Letters

God and guns, but no GOP

Where did Mr. Poor get the word that the Democratic Party is openly “anti-religion;” was it from Rush or Fox News? And if he thinks the war in Iraq was a good idea and is being carried out correctly, well all I can say is how does it feel to have burnt-out hippys more on top of things than you are?

Jerry Champion

Gun-owning, Christian Democrat

Gill nets examined

Dear Editor:

The Sunday Oct. 8 issue of the Press-Register included two articles that were decidedly favorable to the need for a gill net ban in Alabama to protect our marine fish populations. In support of that premise, Dr. Bob Shipp and Dr. John Dindo were presented as “experts.” We were then treated to unscientific anecdotal claims and nostalgic trips down memory lane to a time when massive schools of mullet or mackerel stretched as far as the eye could see.

The facts are than in these idyllic times of yesteryear there were five times as many gill nets in Alabama, and 16 to 18 million pounds of mullet were being harvested annually from Pensacola to Port St. Joe by gill nets and purse seines, which also landed 10 to 15 million pounds of mackerel. If things were so good back then with all this netting activity, are the “experts” suggesting we need more netting and not less?

The sidebar article concluded that the present harvest of mullet could not be sustained. Oh, really? According to the National Marine Fishery Service Landings Data for Alabama (available at http://www.st.nmfs.gov/stl/commercial/landings/annual_landings.html), mullet landings have been fairly stable for the 19 years that “roe mullet” have been fished in Alabama. The following from strait from the NMFS:

19 year average mullet harvest 1,516,315 lbs

High year production (2001) 2,516,067

Low year production (1987) 728,679

First significant “roe” year (1986) 1,726,837

Last data year (2004) 1,681,190

Looks pretty sustainable to me! I’m amazed your “experts” obviously did not know any of this. The two “expert” doctors may be credible with their scientific hats on, but when they take a big swig of CCA kool-aid and don their activist hats, there is really no reason to listen.

The Marine Resources Division (MRD) does a good job of protecting and monitoring our fish populations. If CCA is serious about protecting our resources, I invite them to join me in lobbying the legislature to create a line item in the general funds budget for MRD to continue and further enhance this valuable program.

As a postscript, any good biologist will tell you fish populations are habitat limited. The real answer to long-term sustainability is to protect and enhance grass beds, reef structures, and water quality and not to exclude an economically important fishery.

The Alabama Seafood Association is not afraid of scientific fishery management-biological science, NOT political science.

Pete Barber, President

Alabama Seafood Association

Takin’ it to the streets

An open letter to Mayor Sam Jones:

Sir, as we read that portion of your interview printed in Lagniappe, we felt compelled to ask that you speak to other issues that impact on a wider community. We know these issues are close to your heart even though we know that a single, interviewer-driven dialogue was inadequate for you to address every matter of importance to the quality of life in the City.

You will remember that the streets in downtown Mobile and the arteries through the communities east of Interstate Highway 65 and on either side of Interstate Highway 10 are some of the oldest in the current city configuration. You will remember too that many of these streets have been ignored by city leadership for decades. They were apparently of little consequence to your predecessors’ agendas as your interview in Lagniappe (Oct. 11, 2006 – Oct. 24, 2006, page 18) suggested.

The City Council’s recent decision to make well-traveled West Mt. Island Drive/Street a one-way northbound encapsulates the mind-set of several generations of Mobile Councils and Executives, engineering traffic feasibility notwithstanding. We know that vocal citizens make urgent many matters that have lain dormant for extended periods of time. We write this letter to you and have shared it because we know that you know of disparate conditions among those less vocal citizens. On their behalf, this communication concerns our streets and thoroughfares. It will be brief.

Houston Street – running North to South – has more patch than street. New patches sink almost immediately. Water conduits under Houston leak. We are certain that the traffic engineers who monitored West Mt. Island have recommended urgent sub-surface repairs on Houston and then Houston’s resurfacing South from Government Street to Dublin Street. Likewise, we are certain that City has already entered into serious discussions with Mobile Area Water and Sewer – a public utility with board members appointed by the City Council – about the subsurface restoration needs for streets and avenues “down the bay.”

