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.