The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 89, No. 291, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 5, 2009 Page: 4 of 16
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: The Baytown Sun and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Sterling Municipal Library.
- Highlighting
- Highlighting On/Off
- Color:
- Adjust Image
- Rotate Left
- Rotate Right
- Brightness, Contrast, etc. (Experimental)
- Cropping Tool
- Download Sizes
- Preview all sizes/dimensions or...
- Download Thumbnail
- Download Small
- Download Medium
- Download Large
- High Resolution Files
- IIIF Image JSON
- IIIF Image URL
- Accessibility
- View Extracted Text
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
■ ■ ■ ■ ■
Thursday. November 5,2009
Tin: BWIUWN SUN
7
j
A)
W)
7,
Letters to the editor
Falling in head-first
L
And so on.
They said it
SEE HALES • PAGE 8A
SEE LEE • PAGE 8A
> ....
— -
No longer
red all over
Mrs. Niemeyer and class
Aviston, Ill.
Laura Hill
Baytown
Luke Hales
Assistant Managing Editor
M.A. Bengtson
Community member
Dave Rogers
Sports Editor
WRITE TO US
The Sun welcomes letters of
up to 250 words and guest
columns of up to 500 words.
Guest columns should include
a photo of the writer.
MISS YOUR PAPER?
You should receive your
Baytown Sun by 6 a.m. Tuesday
through Friday and by noon
Saturday. If you do not receive
your paper on time, call (281)
425-8066 by 9 a.m. weekdays
and 3 p.m. Saturday to ensure
redelivery.
State
Rick Perry,
Governor
800-843-5789
800-252-9600
Fax: 512-463-
1849
Ted Poe,
Dist. 2 Rep.
866-425-6565
866-447-0242
www.house.
gov/poe
Ron Paul,
Dist. 14 Rep.
202-225-2831
979-230-0000
wwwJiouse.
gov/paul
Gene Green,
Dist. 29 Rep.
202-225-1688
713-330-0761
281-420-0502
www.house.
gov/green
How to reach us
Clifton E. “Cliff” Clements,
Publisher
cliff.clements@baytownsun.com
Dave Mathews
Managing Editor
dave.mathews@baytownsun.com
Sandy Denson, Business Mgr.
sandy.denson@baytownsun.com
Joshua Hart, Circulation Manager
joshua.hart@baytownsun.com
Gordon Gallatin,
Advertising Director
gordon.gallatin@baytownsun.com
NEWSROOM
sunnews@baytownsun.com
Federal
Barack Obama
President
202-456-1TTI
Fax:202-456-2461
president®
whitehouse.gov
Joe Biden,
Vice President
202-456-2324
Fax:202-456-2461
vice.president®
whitehouse.gov
Kay Bailey
Hutchison,
Senator
202-224-5922
713-653-3456
Fax:202-224-0776
Fax:713-209-3459
hutchison.senate.
govfe-mai.htm
John Cornyn,
Senator
202-224-2934
713-572-3337
Fax:202-228-2856
Fax:713-572-3777
ccmyn.senate.g :
ov/contact/index
.html
I Itl l) ll\HT\IW
Publisher Emeritus
1'l.jt). |9?4
Cfjc BiPtobin £>un
1301 Memorial Drive, P.O. Box 90
Baytown, Texas 77522
Main: (281) 422-8302
Newsroom: (281) 425-8017
Retail: (281) 425-8036
Classified: (281) 425-8008
Circulation: (281) 425-8066
Fax:(281)427-1880
E-mail: sunnews@baytownsun.com
Web site: www.baytownsun.com
The Baytown Sun, 46180 is published
five days a week by The Baytown Sun,
1301 Memorial Drive, PO Box 90,
Baytown Texas 77522. Periodicals
postage paid at Baytown, Tx.
I >
W
JANE
HOWARD
LEE
Opinion
4\
of1
J./
p
Sun reserves the right to
refuse to publish, any submis-
sion.
Send signed letters to:
Dave Mathews, The Baytown
Sun, P.O. Box 90, Baytown, TX
77522; fax them to (281) 427-
1880 or send an e-mail to
sunnews@baytownsun.com.
Items featured on this page
are the views of the persons
identified with each submission
and do not necessarily reflect
the views of The Baytown Sun
or its advertisers.
