Editor, The meeting of the Sharon, Lesa and, Elaine Neighborhood Watch  will be at 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 18, at the Hinesville Irene Miller Park Pavilion. Hinesville Crime Watch Police Officer Williams and Code Enforcement Officer Mobley have indicated they will attend, and I have left messages with Mayor Jim Thomas and Hinesville City Councilman David Anderson, whose district the park is in.
When this group was formed at the first meeting, the HPD officer instructed our group, which included landlords with properties on Elaine Street (are there any homeowners there?) to appoint a leader. Just about everyone pointed at me. I took the job under certain guidelines, meaning I wasn’t going to be the neighbor patrolman. Due to physical difficulties, this will be the last meeting at which I will be in charge.
Someone will need to step forward or this watch  will go away. Anyone with complaints should contact councilman Anderson or Mayor Thomas. Or, if you are a rental property owner, your particular council member or county representative.  
At our initial meeting, Mayor Thomas mentioned a program in which the Department of Veterans Affairs gets certain off-post residential properties and allows recovering veterans to live there.
I mentioned that since my neighborhood has a number of rundown properties, perhaps instead of rehabbing them, the owners could let these wounded warriors live there.
Regarding a totally different issue, earlier this year, I met with the head of the local Disabled American Veterans and the Hinesville Downtown Development Authority director, Vicki Davis, about getting the people who own the Mills House to donate it and the land  for veterans’ usage. Why not allow the people who have given so much for our nation to use the house?
For a town that has benefited from the military/veterans, this would show our appreciation to them and keep a part of our local  history intact.