Archive for Wednesday, August 28, 2002

Letters to the editor

August 28, 2002

To the editor:

This concerns road safety on the highway. The arrows are placed wrong and should be corrected before a bad wreck occurs. I noticed a pickup go into the center lane in front of Gary's and stay in it until they got to the 1055 turn off. The arrow in front of Gary's should be removed that points north, also the one pointing north by Seventh Street should be removed. Also, to have a stop light at any corner requires the state okay, but the city should be on them to place them. It is not the businesses' place to pay for them to place them. The city and the state pay for them. Since Baldwin has so much money to buy so many police cars and also the animal control truck, that sits idle the biggest share of the time, surely there is money to spend on a stop light. Also, the crosswalks are not the safest. The one where the children cross to go to school is not the best. One of the cops needs to be there to make sure all cars stop for the children. I have seen cars keep going even though a child is trying to cross the highway. It is time the city officials wake up to safety and not always something else to spend money on. Wake up before someone is killed. That seems to be the only reason they put lights up.

Phyllis Hobson

Baldwin City

To the editor:

I'd like to speak out about the Mediacom antic. When we moved here 12 years, I was amused to note that the cable company was still using boxes to relay the cable signal. We had just moved form Arkansas, a state that most people consider to be the most backward in America and their cable was far more modern that this system.

Then they updated and everyone could hook in directly to their cable-ready TVs. About five years ago they brought back the boxes! What was that about? And not only were we given the privilege of having another ugly little box piled on top of our TVs and VCRs or DVDs, they charged us extra for it.

A few months ago they introduced their digital service. Now why would I want to pay more for a service that is inadequate, to say the least? And pay more for it to boot. The reception is poor. Several times a week the service goes off completely. When you call to report it, you get an answering service on the East coast that doesn't have a clue of what is going on. Every time I have called in they state that there is no problem in my area. Every single time, and I've called a lot. We get no credit, unless the service has been out 24 hours. When you do get someone to respond, they usually tell you that they are working on the lines to upgrade them, yet the poor service continues on the "upgraded" lines.

Now we get a letter that informs us that the digital service that was optional is now mandatory if we want to get the movie channels. We have until Sept. 5 to sign up for it or we can no longer view any of the movie channels. This will up our bill $25 a month. I don't know what the rest of you think, but I consider this blackmail, pure and simple.

I throw this situation in the laps of the city council. The survey you conducted several months ago, clearly showed that there was great dissatisfaction in Mediacom and now I would like to know what our options are. I'm assuming there are options as no one would do such a survey and then not do something about it, especially if the survey showed large dissatisfaction as this one did.

It's time the city dealt with this problem, once and for all. The city holds the contract with them, the city should be held accountable to make sure they provide adequate service and don't allow them to blackmail us into upgrading our service to retain what we have. I encourage everyone that this concerns to contact every member of the city council and press them on this situation.

Mad as heck, and not going to take it anymore.

Cyndi Knight

Baldwin City

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