Bear Force One

In response to some recent letters regarding the affordability of Baylor athletics for our community, I would like to express my support for an affordable program that Baylor provides — Bear Force One.

This is a discount ticket program available to Central Texas businesses for tickets to Baylor football, men’s and women’s basketball, softball and baseball games.

There’s no cost for businesses to participate, and a number of payment options are available to employees. I offer Bear Force One to our employees at H-E-B as a benefit program that is highly successful and a great team builder.

Bear Force One offers seat locations that provide a great view of every game. More than 250 Central Texas companies and 1,500 loyal fans find Bear Force One a terrific value. We think of ourselves as “The Force Behind the Bears.”

For more information, go to www.BearForceOne.com.

Ed Page, president, board of directors, Waco Big 12 Task Force

Population growth

The Sunday Tribune-Herald headline should have read “Faster population growth elsewhere threatens Waco’s influence” instead of “Slow population growth threatens Waco’s influence.”

Our county’s 9.3 percent growth in nine years is not slow but too fast. It’s right at 1 percent per year, a rate that would double the population every 70 years. Such growth is not sustainable. It’s already causing problems that will only get worse if allowed to continue.

Problems include: worse traffic, more pollution, more crime and expensive expansion of water, sewer and solid waste services. It also dilutes the effect of one vote, and it attracts predatory chain businesses that kill off local small businesses.

There’s nothing good about growth. We should be trying to maintain stability, lest we lose the advantages of a moderate-sized community and become another Houston or Dallas.

Bill Franklin

Waco

Fix boat ramps

Tradinghouse Creek Lake boat ramps are in bad shape, and no one seems to care. A lot of people used boat and fish there, but the ramps are in such disrepair that no one want to use them. Only one ramp is usable, and, when the lake level is down, rocks and sand get in the way. It also has a large hole in the pavement on one side and a drop-off at the end. The other ramp can’t be used at all. There used to be a dock beside one ramp, but, due to neglect, it has fallen down and is no longer there.

Last year when the lake was low, it would have been easy to repair these ramps. I think the ramps remain neglected because the county doesn’t make any money off them. The county does maintain the pavilion, but it charges to use it.

Mike Ammons

Waco

Voting problems

In regard to recent news accounts that Sen. Brian Birdwell voted in the 2004 presidential election in two different states, I think that anyone who runs for public office or who has any brains at all should know better.

Birdwell should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. If the common man had done the same thing, he would probably be sent to jail.

Jackie Lavender

Hewitt