Paving paradise
As a resident of Newcastle, I am disappointed with the plan to kill our city deer. I love Newcastle. I love my family, friends, and neighbors here in Newcastle. I love that I live in a state and a community where I can still trust our leadership. I know that in Newcastle, I am still a free American, living amongst other free Americans who value and cherish our freedoms as much as I do. We live in a special place, a place of common sense and values during a time when the world around us has seemingly lost its common sense and values, and frankly it's soul. I am very proud to live here, and reiterate, I love the people here, but I also love the deer we have here. My family enjoys seeing our city deer everyday. The deer have become part of the reason we are so happy here. We love nature, particularly the animals, and we find a sense of joy and peace watching them. I am confident that my family is not the only ones who feel that way. I am equally confident that my family are not the only ones who are opposed to the plan to kill our city deer.
I pray often for our council members, asking my God to give them wisdom to lead. I am painfully aware that they receive far more criticism than they do praise, and that any form of leadership is a very tough job. I also know that when a person is free to make decisions that affect others, because of their position or title, there is an inherent danger that they will use that position for their own personal agendas. With this in mind, I ask, will there be any public input into this decision? Will there be a meeting where I and others can relate our reasons for objecting to this plan? Why did a single council member put so much effort into killing the deer? Did a deer eat all his begonias last summer and he's on a vendetta? The article mentioned his experience with city works is why he is hell bent on terminating the deer population. Does he want to kill the deer to keep the poop off the grass and sidewalk? It all reminds me of a song about paving paradise to put in a parking lot, you know, the one that says “ don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you have till it's gone.” Do council members ever write to the paper or directly to the community to explain the decisions they are making that will negatively affect large numbers of the community? If not, why not? If the deer are harming our citizens in any way, we should know about it and of course the people matter most, but if this is just about making city workers jobs easier, ect. We, the citizens of Newcastle need to know that as well, so we can do our best to stop it!
My home is along the creek, and just this week, I took several photos of our majestic city deer. I told my wife that I was going to contact Pinnacle bank and offer the pictures to them to use in their calendar for next year. It would be nice to have Newcastle represented in that calendar, and I thought a photo of our big city buck along Cambria creek would represent us well. Now if they do use that picture, I fear it will represent Newcastle in a way I will be anything but proud of… That we removed, in fact killed off our wildlife in our town, to keep our parking lots cleaner, or our flowers from being eaten. That would be both wrong, and tragic.