1 decided not to write a Tuesday col-
umn because 1 wrote one Saturday, and
too much of a good thing can be a little
much. Kind of like Halloween candy,
really.
Speaking of Halloween, it appears
I’m going to have to find original stuff
to write about, now that Halloween’s
over. I can’t complain, though. That
holiday gave me at least a month's
worth of material.
It’s back to the grindstone for me and
my fingers and my brain, it appears.
And now for something completely
different...
This weather has been incredible. I
wish it were a tad cooler, because I’m a
big dude and. I tend to be warmer than
some of the less insulated types. But,
nevertheless, I crave autumn all year
long..
The cooler temperatures have, how-
ever, given me plenty of outside time
with the boy. He’s four years old now,
and he’s a mess. I am certain all the
parents out there can relate. He's not
bad or anything, just a ball of energy
that only slows down long enough for
food and the occasional nap.
We went to the natural science muse-
um in Houston a few weeks back, and
though the only thing we really looked
at was the dinosaur skeletons, we had a
blast. He runs commentary on just
about everything. Some gems from that
field trip:
KNCTN ACT HEAVM CARE? Lg
WRI
On the way out we stopped at the
■ gift shop, because they have cool stuff
there. We tried on the triceratops mask
because, hey, who doesn’t want to look
like a triceratops at least once in their
life? We scouted around looking for
something cool to take home, but there
wasn’t much he was interested in.
Until we saw the Nerf bow and arrow
set.
Simultaneously we said, “Wow,” our
jaws dropping in tandem.
We got home and ripped tha/thing
Service “Hassle” Station
I know things are at a hurried pace
these days, but being hassled was just too
much Saturday morning. I love using my
debit card at the pump, gas, and a wash
all at once.
I noticed my tires were low and put
quarters in the air machine. Upon pick-
ing up the hose, I noticed the air nozzle
was missing.
I entered the service station to tell the
young man about the air, and to put a
sign out. He stated he was only one' per-
son and he said it with attitude to boot.
I’m a little tight on cash these days,
and probably would have let it go if it
hadn’t been.for the attitude. So I asked
for my quarters. He said I’d have to call
the air machine company. I asked for the
number, and with a huff he looked at the
counter and walked to the back of the
store office.
On the way back he said he didn’t have
the number, so I asked for the manager.
She came out from the back and yelled
at the young man to give me the quarters
and slammed the door shut.
Now, Mr. Attitude gave the quarters to
me along with telling me how I can’t fol-
low orders and bothering the manager.
Oh no, he didn’t! Now that’s another
story.
We publish only original
material addressed to The
Baytown Sun bearing the.
writer’s signature. An address
and phone number hot for
publication should be included.
All letters and guest columns
are subject to editing, and the
“Daddy? I bet that dinosaur is cold
because he doesn’t have any skin.”
“Daddy? Can we bring that dinosaur
home?”
“Daddy? Do they take the dinosaurs
for a walk?”
zm
w
Yore
W
i
They’ve got class
The fourth grade at Aviston
Elementary, located in southern Illinois,
is learning about the U.S. and the differ-
ent environments, climates, resources and
highlights found in each region. The
kids in the class think it would be fun to
receive postcards, souvenirs, resources or
any information about our great country
from each of the 50 states.
We hope that people who read this let-
ter will be interested in mailing our class
items pertaining to their state.
Our address:
4th grade at Aviston Elementary'
350 South Hull St.
Aviston, Ill. 62216
A sincere “thank you” to anyone who is
able to contribute. We appreciate the
excitement you will add to our learning
experience.
.I'M JUST
60IN&KR
THCWAI10
A
open like Santa was
retiring and this was
the last toy anyone
would ever get, peri-
od. And I won’t lie;
we had to negotiate
over who got to shoot
it first.
Naturally, he won,
because he’s the kid
and I couldn’t figure
out how to make it work.
He figured it out pretty quick,
though. And let me tell you, that kid
has some aiming skills. He managed to
wound me three times, almost as soon
as he got that thing going.
Of course, shooting Daddy got a little
boring after a while, so he switched to
his new game: trying to land Nerf
arrows pn the roof. He got pretty good
at this, requiring me to play arrow
caddy with a ladder and a broom for at
least a couple of hours.
He discovered my lightsaber recently.
