Dear Editor:
I would like to offer what seems to me to be not a complete proposal but perhaps the nucleus of something that could help our community, our country, and even Afghanistan. Like any new and rather large suggestion, it would require more thought than a simple letter might demonstrate. But, it seems like something to at least spend a minute considering.
So, is it possible to take a global challenge and a local challenge and somehow work things to benefit many? We all know the global challenge right now is how to get not only American citizens but those who loyally helped our country and our soldiers and whose lives and families are now at real danger out of a calamity. What a mess and a tragedy! But right now, today the question is how to get them out and just as important where to send them and how to somehow help them start a new life.
Meanwhile, just about every discussion about Cibola County and in particular Grants brings up the issue that we could benefit from more money and more jobs and more people and more energy. So, if one drives around this community and this county with this thought in mind, a person might ask if there is anything at least sort of in place here that, if better used, could help the county and the country and the global situation. I think we might have something that more or less fits that.
When my son drove down from Colorado to visit me, he was amazed at signs and websites that spoke of a thousand motel rooms in Grants. And we have three prisons which are privately owned as businesses and politically that idea seems to be on the wane. And anyone who has driven on Santa Fe Avenue or elsewhere understands that there are probably well over a hundred rooms easily that were once totally functional and now need major repair or should somehow be destroyed.
Meanwhile the United States government understands it will spend millions and perhaps honestly billions to find housing and some sort of New Life for thousands of refugees who helped us fight terrorism and Bin Laden and anti-women angry men.
Could our community of 27,000 perhaps take in 2,000 followers of Islam but not at all followers of the enemies of our country and they have proven that by their actions over 20 years. If our national government would pay for improvements and schooling and retraining and rebuilding, are we not in a position to increase use of schools and college and hospital and businesses by say 10 percent?
Of course this idea needs debate and discussion. But it sure seems to me it helps our County and our finances and our country and people who with tears in their eyes are asking us to help them and their families just as they once helped our neighbors and children who wore a uniform.
Kent Ferguson
Grants