'This country is quickly being sold down the river!'

Every week, as I read the newspapers in Cherokee County, I think - "how many more slaps in the face" are we going to take from our county officials.

This past week, I read in the Cherokee Sentinel that Bob Wood is "coming home" to the Cherokee County Health Board as interim director - at a salary of $600 per day! Let's see, if math hasn't changed since I went to school, that's $3,000 for a five-day work week. Gee - I'd be coming home too with a deal like that.

According to another newspaper, he can work up to 125 days [$600 x 125 = $75,000], but can only earn $36,500 because he's already drawing a "local government retirement". How is that going to work? Who cares how it's going to work - the fact is that anyone making $600 a day [$156,000 annually] around here must be the CEO of some major corporation [or probably some realtor or lawyer]. This is a GOVERNMENT position, paid by our tax dollars - and there is NO REASON for that kind of salary - no matter how much training and experience the person has. Certainly Mrs. Russell wasn't being paid that kind of money!

Our elected officials must think that money grows on trees in Cherokee County. Well, I need to find at least one of those trees because with my small pension, there is no way I'm going to be able to afford my taxes if this continues. And, based on the logging I see going on, others are in the same boat as I am. What a shame to have to cut down the trees which make our mountains gorgeous in order to raise money to pay the taxes on the land that has been in our families for hundreds of years.

Let's face it - we need a major overhaul with our elected officials. They fire anyone who disagrees with them, hire whom they please and pay whatever is asked or agreed upon - with no one to watch over them. Apparently, we have no guidelines or pay scale for county employees here.

This county is quickly being sold down the river!

Sandra Brown Murphy 837-0966