My brother bought it for me for
Christmas one year, and of course, the
first thing I did was swing it straight
into a light fixture. It’s one of those
fancy ones, with the interchangeable
handles and the switch that lets you
change the color.
He loves it. He’s figured out that the
most efficient way to put a target down
is to soften it up with a couple of Nerf
arrows, then close in with the
lightsaber.
He prefers red, by the way, which
concerns me a bit. He hasn’t seen “Star
Wars,” but those who have know that
only the bad guys swing the red ones.
We’ll have to work on that later.
I found a less-expensive one in the
half-price Halloween leftover bin the
other day. Now we can duel. This is
gonna be awesome.
He’s also discovered that hide-and-
seek is way funner outside, because
there’s a whole lot more places one can
conceal themselves. Unfortunately, once
he finds a good spot, he pretty well
sticks to it. One time I put a cardboard
box in the driveway with a target
scrawled in Sharpie on one side for
Nerf target practice. He figured out that
he fits exactly in the box. Guess where
he hides every time?
"Imagination is the only key to the
future. Without it none exists - - with it
'all things are possible.”
Ida M. Tarbell
American journalist
11857-1944)
There is good news for anyone
who is not a fan of red-light cam-
eras.
Voters in College Station voted
Tuesday to abolish the cameras at
their city’s intersections.
The issue won by a very narrow
margin - the percentages were 52
percent to abolish the cameras and
48 percent to retain use of the cam-
eras.
A citizen-led political action
group worked like madmen to get
the issue before the voters. They
gathered information, sought pub-
licity, crafted a
petition that
would force their
city council to
put the issue to
voters, worked
like crazy to get
signatures on
that petition,
then finally pre-
sented the peti-
tion to city offi-
cials.
The issue went
on the Nov. 3 ballot as a proposi-
tion to ban red-light cameras. A
“yes” vote supported that proposi-
tion while a “no” vote indicated that
the voter wanted to keep the red-
light cameras in place.
The actual vote came in with
4,077 voting yes and 3,805 voting
no.
Now as soon as the election
results are ruled official, the red-
light cameras will be turned off and
the signs relating to them will be
removed.
Within a reasonable time, the
company that put the cameras up -
American Traffic Solutions - will
be expected to remove all their
equipment from College Station
intersections.
So the fight against the cameras
in College Station succeeded.
Things are not going quite so
good for the folks fighting the red-
light camera program here in
Baytown.
Byron Schirmbeck has been lead-
ing that fight, gathering supporters
along the way.
Schirmbeck discovered that the
yellow-light intervals were too short
at some of the Baytown red-light
intersections and provided informa-
tion on that issue to city officials.
The result was a change in some
of the yellow-light intervals. One of
those was at Garth and West Baker.
He’s keeping an eye on those yel-
low lights, though, and told me
recently that the interval at one
intersection — Garth and West
Baker — has been dropped back
down from 4.5 seconds to 4.0 sec-
onds, which he says is an unaccept-
able interval of time for an intersec-
tion in a 45-mph zone.
The Baytown fight goes on.
So far Schirmbeck has about 500
signatures on a petition that will ask
city officials to do away with the
red-light camera program or at least
put it on an election ballot and let
voters decide.
He’s running into problems'with
that as well. He told me “we went
into a holding pattern about a
month ago when Ignacio (Baytown
City Attorney Ignacio Ramirez)
offered to review the petition to
make sure there would be no objec-
tions. He put me off for over three
weeks saying that he was still
researching the petition, then he
came back and said that it was not
legal and that he could not tell me
why.”
Apparently telling Schirmbeck
why the petition is not legal would
constitute giving legal advice and
the attorney for the city cannot give
legal advice to a citizen, or some-
thing like that.
Complicated stuff.
So Schirmbeck is waiting now for
an opinion on the petition from
another attorney who is familiar
with municipal law before deciding
what to do with the petition.
He said that most likely the peti-
tion will be turned in the way it is
to at least put it in the city’s hands.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Clifton E. "CHIT” Clements
Editor/Publisher
Dave Mathews
Managing Editor
Jay Eshbach
Community member
Jim Finley
former Managing Editor
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Clements, Clifford E. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 89, No. 291, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 5, 2009, newspaper, November 5, 2009; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1192657/m1/4/?q=%22%22~1: accessed June 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.