The puppies Dwayne Garner is now caring for To settle the confusion that is going around, here is what we are trying to do.

We have 31 voting boxes and each voting box has its own precinct. There are also 3 early voting boxes, making us a total of 34. Since that makes the precincts small, we cannot find workers for those boxes who live in each precinct as required by the Secretary of State.

We are not closing boxes. We are trying to combine some of these small precinct boxes together.

Since we had to get the election machines, the cost of these elections has skyrocketed to the amount of $49,960.37 for the November 2008 election. The three early voting boxes are included in this amount. This brings each box to cost the taxpayers of this county $1,469.42. This amount includes repair and replacement costs for the election machines, delivery and return of the machines, rental for some box locations, and pay for the election workers.

The machines for each box are recommended to be replaced in 8 years (2014) and that cost is $33,960.00 at today's prices.

At the time that all these voting boxes were created over the county it did not cost us an arm and a leg, but now that it is so expensive, we need to combine part of these boxes. We also had people at that time who wanted to work at these boxes. The main reason they do not want to work now are these expensive machines, but since the Secretary of State has ordered machines, we have to abide by it. We can thank our Governor who appoints the Secretary to this position to tell us what we have to do whether we want to or not. The Secretary also ordered us to have combined elections with both parties, which causes confusion and disagreements, but we have to learn to work together for the benefit of the County.

Everybody seems to be getting all bent out of shape before they even know what we are trying to do. Don Geddie and I have been meeting with the Election Administrator and trying to work this out. Nothing has been settled on. There is so much to all this that we just have to have time to get it together and then we will present it to Commissioners Court for approval. It will be a long process because this has to go through the State, also. We are working with what we feel is the taxpayers' money and since we both pay taxes, we know what that is.

So please just give us time enough to do what we're trying to do - what we think is best for the taxpayers.

As always my thoughts are with the taxpayers, and this is your money! Edith Rounsavall 903-675-4903 903-670-1266

To the editor,

I served twenty years in the United States Air Force and twenty as an Adult Probation Officer and have seen so much physical and mental abuse during these years. The worst of these was child abuse, followed by any abuse of women and children and next would be the abuse of animals. I have made many mistakes in my life ... still do, but I can say that I have never committed any of the sins listed above, so in this case, I'll throw the first stone.

I've said all that to say this. About two weeks ago, we noticed a mama dog that had obviously just given birth to puppies, goiing from house to house begging for food. My neighbors and my wife followed the mama dog several times trying to find her puppies; to no avail. Night before last, I heard a puppy crying outside my bedroom window about three in the morning. I found the puppy under my hedges, almost starved. His mother appeared to protect her little one and I fed them both. Upon notifying our good neighbors, who are avid animal lovers, they again conducted a search for more puppies. They found nine more puppies under a vacated house and brought them to their house and are caring for them.

In my opinion, anyone who would throw an animal out on the road, whether about to give birth or not, to possibly starve, are just a cut above the child abusers and should be dealt with accordingly.

If anyone who reads this has animals that they cannot care for will call me, I will be happy to inform you of the proper procedures for helping these animals.

Anyone may have one of these puppies FREE. Just call me, 903-852-6527. I sincerely appreciate my neighbors, John and Mary Landsdale for their kindness. With respect, Dwayne Garner Brownsboro, Tx. 903-852-6527