Dear editor,

The comedy that is Covington’s mayor, scripted for “Hollywood of the South” and played out on Covington Cable TV. This one should win several awards. The story goes from bizarre to unbelievable. Who on earth would have ever believed that electing a carpetbagger could turn the entire city into a soap opera?

Termination of the previous “Downtown Covington” manager should have eliminated many of the unknown ‘OMG, what is going to happen next?’ experiences, but, alas, it has only gotten worse with the new Turks, Mayor Ronnie Johnston and Covington Planning Director Randy Vinson at the helm.

That just goes to show you that a city or county employee who does mostly nothing can be safer than one who either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care about the wants and desires of the constituency and prefers to change things to his own liking rather than to preserve them as they are. Meanwhile, the other believes the entire population of the City of Covington should support his plan of what our town should be.

OK, let’s design a gazebo with an unknown cost (‘Trust me, just give me the money’) that is about as tall as a giraffe, fits into the downtown Covington square like a 747 and would mimic a scene from the movie “Groundhog Day” as people come to town each day to make jokes about those who demonstrated a certain lack of good taste for having placed this monstrosity on one of the most beautiful, just as it is, downtown square areas of any other in the good ole USA.

But wait, there is more! With a parking garage located a block off the downtown square, the Mayor believes we need another one. The one we already have probably averages around 5 percent of its capacity on any given day and is completely empty after business hours. So the ‘ideal’ location for this new garage is two blocks off the square on a piece of property the owner probably had just as well forget he ever bought. An albatross that can turn a profit. How novel.  But you have to realize in Covington that happens all the time. We certainly don’t want wealthy landowners who made a bad investment to have to lose any money so we simply take tax dollars and bail them out! What a country!

The best use for that piece of property would be the construction of the Dollar Store for the nearby residents but especially those in the housing next door. Do you realize those people have to get someone to take them shopping for groceries every time they go out? But, the mayor, in his infinite wisdom sees a parking garage on that property instead. How could you possibly deny those residents, in their older years, and some handicapped, the convenience of being able to go next door to shop? This is just another example of “You can’t fix stupid”.

There are some who allegedly believe dollar stores are not the kind of upscale business “we” want in Covington. Bahaaaaaaaaaaaaa. “We” is a collective term. I don’t know what those people have in their pockets.

I’m sorry to disappoint, but we love our little town just the way it is, and if we wanted Manhattan we would be in Manhattan. What we want is Mayberry, that disappearing segment of Americana where people were happy, children played out of doors into the evening hours, crime was non-existent and tearing down old buildings was a sin. And last but not least, newcomers tried hard to fit in rather than claim to want to “Bring this little town into the 21st Century.” We have had about all the 21st Century we want thank you.

If you need transportation to the awards ceremony for this movie, maybe you can ride the mayor’s bus.

Sam M. Hay III