One of the liabilities of being a popular destination spot is its attraction to individuals or groups who wish to use our special events as opportunities to promote their personal agenda.
The First Amendment guaranteeing free speech is the shield and defense used by people who see no problem with violating others’ First Amendment right to peaceful assembly. This phenomenon is not a question of our freedoms under the Bill of Rights; it is a question of civility and decency.
The individual who saw fit to set up a loudspeaker and headset mic at Friday’s Marktplatz Christmas Tree Lighting and spew extremist warnings of “eternal punishment” to the parents and kids expecting a nice holiday evening is a case in point. Approached by people who asked him to respect the rights of those assembled, he insulted them loudly to their faces and continued with his tirade, drowning out the small choral groups who were singing Christmas carols.
The police present were probably not prepared for this display of aberrant behavior and allowed this obviously troubled individual his First Amendment rights, since he claimed that by being 20 feet away from the Christmas tree he had a right to his performance as long as he stopped before the ceremony — which gave everybody a scant two minutes of peace before the tree lighting countdown.
This individual had no visible supporters. He abused the tolerance and hospitality of the community for an opportunity to spew hate under the guise of religion.
The City of Fredericksburg must enact regulations which protect guests and residents from this kind of assault.
Fredericksburg citizens must not cower and stand by while bad behavior is going down. In order for evil to prosper, good people simply need to do nothing.
Cam King
Fredericksburg
Funnel sales taxes into local ISDs
As a retired educator with almost 30 years of public schools’ service, I find it disheartening to view on my Gillespie County 2025 property tax statement the $0.00 tax due to Harper Independent School District. This information sits just above the line specifying the amount by which my county taxes have been reduced by sales tax.
I don’t understand much about how economics, accounting and law-making function — I taught French and Spanish — but I wonder if there wouldn’t be a way to instead funnel the sales tax revenue to the county ISDs that are being starved of desperately needed funds.
Perhaps property taxpayers could be offered the option to opt out of receiving the sales tax offset and instead direct it to their local school district.
As the Texas legislature engineers our public education system’s Race to the Bottom, residents of rural counties are especially vulnerable. We need to come up with ways to mitigate the damage being done to our public schools.
Françoise Wilson Gillespie County
‘Bad idea’
A $10 monthly increase in the utility bill is not a good tax — and it is a tax — for people who are on Social Security or other low incomes. It will affect families who are struggling to pay rent, feed their children, pay utility bills, insurance of all kinds and pay all the other many taxes levied on citizens. This does not even touch on the burden it would have on elderly citizens trying to make ends meet on limited incomes.
There are many people now who have very little leaf and brush trash because they have gravel and rocks instead of lawns, trees and bushes in order to promote water conservation. These people would be paying a tax on a service they don’t even use.
How about using some of the money Fredericksburg gets back from the state as a result of tourism instead of putting in sidewalks to nowhere? Or may I suggest putting parking meters back so that, like most cities, people cannot spend all day parked in one spot. Locals would have a chance to support our local stores by shopping here and finding a place to park to do it.
I’m sure all locals are proud of our town and want it to look neat and clean. However, this should be done without more hardships to our citizens. Find a better way!
Sarah Eckhardt Fredericksburg
Solar ‘cash crop’
The proposed corporate solar monstrosity is a foolish endeavor in my opinion. What if solar power was a cooperative endeavor? Instead of a giant corporation scarring the land and building dangerous battery storage facility, the same amount (or more) power was generated by the citizens of Gillespie County along the already existing grid? Small installations managed by conscientious neighbors seems a much saner solution.
How much of an installation would it take to supply, say, three times the power of the rural occupants’ needs?
Could the surplus energy be sold down the line? Could we, as members of a co-op, parlay 300-plus, bright, sun-shiny days a year into a profitable source of electrical power for our area?
J. Grimmer
