Thank You Shawnee

First, thank you all very much for allowing me to serve for the last 4 years on the city commission.

Second a very heartfelt thank you to the citizens who voted for me on July the 29th.

I sincerely hope that our city moves forward over the next four years.

I will continue to work to make our neighborhoods safer and better for our children and retirees.

Pedestrian Light Serves Double Purpose

Thanks to everyone on the city commission a pedestrian walking light was placed at Beard and Dunbar Street in 2006. This light enables children who live on the east side of Beard to have safe access to this playground at the Southside Community Center. It also enables seniors who want to walk to the center on nice days to have safer access to the center.

My opponenent in the city commission race is claiming that the light is a stop light instead of a pedestrian light which only changes when a pedestrian pushes a button. He also says that it was placed there to help my SnoCone business. Perhaps he doesn't know the difference between a stop light and a pedestrian light, but anyone who comes to my SnoCone stand very often knows that most of my customers come by car so a pedestrian walk light is not very useful for my business.

MARVA O'NEAL SAYS
“SAFER ACCESS TO PLAYGROUNDS AND SENIOR CENTERS WILL ALWAYS GET MY VOTE.”

What are Kay Harrod's Plans for Rose Manor?

The city commission is required to rule on any change in zoning for the city. It takes 4 votes to get a change pushed through the commission. Commissioners who run for office independently are much more likely to vote for the interests of the current residents in a neighborhood than for special interests.

The legislature recently passed a much needed law that requires all convicted sex offenders to be removed from the general nursing home population and segregated into nursing homes that house only sex offenders. This is a very good business opportunity for someone. Operation of a facility for sex offenders will probably be cheaper because no one will care all that much about whether the facility is run down or even run properly.

I definitely agree that sex offenders should not be placed in the general population but I think it is very important that the locations of the sex offender nursing homes be situated in an industrial or rural area which is far away from residential neighborhoods.

James Harrod's wife now owns the old Rose Manor Nursing Home in the 900 block of East Independence. It appears to be a fairly run down facility that would only be useful as a nursing home. It has campaign signs all over the grounds.

Rumor has it that the Harrods are considering turning it into a nursing home for sex offenders. Surely this is not true. If it is though I want everyone in Shawnee to know that I, Marva O'Neal would never vote to allow a facility of this type to be put in any residential neighborhood.

For over 30 years, Shawnee has had a "Boss Hawg" that has ruled the city off and on from behind the scenes. He doesn't run for office but he runs both the campaigns and actions of the people he gets to run for office. He spends thousands and thousands of dollars in that effort because he knows he will get it back from real estate and insurance deals when his people are in office. Most people with integrity would never consider letting him back their candidacy.


"Boss Hawg" lost control of the city commission in 2004 and now he's trying to get it back using vicious rumor filled ads to destroy the people on the commission he knows he can't control.

Marva has done her best to vote for her constituents instead of for special interests like those of "Boss Hawg".

If you want an independent voice on the commission,VOTE FOR MARVA. She has a proven record of working for the citizens instead of the "Boss Hawg" types that are only involved because they hope to obtain personal gain.

Let's Talk Trash

Almost daily I read in the paper that people are having trouble with Shawnee's trash service.

The city commission has asked Toni Gray to keep track of complaints that are called into the city about the trash service. Despite almost daily complaints in the paper, we have been averaging only about 2 complaints a week to Toni. If your trash doesn't get picked up properly, please call Toni at 214 4243 so we can have a record of it. We can't deal with contract issues without records of complaints.

Allied notified us last week that they have changed managers and we are hopeful this will make a positive difference in the service they are providing.

I had to laugh when my opponent wrote that he would have stayed with BFI instead of choosing Allied. Most people know that Allied bought out BFI before the trash contract went out for bid. BFI no longer exists. Shawnee, followed the city charter and chose the lowest bidder. We want to keep costs down for our customers.

My opponent also said that he would have kept the Earlsboro dump open. The trash dump is not owned by the city and the city has no control over which dump the contractor uses. I'm surprised my opponent doesn't know that.

My Dreams For Shawnee

Shawnee is very dear to me. I had my first office job in Shawnee. My daughter was raised here and I have many friends that I cherish. I ran for office to make Shawnee a better place for everyone in town.

I feel that I have done a little of that but that there is a lot more that needs to be done. So far, I've been able to get some street lights added. I think street lights are one of the best ways to prevent mischief and crime. I'm now working on a project to get more street lights for areas in Shawnee that have high crime.

My constituents came to me and asked for help when they closed the drive up utility payment window. Several of the people who were concerned had physical disabilities that made getting in and out of their car a real problem. I got the issue on the agenda and encouraged the city manager to take care of something that it looked like was going to be forgotten.

Several people came to me and wanted to know why we didn't have the nice snowflakes lights on main roads south of Main Street during the Christmas Season. I was able to work with the city on this issue and got the snowflakes installed on the Farrell Harrison Loop area.

When our former city manager proposed closing the swimming pool, I was one of the first and loudest voices to speak against that plan. I looked at some of the smaller towns around us and found that they had swimming pools so it seemed to me Shawnee should be able to have one too. The Shawnee Swimming pool has been almost a summer home to thousands of Shawnee citizens and even though a water park is nice, it can not replace a pool and the old fashioned healthy fun a pool gives our children.

I feel like I have been and can continue to be a voice for Shawnee's older part of town which is often forgotten when the wheeler dealers and special interests get together and make plans for the future.

I believe a healthy city takes care of the needs of all it's citizens. I know our city has many needs. In my mind, a clean, economical water supply is at the top of that list. We also need to update and maintain our roads, sewers, and water lines and that takes money. I believe it's going to be hard to do all the things that need to be done but I want to help make sure that we do everything we can on the water and make fair common sense decisions on the rest of our needs. With your support, I can continue in this job and work for all of Shawnee and make it the very best place to be for everyone.

MARVA O'NEAL
AN INDEPENDENT VOICE FOR ALL OF SHAWNEE

TALK TO ME

Use this blog to tell me about what you think about Shawnee. I need to know what you care about - what you think needs to be done - and why.