Between Editions

Union County Judge Bobby Edmonds said that he has no plans to bid on the dirt moving project at the proposed site for El Dorado’s new business park on Champagnolle Road. You may recall that more than 900,000 cubic yards of dirt need to be leveled there before the 300-acre plot can be made “site ready” for a prospective tenant.

The county had offered to do the dirt work at cost, meaning that fuel, equipment and manpower would all be covered by the county budget. The estimate for the at cost work had been in the neighborhood of just over $700,000.

The El Dorado City Council decided that it would be better to bid the project out and invited the county to be part of the bidding process.

However, Edmonds said that after thinking it over, he didn’t feel comfortable committing to a specific figure just yet. He also felt like tying up the county’s workers and equipment could possibly hinder ongoing roadwork.

The offer, he said, would still be on the table if the bidding process fails. Estimates on the project, if handled by a private contractor, range from $2.5 million to $5 million. The money will come from the El Dorado Forward 1-cent sales tax initiative.

The Union County Industrial Board purchased the land in 2004 with $1 million left over from a defunct county housing authority, according to El Dorado Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Don Wales.

Wales said that after the Union County Housing Facilities Board ceased operations, the money was transferred to the UCIB, which purchased the land from five different owners.

Critics contend that the land purchase was unneeded. And residents like Todd Graves, who voiced his disapproval at the July 28 El Dorado City Council meeting, are beginning to ask tough questions of city leaders.

“How can y’all sit here and suggest spending $750,000 — that’s the estimate — to fill a hole that shouldn’t have been bought in the first place…” Graves said, referring to the county’s original proposal to move the dirt at cost.

Wales contends that the land is needed if the county is to have any hopes of landing a major industrial business like a distribution center. In 2003, Wal-Mart indicated that they were “very interested” in building a distribution center in El Dorado, but after Wales showed executives several unsuitable sites, they decided to construct in Louisiana.

Wales added that Wal-Mart’s representatives were interested in the 300-acre tract on Champagnolle that’s now owned by the county, but at that time, the land was still privately owned.

“This is a perfect place for a distribution center,” Wales said. “I got out with the guy from Wal-Mart, and we walked the site, and he loved it. Problem was, I didn’t have the land at that time to offer them.”

Wales said it took several years for the UCIB to convince two of the land owners to sell. Family trusts and cranky landowners holding out until the 11th hour apparently gummed up the process.

Wales remains hopeful that once the site is prepared, another business, perhaps even Wal-Mart, may be interested in building a distribution center there.

Updates to come.

The Olympics are about celebrating human spirit and competition in the name of sportsmanship. At least that’s what most research I’ve done about the games seems to contend. Holding the games in China this year, a country that represents stifling oppression of its people and a stoic ignorance to the world’s major issues, e.g. pollution, human rights, etc., seems wrong.

I really can’t, in good conscience, watch or follow the games this year.

To ignore China’s anti-Democratic culture is wrong. To hold a major global event — one that’s supposed to represent the best of humanity — in a place like China is also wrong.

Here are some brief examples of my point:

According to the Associated Press, two Japanese journalists were briefly detained and beaten by police in western China, their companies and one of the men said Tuesday, triggering a protest by the Japanese government. Chinese officials later apologized.

They were working in Xinjiang at the scene of a deadly attack Monday on Chinese policemen when they were forcibly taken to a border police facility, said Shinji Katsuta, a reporter for Japanese broadcaster Nippon Television Network Corp.

“My face was pushed into the ground, my arm was twisted and I was hit two or three times in the face,” he told the Associated Press in a phone interview broadcast on his station.

A photographer from the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, Shinzou Kawakita, was also apprehended and roughed up, said a company spokesman who declined to give his name, citing company policy.

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Click here to access Washington Post reporter Michael Abramowitz’s blog posting today. It details how he, along with all members of the White House Press Corps, were detained and searched for several hours after landing in Beijing.

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Meanwhile, officers of China’s communist government continue to prowl the streets watching for any signs of dissidence. And, according to this article from the Los Angeles Times, the government has also blocked all internet sites relating to human rights and is closely monitoring all transmissions to and from China.

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Many are gushing that China has “taken a stand” against pollution by clearing the air around Beijing for the Olympics. Hardly anyone is talking about what they did to accomplish it, though. For one, they simply moved dozens of factories from the Beijing area to other cities in China, relocating the misery but not ending it.

The Washington Post reports that the village where fisherwoman Zhang Xiuping lives is now surrounded by factories, and that there are few fish left in the village’s once-pristine sea.

And, according to the Post, it’s a rare day when Zhang, 53, can see the sun through the smoke. She can tell the direction of the winds from the color of the soot blowing by her home. The gray iron deposits come from the southern steel mills, while the white powder comes from chemical factories, and black dust from coal and coking plants.

•••
Canadian Member of Parliament Irwin Cotler has been outspoken against the games for months. On Thursday, he blasted the Chinese government’s stance on human rights and called the awarding of the Games to Beijing a betrayal of the Olympic Charter, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

“What we are witnessing today … is a persistent and pervasive assault on human rights in China,” Cotler said.

“A betrayal of the Olympic Charter, the Olympic Games and China’s pledge to respect both.”

According to the CBC, among the concerns outlined in the Cotler report are the treatment of Tibetans, limits on freedom of expression and inaction in dealing with the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, where 200,000 people have died since 2003.

Still feel that Olympic spirit?

This photo of two local dogs playing in a sprinkler ran in Thursday’s News-Times. Today, it hit the Los Angeles Times. News-Times photographer Larry Singer gets the credit. Here’s the link to L.A.

Update: The photo is also in Australia and is part of the Baltimore Sun’s “Day in Pictures.”

More dog photos can be found on Larry Singer’s blog by clicking here.