Discussion | 3 comments

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• Rick WoodMarch 16, 2013 - 11:47 pm

  Thank you for this letter, Ms. McMillan! All it takes to get motivated is to walk with a 5 gallon plastic bucket and one of those "picker-upper" tools so you don't have to bend over or use your hands. Easy. Fill a bucket on every walk if your hands are free. Better yet, walk where there are trash receptacles and fill and empty your bucket several times. Feels pretty good. But it is discouraging seeing so much litter left. If this city wants to engage in "self-help" and call some distinction to itself during this time of restricted public resources, and we all worked together, we could make a major dent in the problem. Can we get a grant or donations to issue free or subsidized "Fairfield Litter Buster kits” of bucket and picker-upper to interested citizens? Engage every Neighborhood Watch group, service club and institution, and property owner groups to start. Looking for a City Council member to champion the cause.

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• The MisterMarch 17, 2013 - 9:40 am

  The litter, and certainly the graffiti, are only symptoms of tolerated aberrant behavior. The "good" citizens are becoming good at being the victim and have power and purpose in their victimhood. There will never be a lessening in this social anti-social behavior until there is a renewed respect for natural law. But I wouldn't expect a bunch of street-urchins educated by our government indoctrination centers to have retained the slightest bit of their innate sense of natural law. It's going to take us people who should know better to understand natural law and to expect and demand our governments abide by the same natural law. When natural law is practiced and modeled as the standard, you will certainly see the child and the child-like begin to comply with its principles and practice respect for property and persons.

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• Rick WoodMarch 17, 2013 - 11:47 pm

  OK...But until that happens, how about we model good behavior and make our community look better at the same time? Litter, graffiti, run-down landscaping and street trees, all point to the same thing: A community that doesn’t care. No one person can solve these problems, but we can all do a part. A few friends and I maintain hundreds of street trees downtown because the City no longer has the resources, and we believe good looking street trees are essential to a neighborhood that looks like it cares. Neighborhoods that look like that send a subtle message to residents and visitors alike that this is a good place to be. Criminals might conclude that those Neighborhood Watch signs really mean something is such a neighborhood. Do you see much graffiti downtown? Sure, there is some, but it is removed or painted over almost immediately by the City (because it’s reported quickly), property owners, or volunteers. It sends the same message. Litter is a big problem, but the solution is actually easier, because just about everyone can pick up litter. We just need a little leadership to articulate the program and set the example. We’re working on it.

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