PUBLIC VIEWPOINT Swimming Lessons Are Crucial

Swimming Lessons Are Crucial

I appreciated the editorial “Make certain soccer goals are secure” (Feb. 1).

So many times the opinion page prepares us ahead of time on situations in the community that we should know or will vote on. We often look to your views and wisdom to help make our own decisions. If you could have foreseen the goal post accident, we are sure you would have warned us about it. Many of our grandchildren play and enjoy soccer, so we are concerned.

How sad it is that after the accident that takes a life happens, then and only then do we get busy, doing the inspection and anchoring that should have been done when the equipment was installed. Why not do it before an accident happens?

Before spring and summer arrive, will we ask ourselves if we have prepared ALL the children in our school system by teaching them swim skills and water safety knowledge to protect them around the ponds, streams and lakes of Northwest Arkansas? Or will we just call it another “accident” when another preventable drowning happens?

Do we do our loving best to have swim education for ALL our school children in their physicaleducation classes? Swimming is a lifetime participation activity and the basis for over 25 water-related activities, including fishing and boating. Wouldn’t it be wise to prepare our children now before an “accident” happens?

JAN MUETZEL

Rogers

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WATER IS WORTH PROTECTING

I strongly support Fayetteville’s proposed streamside protection ordinance.

It will protect probably the most necessary and vital resource we have: our water. We need to keep our water clean and we need to keep it under control to minimize flooding. This ordinance will do that and at the same time it will accommodate concerns of individual landowners by “grandfathering in” conditions or structures that may already exist on their property so that they are not affected by the new ordinance.

The streamside buffers, which the ordinance would preserve, will not only protect our water supply, but will also protect our wildlife by providing habitat and a corridor for movement. There was a concern voiced by some that the ordinance would reduce the value of their property, but in my mind and I think in the minds of many Realtors, land with trees and natural vegetation is more valuable on the market than land without.

This ordinance is actually looking to our future to make sure that our vital resources are in good condition for years to come.

I hope that our City Council will put this ordinance in place because it is good for the people of Fayetteville and will be a good example for other communities to follow. Thanks should go to the city administration, council member Sarah Lewis who sponsored it, and to Karen Minkel and the Fayetteville Planning Department, who did the research and put this well-thought-out ordinance proposal together.

PETE HEINZELMANN

Fayetteville