech students but local adults who speed down “Massey Expressway”. This problem has been brought to the attention of the Linn Police Department numerous times but do they really care? There is no evidence that they do.
So, we need a mayor who will resolve the issues that impact the safety of all citizens of Linn. A mayor who not only will write ordinances but will enforce what he demands the people of Linn comply with.
I don’t know who that man is. Eighteen years of residency in Linn I have only seen one man with enough backbone in the City Council to get things done and that is Bill Turner. Unfortunately, Mr. Turner is not running for mayor.
When selecting our next mayor, keep in mind the safety of Linn’s citizens. City ordinances are not written to be put on a shelf to collect dust. When a speed limit sign says, “20 m.p.h.” it means 20 m.p.h. not 50 or 60 m.p.h. It is a lot simpler to write speeding tickets to slow down traffic then for the city to get sued for millions of dollars because a child got seriously hurt by a speeding vehicle and the police have refused to enforce speed limits.
Dieter F. Palmer, USN (Ret)
