Saturday's Internet Edition, May 17, 2008.
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| Happy retirement 'Tata'.... Refugio ‘Tata’ Corrales (center) recently retired from the City. City employees hosted a retirment dinner for him at Tony’s on April 4th. He is pictured above with his parents andn his wife and daughter. (Town of Van Horn photo) |
- Van Horn City Council members met Tuesday evening and decided that the “Clean Up Van Horn” effort would take place on Saturday, April 26th.
While the overall effort is a month long one for the entire month of April, the highlight effort involving community members as a whole will take place on April 26th.
Jeff McCoy will be in charge of getting groups and clubs together for the event and with arranging the work and promotional efforts for the special event.
While on the subject, Mayor Okey Lucas urged folks to clean up their lots and alleys as well as give the city permission to remove junked vehicles.
Council members also heard form representatives of Van Horn’s Women’s Service League asking that they be allowed to host this year’s 4th of July Celebration.
The Club envisions the celebration to be a day-long event of fun and festivities for families to be held at the Van Horn City-County Park. Additionally, they anticipate having food vendors, music, games and swimming at the city pool available throughout the day.
And, they are going to try to work with the Rotary Club to have a community wide professionally done fire works display that night.
Council said that they were all for the idea and would provide some funds for it, although they didn’t say how much.
At an earlier meeting, council had approved the idea of leasing up to 12 more golf carts for the golf course. At Tuesday’s meeting, they tabled the matter until golf course manager Raul Rodriguez could be present to tell council exactly what he wanted and needed.
Council considered several other matters and the actions taken are as follows:
* Council learned that People Skills would be conducting computer classes at the Library and that about 20 folks have already signed up.
* They learned that the “Building Bridges Art Show” is scheduled for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week.
* Council learned that Ben Flanagan had offered to assist the Boys and Girls Clubs of Rural West Texas to construct some office and storage space at the Youth Center. All that council needed to do is allocate the funds to purchase the materials.
* Council members approved a 2008 Water Improvement Grant Project pre-agreement, an agreement concerning the sanitation and baler at the city’s old dump site, and they approved an agreement to spend $6,000 for advertising with the Marfa Public Radio.
* After approving an amendment to the 2006 water improvement grant project to add additional monies, they then approved monthly bills amounting to over $135,000.
* Council members also approved some budget amendments to bring the 2007-2008 fiscal year budget into balance. They were simply moving numbers within various line items.
* Because this was the first official meeting of the fiscal year, following budget approval, council members approved making routine payments for various funds for the year.
* Council also approved the sale of surplus/obsolete city equipment.
* They also approved city policy revisions concerning standby/on-call compensation and cell phone reimbursement.
* After some discussion about the advantages of putting the Van Horn Youth Association activities under the umbrella of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Rural West Texas, council members formally ratified a grant application for 2007-2008 operations of the Clubs.
* Following a behind-closed-doors session to discuss personnel matters, council members received an update of various city grant projects and adjourned.
Column One
By Dawn Simpson
The One Act Play which competed a couple of weeks ago at the District meet is planning to perform for the public here in Van Horn next week. I’m glad they have found a date to do this. I was afraid they might not. Believe it or not, it is hard to find a date and time on the school calendar when something isn’t going on. And with end of school activities just around the corner, this is especially true.
The group will perform at 7:00 PM next Thursday evening, April 24th, at the High School Auditorium. We don’t get the chance to experience many theatrical events here in Van Horn so come out and take advantage of it.
On the subject of cultural arts, I should mention that our high school band students competed in the Spring Concert and Sight Reading competition at Socorro on Tuesday. They received ratings of Division II in both.
Some of our students who participate in several extracurricular activities have a hard time working it all in at times. Several of the band students got right off the bus and straight into a Softball game here against Big Lake. Likewise, I’m sure there were some guys who had a doubleheader Tuesday night after returning from the band competition.
And what a high tension game the girls played. After going into overtime after 3 hours of play, our Lady Eagles pulled it off with a 1 point win. Jennifer Flores stole home base from third for the final point. That was their 3rd District win, with their last game in Kermit this Friday.
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You hear about scams occasionally - unscrupulous people who have nothing better to do than think up ways to take advantage of unsuspecting innocent people. I saw first hand this week how real these can look. A local person received a check in the mail for $2800.00 written on the JP Morgan Chase Bank, Institutional Trust Services, Dallas, TX. This person was smart enough to realize that it probably wasn’t a good check and he called this bank. They said everything about the check was valid except the account wasn’t a good account. But how many hopeful folks would have cashed the check, only to have it returned after they had spent the money?
The scam had something to do with a International Lottery Award Program and the check was accompanied by an Award Notification Certificate. So beware, it anything seems too good to be true - it probably is!
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I feel compelled to reprint a recent Letter to the Editor from the El Paso Times due to the fact that we are so misled by politicians. The letter was written by Shain Vinikoff of the Upper Valley. Following is that letter in its entirety.........
“Letter writer Barbara Corona states that the wealthiest 1 percent of persons took a 19-percent share of the national income as opposed to the bottom 60 percent taking a 22-percent share of the national income, which in turn equated to the top 1 percent taking 51 times the amount that the lower 60 percent bracket took.
I wasn’t aware that the money was “taken.” Silly me, I thought that the money was earned.
Regarding the percentage of tax revenue paid by categories: The following correct information provided by the IRS is as follows:
The top 1 percent revenue earners pay 34 percent of all income taxes; top 5 percent - 54 percent; top 10 percent - 66 percent; top 25 percent - 84 percent; top 50 percent - 96 percent; bottom 50 percent - 4 percent.
She also says the wealthiest 1 percent are not paying their fair share. Let’s see - the top 1 percent pay 34 percent of all taxes. Hmm!”
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Here’s ‘some interesting stuff’.............
* In the 1400s a law was set forth in England that a man was allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have ‘the rule of thumb’.
* The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
* Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the U.S. Treasury.
* It is impossible to lick your elbow.
* The state with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska.
* The percentage of Africa that is wilderness is 28%. The percentage of North America that is wilderness is 38%.
* The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven is $16,400.
* 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 equals 12,345,678,987,654,321.
* Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of their birthplace.
COMMUNITY CALENDAR
April 17th - The “Building Bridges Art Show” continues at the Convention Center. Members of the Van Horn Volunteer Fire Department are slated to meet tonight at 7 p.m. at the Firehouse.
April 18th - The “Building Bridges Art Show” continues at the Convention Center. The Van Horn Eagle JV and varsity baseball teams are scheduled to play Crane today beginning at 4 p.m. in Crane. The Van Horn Lady Eagles softball team is slated to play their final game today in Kermit at 5 p.m. The Van Horn Eagle regional track qualifiers will run in a regional qualifiers meet in Iraan today.
April 19th - Nothing scheduled at press time.
April 20th - Attend the church of your choice.
April 21st - Trustees of the Culberson County-Allamoore Independent School District are scheduled to meet tonight at 6 p.m. at the District Administration Building.
April 22nd - Members of the Van Horn Rotary Club are slated to meet today at noon at Chuy’s Restaurant. The Van Horn Eagle JV and varsity baseball teams are slated to close out their season here today against Reagan County beginning at 4 p.m.
April 23rd - Van Horn Eagle regional tennis qualifiers are slated to compete in the Regional Tennis Meet today in Abilene.