All comments are edited for length and content. Due to content or space limitations some comments may not be published. Please limit your calls to two minutes or less. Repeat messages on the same subject adding to the length will not be published.

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A woman, though she “doesn’t always agree with him,” commented on a letter to the editor by Gordon Skeels. “I agree wholeheartedly with him this time,” she said. “Madera, like a lot of towns, caters to a particular group. Also, these towns I travel through are always complaining about a shortage of workers, but every time I see 50 or more people standing around that tells me everyone is not working.”

Before she ran out of time, the lady asked, “what happened to the train station that was supposed to be moved from Avenue 15 out to Country Club Drive?”

A man, whose message was hard to understand, asked, “what ever happened to those people that proposed the Vision 2025 for Madera? What is Madera going to look like 25 years from now?”

A lady said, “Bill Coate has written many stories about Madera’s old establishments, but I have yet to see anything in the paper on the Mission Bell Winery on Road 24 and Avenue 13. It is one of the oldest establishments in Madera. I’m sure some people can give some information on its history.”

A woman wondered, “why the Madera Police Department is allowing a woman in a blue Mitsubishi truck to be prostituting out of her truck at Rotary Park, which is a community park where children play. She is parked there every single day and has people going in and out of her truck.”

A man said, “in today’s paper, Wednesday (July 23), Don Williams said he should brush up on his Spanish. He’s wrong. We should converse only in English to these immigrants. It would help them learn and understand the language of our country.”

“He’s done it again,” began a man’s call. “Emo has once again, just like he does every month, taken us to a wonderful place with his Meanderings. Besides Bridgeport, he also mentioned going to Bodie. I clipped and saved that article he wrote on the Bodie a few years ago. Now I don’t know if the editor sends him or he chooses which place to write about, but I wish he would go to the neighboring ghost towns of Aurora and Masonic and write about them.”

Several calls were received concerning the roadwork being done on streets in the city. One man asked, “why did they stop there? E Street, from one end to the other, is nice and the city recently repaired and sealed a section. But the worst part of the whole street, between Eighth and Ninth, across the old and unused spur tracks is one of the roughest blocks in town. Ridiculous.”

Another caller asked “when is CalTrans going to do something about their part of Yosemite? And what about the railroad? Crossing the tracks, especially the right hand lane going east, is so rough you could blow a tire.”

A lady asked, “am I the only one that believes Obama could be the antichrist? His charisma, his unnatural ability to attract people to him.” The call abruptly stopped at that point.

Another caller pointed out that “McCain’s inability to distinguish Somalia from Sudan and his mistaken concept of Iraq and Pakistan sharing a border is proof that when it comes to foreign affairs he needs a lot of help. God help us if he gets elected and then runs for a second term at his age.”

A visitor to the Red Line online wrote a long response to a letter to the editor by Dorlene L. De Cesare, who detailed 11 suggestions for improving the City of Madera, which included moving the fairgrounds and race track, demolishing some old buildings, building a new post office or branch elsewhere, “use old buildings, like the PG&E one, for a Children’s Museum” or something similarly educational, “clean up the run down apartments and slum housing,” “fix the downtown roads,” “support citywide pre-school” and other ideas.

Another Internet guest replied to the 11 suggestions: “Moving the fairgrounds and race track out to Avenue 17 and (SR) 99 next to the airport and new casino would not make Madera any better or improve it if you look at the issue closely. With gas prices as high as they are it might make less people go to the fair and the races. Where they both are right now are a central location to most of Madera, at least I think so. Moving them seems like a waste of time and money.”

The person also wrote, “Also, homeless people urinating just about anywhere dowtown with no care about whether they are seen by anyone or not is a problem too.”

An online reader, self-identified as “D,” wrote, “The guy who says we pay rent to the housing authority is right. We can’t get nothing repaired anymore without being charged. A microwave they put in quit working a year ago. No one fixed it. We have electrical problems in (the) bathroom and a bedroom. We don’t get them fixed because they charge. So what are we suppose to do when something needs to be fixed?”

A visitor to the Red Line site, self-identified as “James Humphrey,” wrote July 22, “We’ve beat you four years straight and you’re crying about this. Plus we never scored in the beginning of the games, always the end, so stop crying about it.”

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Thank you for your calls. Remember, the Red Line is open for your messages 24-hours a day by calling 674-4478, or by visiting www.maderatribuneredline.com.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 1:55 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.