We had a great turnout for the Planning and Zoning meeting last night. I wish we saw even a fraction of this sort of turnout for everything that impacts the city. Unfortunately we just didn't have enough room for every one that wanted to be in the meeting so it was decided that we wouldn't take any action on the proposed rezoning last night but would see if we could make arrangements to hold a meeting at the school auditorium so everyone that's interested can hear and be heard.

I did want to take a moment to give the preface to the public hearing that I was going to give last night and will give again before we conduct the public hearing at the next meeting. Currently the property in question is zoned C-2 which means that the owner, without input or permission from anyone else, can build anything from a single family residence to an apartment building to a car lot and anything in between. So long as they apply for the proper building permits and follow the building codes the City cannot forbid them the right to build what they want ont he land they own anymore than any other landowner. Rezoning to R-2 would actually restrict what can be built on the land to only single family or two family residences. This is all that the Planning and Zoning Commission can hear or consider. This is not a meeting or a decision about the proposed project. We want everyone that wants to talk about the merits of rezoning or not rezoning the property to be heard but the comments should be limited to the merits of changing or not changing the zoning, not about the proposed project.The proper place to give opinion for or against the project is at whatever public meeting the MHDC holds concerning the issuance of the tax credits sought byt the developer to finance the project.

I personally think the City Council made a grave mistake and sent a very bad message to other developers that may be looking at Carl Junction when they rescinded their support for the proposed project but at the end of the day that is all the City can do to dissuade the developer from doing what he is proposing to do. There is nothing to stop the developer from going through with what they want to do as the land is currently zoned.

I happened to be listening to Rush today as Mark Stein filled in and a guy called in and started talking about how intelligent President Obama is and that the companies out there are against him and are purposely not hiring as a way to get rid of President Obama. I could get into reasons why they're not hiring but his basic premise beyond getting President Obama out of the way is that they're greedy. Guess what? They are! Get over it!! That's what they're supposed to be doing. It's called Free Enterprise. We have so warped the minds of people in this country that now we have a growing number of people that seem to insist that companies are supposed to be in business for them. Companies are in business to make a profit and the bigger the profit the better. We get jobs because those companies need people to make those profits. Profits aren't a means to an end. The people are and if they can turn out the same product with less people and make a larger profit they are going to do that. If we insist on making it unprofitable for people to do business in the USA then they are going to go where they can operate and be profitable. If you really want the government to be in charge of the money guess what? The only people with money will be those in the heiarchy and you have little to no shot of getting any more of it than they are willing to dole out. Every hear of a thing called Social Security?? Is that really what this country wants? A whole nation of people of Social Security? The only thing that will guarantee is that we're all miserable. Get over it and go get a job.

Psalm 150:6 says "Let everything that breathes sing praises to the Lord! Praise the Lord! This verse took on all new meaning for me this evening.

My wife and I have been in Silver Dollar City all week for the Southern Gospel Picnic and this evening while making our way to Echo Hollow for the big concert to end the day it began to rain. We took shelter to wait it out and I found myself watching the trees swaying in the breeze. It looked to me as if the trees were waving their arms in praise to almighty God and all of the sudden I thought of this verse. Do trees breath? Certainly they do.The breathe in the CO2 that we all exhale and they breathe out the Oxygen that we all need to breathe. The verse says to let everything that breathes Praise the Lord and if you just look around you can see that it is so. Even in what we see as a storm God's creation is giving Him praise. What a great way to end a busy and sometimes exasperating week. Praise the Lord!!

I saw the following on a sign or something else that I was reading and really liked the message.

"Eternity is a long time to be wrong."

Short message but a powerful one.

Have a great Monday.