Pharr swimming pool
There is quite a HUD hub-bub over the city of Pharr’s public swimming pool. This ancient,but still active, septuagenarian, desires to partake of the many physical health benefits found via the Pharr Aquatic Center’s natatorium. However it should be renamed a “negatorium” because the U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) apparently found that federal funding is not to be used less than 51 percent of the time for public use.
Apparently, according to the letter dated mid-December 2017 from HUD to the city of Pharr, this wrinkled water lover has been 100 percent denied my right and privilege to swim in the pool’s lap lanes before June 4 and after August 24 contrary to the lap swimming hours submitted by the city Of Pharr’s HUD application of Oct. 6, 2010.
I have also been told that there was Pharr “phibbing” in that original HUD application listing noon-time opportunities to swim.
Of course,the city will likely require a 14-day public information request form and contest that by delaying until the state’s Attorney General issues an opinion.
All this just makes my head swim!
Dr. K.C. Fletcher, Pharr
School shootings
In light of every school shooting in the United States, I would like to know the answer to this: Is the United States the only country in the world plagued by school shootings? If so, what are we doing wrong? I would love for someone to research this.
David Norec, McAllen
Pet adoption costs
As a volunteer at Cinderella Pet Rescue, I am very concerned about Palm Valley Animal Center’s adoption fee for kittens, which is currently two for $10. By the time our kittens receive a series of three kitten vaccinations, are spayed or neutered, microchipped and have a rabies shot, we are lucky to break even if we adopt them for $100. Do the kittens coming from Palm Valley have all of these things? Our shelter never places a pet for adoption before it is spayed or neutered.
Palm Valley continues to send animals home without spay/neuter surgery. Even when they are old enough, most of them go home only with a voucher for this surgery. I was told by the center’s former veterinarian that about 40 percent of the vouchers were returned for refunds. If true, that means that 60 percent of the animals that are adopted from Palm Valley are out there reproducing, contributing to the problem of pet over-population in the Valley. If sending animals home while they are able to reproduce is how Hidalgo County intends to reach their “no-kill” status, it will be a very short-term goal. One cat having three litters of five kittens each year with two of those litters reaching maturity in that year and having litters of their own equals a disaster in the making.
Debra Bolin, Mission
