Coming this week!

This is the aftermath of a deadline - I like to make printouts of the pages before I send the paper to the press to see it in hard copy first. This week's paper has 12 pages, including 20 photos from the county fair or parade.

Opinion

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.

School trustees meet Monday

There is a very important special called meeting of the school trustees Monday night. Please read the agenda and attend!

Cheatham Reunion

Clarksville Times Photo by Bruce E. Williams

Class of 1969 members gather for a group picture as the Cheatham Reunion banquet comes to a close at the Clarksville High School cafetorium on this past Saturday night. For the complete story and many more photos, see this week's Clarksville Times

Monday was one of the worst days in my life

By LOU ANTONELLI
Managing Editor

I’m 62 years old, and after such a long period I’ve had many bad days in my lifetime. But Monday was one of the worst.

Now, I can accept bad times somewhat better when it’s simply fate and bad luck that conspires against you. But rotten days are harder to swallow when they’re caused by people who are ignorant, incompetent, and won’t do their job.

Patricia has been going through some hard times with illness recently. It all stems from her suffering from acid reflux disease. A few months ago she had an attack so bad she developed asthma from aspirating acid, and was prescribed an inhaler.

At the start of last week she was having some symptoms which seem to be related to this ongoing problem. Wednesday she went to the doctor, who prescribed more inhalers and medicine.

Her recovery has been slow, and this Monday she was concerned she really wasn’t getting any better, so we called the doctor’s office again.

As you probably know, once a doctor has done all they think they can, if you continue to present symptoms, they will advise you to go to a hospital emergency room. Which we did.

Now the hospitals in Paris and Mount Pleasant are both closer, but since our health insurance is with the Christus/St. Michael’s system, we decided to go to that hospital in Texarkana.

Big mistake. Very big mistake.

Despite having health insurance and paying hundreds of dollars for a co-pay, we were treated like scum at Christus St. Michael’s. We arrived at 1 p.m. and finally walked away at 8 p.m. Patricia never got a report or a consult with a doctor. It was a waste of time and worse, a rip-off, because they took our money under false pretenses.

They claimed she would get treated, and she wasn’t. Worse than medical malpractice, they are guilty of business fraud.

Now, scam artists are used to being yelled at by people who they rip off, so while I did have some choice words for these fakers, it produced no reaction rather than a stony reptilian face of unconcern. However , I do have the unique satisfaction of getting my pound of flesh by lambasting these crooks in print, so here is a record of what they did, plus you can enjoy my invective.

The emergency room at Christus St. Micheals looked and sounds like the waiting room for hell. It is small and stuff with cheap seats. Its size only makes the groans and crying of its inhabitants reverberate all the more. Not all the crying is by children.

When we arrived, Patricia was taken to “triage”, and later sent to have x-rays, a cardiogram and blood drawn, so there was some work done. What it all meant, I have no idea, since we received no report.

By 5 p.m., after sitting in that anteroom of hell that’s the emergency waiting area all afternoon, we were ready to leave and try something else. I asked for a refund of our money, but they said once you see a doctor you don’t get a refund – and a doctor was present at triage.

Ah-hah, that’s how you run that flim-flam. Run people quickly into triage so you can legally justify ripping them off, they make them wait forever, and hope they go away.

Like we ultimately did.

The staff tried to justify their malfeasance by saying they were really busy. Well then, they need to stop checking people in if they can’t provide services.

At approximately 7 p.m. they called for Patricia. We hoped she would finally see a doctor, but instead they said – get this, now – that because her blood sample was over three hours old, they had to take another one.

At this point, I told them in some choice language that was caused by them making us wait all day. By the time I was done they called a security guard.

I shut up and they made all sort of false apologies and stupid justifications, and said she would be able to see a doctor soon. At 8 p.m. we gave up, walked out and drove home.

We learned a few lessons from this. First, it’s probably smarter to visit another health care provider and get a second opinion than to go to an emergency room.

Second, never, ever go to the Christus St. Michael’s emergency room. I had a positive opinion of the system because of our health insurance. Perhaps worse than being ripped off, I feel betrayed.

Patricia seems to be recovering after all. Maybe the shock of her mistreatment at the hands of the callous crooks at St. Michael’s had some positive effect.

I hope some day each of the uncaring, incompetent and inept people we dealt with Monday at Christus St. Michael’s is in the same position we were – sick, afraid and frustrated, staring at people doing to them what they did to us.

In the meantime, my only satisfaction is that they fell into the trap of picking on someone who buys his ink by the barrel and his paper by the ton.

Commissioner cleans up roadsides

Clarksville Times Photo by Lou Antonelli A tractor hauls the blade vertically and trims along the right of way on Taylor Street Monday morning.

By LOU ANTONELLIManaging Editor Residents in the southwest corner of Clarksville have been hearing loud buzzing sounds on the breeze for the past few weeks. That’s because Precinct 3 Commissioner Jeff Moore has been using his public works equipment to trim tree limbs and branches overhanging roads and sidewalks. The City of Clarksville, always struggling to keep up with clean up efforts, got a great boost from Moore when he recently volunteered to have his employees to the trimming in the parts of the city in his precinct. That includes the southwest and northeast parts of the city, which are connected on the map by a strip running through downtown and including the square. Mayor Ann Rushing says the city is grateful Moore volunteered to help. "This has been a great benefit to us,” she said. Moore is using a mower blade on a boom which can be elevated at any angle. It’s usually used to clear out ditches. The city has agreed to do the clean-up, following after his cutting with a backhoe to scrape up the limbs and branches. By mid-week Moore was planning to trim along Donohoo, which may require lanes be blocked for a while..

Boil Water Notice for Community Public Water Systems June 22, 2019

City Utility Director Matt McAdoo uses a backhoe to start tearing off the pavement.

Due to a water main break at the intersection of Church and Locust, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has required the City of Clarksville public water system to notify all customers to boil their water prior to consumption (e.g., washing hands/face, brushing teeth, drinking, etc). Children, seniors, and persons with weakened immune systems are particularly vulnerable to harmful bacteria, and all customers should follow these directions).

To ensure destruction of all harmful bacteria and other microbes, water for drinking, cooking, and ice making should be boiled and cooled prior to use for drinking water or human consumption purposes. The water should be brought to a vigorous rolling boil and then boiled for two minutes.

In lieu of boiling, individuals may purchase bottled water or obtain water from some other suitable source for drinking water or human consumption purposes. When it is no longer necessary to boil the water, the public water system officials will notify customers that the water is safe for drinking water or human consumption purposes.

Once the boil water notice is no longer in effect, the public water system will issue a notice to customers that rescinds the boil water notice in a manner similar to this notice. Please share this information with all the other people who drink this water, especially those who may not have received this notice directly (for example, people in apartments, nursing homes, schools, and businesses).

 You can do this by posting this notice in a public place or distributing copies by hand or mail. If you have questions concerning this matter, you may contact Matt McAdoo with the City of Clarksville at 903-427-3834.

The Clarksville Public Works Department is currently making repairs to the water line and should have the water restored soon to the residents that are affected. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your patience while we repair the water line that is affected. The public water system customers and the executive director shall be able to reach the public water system at one of the numbers listed in this notice.

If a customer, individual, or employee wishes to contact the executive director, please call (512) 239-4691.