West on Virginia Street floods in sequence with that part of Government that parallels it. Virginia Stree, at Magnolia Cemeteries has a roller-coaster patch. You will remember that Virginia Street is that artery, like West Mt. Island Drive, did not receive large amounts of traffic some years ago. Like West Mt. Island Drive, Virginia Street is a primary route for all types of traffic, particularly commercial trucks, municipal heavy vehicles, emergency and public safety vehicles and public works vehicles rushing to and from West Mobile. Of recent, and purely coincidental to the selection of our new Chief of Police, city vehicles and public safety vehicles have increased their speed of travel in-bound and out-bound along Virginia Street. Additionally, the southwest curb on the corner of Government Street and Houston Street is again showing signs of extreme wear secondary to heavy and long vehicles ‘negotiating’ the turn from eastbound Government to southbound Houston to make the connection for eastbound Virginia Street – returning to the Public Works garage.

While the City Council and city engineers are using the transition to a one-way as a traffic arrester for West Mt. Island where there are maybe a dozen homes on that City street, there are no arresters on Virginia Street (except for four traffic lights and a blinking caution). There is probably comparable traffic volume on Virginia. There are more residential structures on Virginia Street. We do not feel that “one-waying” Virginia Street is a viable option. Citizens in the communities “down-the-bay” – one of Mobile’s older modern communities – deserve the “respect” afforded other citizens who happen to have invested in residents on shorter “cut-through” streets. Dealing with the traffic engineering matter, communities are in flux and vehicular traffic shifts to find the least restrictive routes. The arresters on North Houston caused a shift of northbound and southbound traffic to through streets East and West of Houston. [Note: Concrete repairs to North Houston were so poorly done that arresters are just redundant.] One-waying traffic at Airport and Dauphin Island Parkway demonstrated a previous administration’s disinterest for communities South of Government Street. We understand that Government Street and Highway 90 are the same but that’s been the case and is not new.

Not incidental to our street concerns is the matter of the timing of street clean-ups by the City in and around Ladd-Pebbles Stadium. Those clean-ups, grass cutting, trash pick-ups and debris removal coincide with events hosted, in part, by the City and events that bring money into the City. While we are certain that those spin-off dollars trickle back into the hosting communities around Ladd-Peebles Stadium, we’d really appreciate consistent grass cutting and maintenance.

Please have the city traffic engineers review the length of time that one must wait at traffic lights when one is traveling on northbound and southbound streets east of Interstate Highway 65 – streets such as Catherine, Houston and Ann. Persons traveling into the communities north and south of Government are making a sacrifice for persons traveling to communities west of Interstate Highway 65 or to communities east of The Mobile River. We would appreciate not having to wait protracted periods of time when there is no oppositional traffic. Please re-set the times and sequences of these lights.

People in some of Mobile’s older communities – communities that are north and south of Government and north and south of Springhill would like to be able to make left turns from Government onto Broad. They’d like to be able to make legal left turns off of Catherine onto Springhill.

At some point in the redesigning of traffic flows into Downtown, we’d like for city leadership to remember that the citizens who live in some of Mobile’s older communities live closer to Downtown than do the citizens who would use Springhill, Old Shell Road and Government Street to get to and from Downtown. You might shed some light on why Springhill and Broad were chocked off into one-way some years ago. Many of us who grew up in Mobile remember when one-way streets became popular with city planners. We also remember, as do you, when some city street were closed to all traffic except for the homeowners on those streets. We remember why they wanted the streets closed and remember that the City complied with those ‘requests.’

As you map out the plans and confer with other citizen input groups, please be certain that the input covers these concerns and similar issues.

Thank you,

Joseph C. Mitchell

Lower Dexter Avenue Community Action

Mobile, AL

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