Bee Heard

(Editor's note: Call The Bee at 632-0390 and record a one-minute comment on our Bee Heard line. It gives readers an opportunity to comment quickly and candidly on items of local or regional interest. Callers do not have to identify themselves and no callers' names will be used. In the interest of fairness and good taste, The Bee will not publish derogatory or insulting comments. All comments are by our readers and are subject to editing.

.I hope there will be strict enforcement of people driving and talking on cell phones with handheld phones. I see 20 to 30 people each day driving unsafely, holding their phones, without any enforcement or anyone being pulled over as a precaution.

.Please tell the Dent Tower to invest in some light bulbs. Its time and temperature clock is horrible. You cannot make out the time or temperature.

.I remember years ago the job of garbage collectors was to remove the garbage cans from the back or side of the house, empty the cans and put them back where they found them, not just toss them to the curb and have people chase into the street for them. That's what it still should be, not expecting senior citizens to stagger in the dark and drag those heavy totes.

.Are there really grown people in the town who believe highway employees would now have one insurance carrier and be paying a percentage of their health costs if Supervisor Mohan had not pushed the issue? Town employees need to grow up and realize what other people are living with every day.

.The Erie County Sheriff indicated recently countywide they wrote 191 tickets for driving while on cell phones. Well, in one location, virtually any Monday through Friday from 7 to 10 a.m. at Maple and Hopkins, you could easily surpass that figure.

.It was déjà vu all over again at the Planning Board meeting regarding the Amherst Town Centre plans. The developer who wants to build townhouses, shops and a hotel at the old Maple Road gun club site is the same one with empty existing buildings sporting for-lease signs. When will this community wake up and see these tax-dodging developers are spoiling our environment?

.Amherst Supervisor Satish Mohan is very quick to pat himself on the back for finally, two years into his term, negotiating a contract with the highway workers' union in the Town of Amherst. Unfortunately, Mohan and the people around him have not been able to determine or disclose to taxpayers what the pay increases are, how much more money will be spent on the highway worker union contract, and he has not shown taxpayers what the fiscal impact will be. The saddest part of all this is that taxpayers are now coming to expect that Mohan will not have done his homework and will not have answers.

.I am so tired of the scare tactics regarding assessments. We homeowners end up paying higher school taxes or higher assessments. So many people are afraid to look at regionalism as the wave of the future; at least consider consolidating the three school budgets for the Town of Amherst. Imagine the savings in bureaucratic fat, aka taxes.

.Oakwood, Harding and McKinley need to be repaved. They are in very bad shape. Please, whoever is in charge of scheduling these, please repave.