Each summer the garden club places a sign in the yard of the month. I don't hold out any hope of every seeing it in my yard. I think that if I want to preserve the value of my property the garden club needs to reevaluate their criteria and offer another award. It should be called The Crappiest Yard Of The Month. I believe when property owners let their rental properties decline so much that it starts effecting the value of neighboring properties they should be rewarded for their lack of effort. It's really competitive for the yard of the month when all

the homes in the neighborhood are on the list. Over here the competition is not as fierce.

As a homeowner I work hard to maintain my property. Each year it gets a little harder. The people who own the two houses north of me live out of town and rent these houses on occasion. Most of the time these houses just sit empty. I was mowing my lawn last summer and a glint of chrome caught my eye next door. I looked over and saw the top six inches of a lawn mower handle sticking up through the weeds. Sometimes I have to mow twice in a week to keep the yard looking nice; he mows twice during the summer whether it needs it or not. A dead car has been sitting in one driveway for about a year. When the house was rented the renters had it hauled off to the junkyard. When the owners found out about it they retrieved it from the junk yard and brought it back. They wanted to keep the care for sentimental reasons over here, not at there property in Sedalia. There is a clear demarcation line between my property and theirs where I stop mowing.

The neighbor to the south of me was out a couple of weeks age putting his fence back up. The fence looks like a couple of kids started to build a tree house and built a fence instead. The shed to the rear of the property should be condemned. Just walking by you can do a complete inventory of the junk inside the shed just by looking at the roof and the side of the building. Six years ago he had potbelly pigs in the shed. I don't know but I think the city told him to get rid of them. There is over tree tons of used building materials laying next to the building and on the front porch in piles from a destruction project inside the house.

My neighbor to the back does a good job on his property. Across the street from me is a vacant lot. The owner bought it years ago and tried to move in a mobile home. The city said no and the property has been sitting ever since. It gets mowed when someone working for the city issues them a warning. At present it hasn't been mowed since last year. The city official who takes care of this must be busy citing other yards in the town because he hasn't been by my way yet. At least during the summer you can't see the old tires laying on the property. Down the street it's not that lucky. The residents thought two planters in the front yard would look good or else they didn't know what to do with the two tractor tires laying in the front yard, I don't know. One day last year I brought a dangerous situation to the attention of a city worker last year. Steel rods sticking up two feet next to the street on Odell Street. I go by there everyday. I guess nobody has gotten killed yet because they're still there. Down by the railroad tracks you get a clear view of the traffic on Commerce Street in late summer. Last summer the weeds got over seven feet tall until they finally fell over after a hard rain. City workers mow a small patch of grass across the road. I wonder why they couldn't see those weeds.

The court house is in the center of the community. One only has to walk a couple of blocks and see buildings about to collapse. What does it take in Marshall to get the city to do what it's supposed to be doing already! Do city officials drive around with blinders on? When will the Officials of the City of Marshall start taking the little things seriously. Until then, Marshall will never be the city it once was. Each day it goes a little bit more downhill, and that's a shame.

I'm John Q. What do you think?