IN YOUR WORDS

Coverage made many people happy

Thank you for sending your interested and environmentally sensitive reporter to Lapeer County Medical Care Facility to cover the Science Alive presentation on Monday, Jan. 28.

Your coverage made so many of the residents very happy, especially the lady who had the opportunity to hold the great big snake.

With so many sad articles that had to be written about last week, it was kind of you to choose to cover such a happy and fun-filled event with older people, very young people and intriguing animals.

Regina Thomas

North Branch

Dazed and confused

The numbers from Haiti really upset me. Ad hoc hospitals, children treated and then set back out in the sun, and water hosed to keep from dehydration and dying. The beat goes on.

I am very proud to know and love the family that years ago sponsored (with the help of a local church) a South Vietnamese family with three children when the North Vietnamese moved south killing most in their way. Yes our buddy, Hollis Hayes, even gave the man of the house a job at his gas station. Why not now?

Did someone say we have a three-story building with marble floors and stairs standing empty? I have been told by a local pastor that the new heating boiler was installed to heat his church and attached building for $45,000 (modern technology). Did someone mention the White Building?

Yes, I know the third floor is shot, but repairable.

Rumor: One church in town that provides free medical and dental with a great group of doctors and dentists is taking heat from church members because of the clientele. That’s really Christian. Whatever happened to “Whatsoever you do the least of my brothers, so you do unto me?”

I personally wrote the Detroit Tigers and they have $25,000 grants available to restore baseball and softball fields. Did someone mention White? Also MLB.com has grants available for the same reason. I also heard on CNN that federal stimulus money is available to restore kitchens in schools with need. From the map I saw on TV, so far Michigan has not received any stimulus money? True or false?

Did someone mention White?

I also have talked to two pastors extremely interested in a 700-seat auditorium, hardwood floor gymnasium for their youth groups and seniors to exercise at no cost. I also know that a youth organization that existed for 42 years for church basketball players couldn’t be fielded this year for lack of interest. I find this particularly disturbing in a town or county that has more churches than bars.

Each day as I watch the news I wonder where our heads are when I see those pens of babies and children being stolen and sold for God knows what. Did someone mention White?

If Jeff Daniels can do what he did for the Chesaning Showboat, and our Kid Rock from Romeo, Bob Seger from Ann Arbor (formerly Lapeer), and Kirk (Mr. Nice Guy) Gibson and his former Tiger stablemate and pitcher Dave Rosema cannot be tapped, since a consortium of churches to take the lead seems impossible, why not someone with connection to help make contacts and make the move? Or is Lapeer going to be a day late and a dollar short?

Any city that would turn down a Spanish-American native that wanted the old Taco Bell for a genuine Mexican restaurant and build a Walgreens.

Then the crowning blow. After Lowes and Target cancel their plans, then we (City of Lapeer) put in sewer and water past the expressway. What next, adult bookstores, another sandwich shop and who knows?

We have an American territory going through conditions worse than Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and we have buildings and space to provide for hundreds of thousands of refugees and most importantly, children. Did someone mention White?

Marble halls and stairs do not wear out. Look what Mike Ilitch did with the Fox (theatre). I hope and pray someday, some way that someone will block off the third floor at White and repair the roof and put the first and second floor to the use as it was built for — the citizens in need in our community and the desperate children in Haiti.

Donn Hoganson

Lapeer

Time for action

It's time for our elected state and county officials to step up and take immediate action to prevent a further escalation of the home foreclosure crisis.

Let's remind County Treasurer Dana Miller that when a home is in foreclosure, those with owneroccupants obviously have a financial hardship and they should automatically and without exception be granted a hardship waiver. A foreclosed house without occupants will not pay any more taxes than an owner without financial resources who by no fault of their own is forced to abandoned their castle.

It was startling to read that Miller says that people she visited had a lot of questions. She says that many are surprised to learn that the county accepts partial payments, which can really help with interest on a delinquency. She gave each one a hardship application. If an applicant qualifies, it can defer the process for a year.

I feel that there shouldn't have ever been a surprise about the tax partial payment and hardship options. Have county officials been twiddling their thumbs while people are being put out of their homes? The foreclosure problem within our county ain't a game of BINGO, it is about real people faced with real problems, and the element of surprise is not an option.

A more proactive effort to inform foreclosed homeowners should have been advocated when Lapeer County had empirical evidence of the foreclosure crisis. County Treasurer Dana Miller needs to start being more effective at her job, demand that banks and lenders work with homeowners facing foreclosure and stay on message to halt the pending foreclosure explosion that is about to happen when unemployment benefits run out for many.

The time has also come for Sen. Jud Gilbert and Rep. Kevin Daley to join forces and demand that Lansing put a moratorium on all owneroccupied home foreclosures and take all necessary actions to keep Lapeer County residents facing foreclosure in their homes.

Ken Hreha

Dryden