Keast questions need to tear down jail, other older buildings

Dear editor,

If something is old, tear it down, get on with the new progressive ideas, cold cement is better to look at than a building built with character and class. Sure old buildings need regular care and when they don’t get it they fall into disrepair.

Whose fault is that? The blame falls on the stewardship of those in charge of that building. A bad steward lets his property decline. I think it would scare the taxpayers to death if they knew how much money they have spent on maintaining the courthouse over the years.

Maybe that should be torn down also, just like the building the county has neglected for years, the old jail. It would be easier to maintain a modern courthouse building and maybe that will be what the wrecking committee headed by Robinson will start on next.

You know, be of the world as Red Oak and not be in the world, as Europe where they keep the old and the tourists flock to see it.

Well, that is par for Red Oak and Montgomery Coun-ty’s course.

The Thos. D. Murphy Murphy Calender Company put Red Oak on the map. It is the single most important site in Montgomery County. It made the town and started to build the middle class. The Carbon Plant finished it. Now the Carbon Plant is gone, erased from Red Oak’s history, as will the Murphy Company be if the powers that be get their way. I’m sure that its demise has already been planned.

What a wonderful History Center it would have made and I understand it was offered but turned down. Out with the old and on with the new, expensive overkill to tighten the noose around the necks of the taxpayers.

But like the old wisdom of the past that has been discarded for the progressive, new, unsustainable ideas in place, time will be the judge. As it already has been.

Rose Keast