Time to invest in Clarksville’s future
By LOU ANTONELLI
Managing Editor
Nobody likes to pay taxes, but most
people also know taxes are an investment in your community.
If it weren’t for taxes, we wouldn’t
have paved streets, running water or public education. Perhaps we have become
too comfortable with such things.
Remember a few weeks ago when an
eight-inch water main blew out downtown and much of the city lacked water all
day? Pretty inconvenient, wasn’t it? Billions of people live in countries where
the norm is that you have to fetch water every day and bring it to your home.
How would you like to have to walk to Langford Lake every morning to get your
daily water for cooking and bathing?
People complain about potholes but
seldom notice how many miles there are without potholes. In many countries
muddy tracks are all that pass for roads.
Nobody likes to waste money, but when
you stop and think how money is applied by government you realize a lot more is
accomplished than we think.
Free public education is the keystone of
a civil society. There may be flaws in the system, and not everybody uses the
system as they should, but can you imagine what it would be like if there were
no schools, and children were allowed to grow up unsupervised and uneducated?
There are countries around the world
where millions have no paved roads and no public water system – but children
still don uniforms and report to a school house every morning.
Our children and our future are pretty
important, and I think the request by the Clarksville ISD for a small tax
increase is very reasonable.
I’m not a Clarksville native, which is
good sometimes because I feel I can look at things without prior opinions or
family associations getting in the way.
Clarksville’s schoolchildren are
respectful, hard working and well-educated. It’s amazing to see how well they
represent themselves, to the community as well as others when they travel
out-of-town for events.
The money invested in their education
will send out ripples into the future. We will all benefit, both as individuals
and businesses.
This is no time to engage in the usual
small-town negative gossip and back-biting. Let’s allow out better natures to
come forward, and show our children as well as others around us that
Clarksville cares.
