EVERYTHING IS NOT EQUAL..

If you follow this informational blog with any kind of consistency then you will know that we discuss all different types of topics on here. Most of our articles are fire service based but each topic can be related to just about any service out there. Whether we discuss pride and brotherhood or standing up for what you believe in, you can take those things and apply them to any service you are in.  Yes I write with passion and sometimes anger (although I try not to) but every article here serves a purpose. If one person comes away learning just one thing after reading an article here, then I have accomplished what I set out to do. With that being said, will some of the articles here upset some people? Sure, but that is life. Do some things we read in our newspapers upset us? Absolutely. 

 

So the point of this informational blog is to inform and hopefully open eyes and minds. Creating positive change is never an easy thing to do, but we must always try. 

 

So with all of that now out of the way on to today's article...

 

I read a very interesting article the other day from The Caller Times, a local newspaper out of Corpus Christi Texas. The article was titled

The least-worst option for funding Corpus Christi streets

  http://www.caller.com/news/2012/feb/16/the-least-worst-option-for-funding-corpus/

The article is about how the city should fund the repairs it needs for its streets. Now I actually live in the city of Corpus Christi and can tell that the streets in this city are in definite need of repairs. The how to fund those repairs in a much heated debate here as well, with all kinds of ideas being thrown around. 

 

The second paragraph in the article from the Caller Times is what I would like to draw attention to now.

 

 Our streets got into this condition because the city underfunded street repairs over the past 30 years. Street funding shrank from 10.2 percent of the city budget to 5.5 percent. All other city funding shrank except for police and fire. Police funding increased from 21.4 percent of the city budget to 32 percent. Fire increased from 13.4 percent to 22.4 percent. First, the growth of police and fire funding at the expense of all other city essential services must stop. Streets are equally important as police and fire protection.

 

Is the writer of this article serious? Does this person not understand that not everything is created equal. All city departments, no matter what city, are not funded equally and they shouldn't be. 

 

Funding for police and fire (public safety) should always be top priority. To tell the men and women that protect and serve this city, who put their lives on the line day in and day, who get shot at and run into burning buildings to protect the wonderful citizens of Corpus Christi that they are equal to a pot hole in a street. That fixing that bump in the road is just as important as having enough police on patrol, firemen at a burning structure, or paramedics at the scene of a cardiac arrest, IS A HUGE SLAP IN THE FACE TO THEM.

 

Do streets need repairing? Absolutely. But if I were to tell you that fixing that street is just as important as making sure we have enough firefighters on scene to save you from your burning home, you would tell me I am crazy. Because saying that streets are equally important as police and fire protection is just that CRAZY...

 

We need more people to protect us from murders, burglars, and other criminals. We need more people to protect us from burning structures, we need more people to help us from that major auto-accident, cardiac arrest, and any other emergency we may have. 

 

We need streets repairs, sure and we will find a way to repair them.. But not over the safety of the hard working tax paying citizen. To put the priority of pot holes in front of the safety of the citizens of this great city is.....CRAZY!!