Penny Freeman/ Those Damn Muskrats

Penny Freeman/ Those Damn Muskrats

By:  The Midnight Rider

  As we continue to explore the candidates for the upcoming City/Town Elections, we want to get information out to the voters.  We live outside the City Limits so we will not be able to vote in these elections.  We want to mention here that the following information is given to me by someone that we trust very much.  This article will be about Penny Freeman who is running for City Council District 4 in the City of Sheffield.  They interviewed Miss Freeman for me.  We are relating the information that we got back.  

  My proxy told me that they are impressed with Miss Freeman.  The direct quote was “she is very educated and I think she has a sincere interest in District 4.”  First let’s talk about Freeman’s Education.  She attended and graduated Deshler High School in Tuscumbia. “Go Tigers!” She attended and graduated with a Degree in Math & Science from the University of Alabama, Birmingham.  She works at Academic Solutions in Florence.  Pretty impressive.  

  Miss Freeman is a young lady which means she has young ideas.  As we stated in a previous article, contrary to popular belief, young people do vote. For you that don’t know, District 4 covers a small portion of 2nd Street, South-West Sheffield as well as South-East Sheffield. South-East Sheffield has the Stigma that it is the “crime area” of Sheffield.  While there is some Government Housing located there, there is Government Housing in the rest of the City of Sheffield.  

  What impressed me more than anything is that Miss Freeman has developed, started, got off the ground, whatever you call it, a Neighborhood Watch Program. She has pretty much done this by herself. Yes, she has had some help but it has been a solo act to keep it going. We know that the Chief of Police has been to one Neighborhood Watch meetings and that is it. We would think that the Police Department would want all or any help that it can get.  

   The City of Sheffield needs change.  Ideas that worked back then may and probably will not work today.  Miss Freeman has related to me the following ideas as part of her Platform for her Election:

-Bring new Business in Sheffield.

-Give more opportunities for existing as well as potential Businesses

-Aggressive Grant Writing to provide efficient funding for Community Advancement.

-Efficient Community Center and/or Senior Center and provide funding for that.  

-Make use of dilapidated buildings

-Improve Community Safety

  This is a big and well thought out Platform.  District 4 needs to be restructured.  There are some good people that live in South-East Sheffield. But, there are some problems there to.  If Miss Freeman can make the changes that she is wanting in her Platform, it may just change District 4.  

  Please do your homework on any candidate but more important, get out there and vote.  

Muskrats in Spring Park

We keep reading on this Site about the Muskrat problem at Spring Park. Didn’t Bill Murray have the same problem with a varmint in the movie Caddyshack?  I mean he sniped at it and then ended up flooding the whole golf course.  Maybe the City of Tuscumbia should hire him to get rid of the Muskrat.  What, a minute?  It was a Gopher in Caddyshack.  Ahh well, same thing.  

I am and will always be the Midnight Rider.

*****

We have the greatest respect for police officers. Yet we know there are bad apples out there. There are also those who have a bad day and make some very bad decisions. We understand that yesterday there were two local police forces involved in what could loosely be called a traffic stop. Officers pulled a child and a blind man from the vehicle and threw them to the ground. They allegedly attempted to do the same to a female passenger in her 80's.

The driver's crime? It seems the incident started when the driver, traveling behind an 18-wheeler truck, didn't see a traffic stop in time to move into the left lane as mandated by law. The semi, guilty of the same crime, was not stopped; however, a vehicle in which a white driver was transporting three black passengers to a medical appointment was stopped and the driver arrested.

Surprisingly, the traffic stop/arrest wasn't in Russellville.