My Hood

I live on the Southside of Bexar County. I live in a small subdivision named Whispering Winds. Whispering Winds is located outside of Anderson Loop 1604, and just off of Highway 281 South. I live outside the city limits just before a small town named Leming. Whispering Winds is a middle class neighborhood. Most men in my neighborhood work so there are many stay-at-home-moms. I know this because I hear their husbands start the car and unlock their gates early in the morning, they do not return home until about 6:oo p.m. so I’m guessing they work a full-time job.

The houses in my neighborhood are old but nicely maintained. My mom moved to this neighborhood when she was pregnant with her first born, which was 24 years ago. Although many years have passed she has kept up with our house wonderfully. She has always told me stories about how our road was not even paved when she first moved here. Every time someone moves into our neighborhood she tells me how the neighborhood was empty only she and her sisters lived on our road.

The types of families that live in my neighborhood are a variety of young, middle aged, and elderly people. There is a couple who happen to be newlyweds that just moved there. There is a middle aged man who lives across the street from me with a young daughter. My grandparents live next door to me so there is a mixture of ages living in my neighborhood. Most of my neighbors work long hard days some even over night. Just two houses don lives a volunteer fire fighter who works at night, and also a paramedic who lives about two blocks down. This may serve as a great convenience to my family and to the rest of my neighbors someday. My cousin who lives next door is a student teacher at the local elementary school.

There is not anything major in my neighborhood. I live about 10 miles from the Southside High School, which is the high school that I graduated from. My neighborhood has always been pretty quiet, there were not very many houses but now it seems like every couple of months people are moving in. Either they build houses or they buy the land to herd their animals such as horses, sheep, cows and goats.

One of the major weaknesses that I’m not proud of is that there is registered sex offenders located in my neighborhood. I’ve looked up sex offenders in my neighborhood and very many of them popped up. I wrote down their addresses and drove by a few I came to notice that I’ve never seen the people that live there. I rarely see a car or two at these houses it’s really frightening because everyone in my neighborhood know each other pretty well. Another weakness about my neighborhood is that nothings a secret there. Everyone is in everyone’s business there is always those people who watch and gossip about what is going on, those people including my grandmother and her friends. They always know the: who, what, when, and where.

One of the strengths about my neighborhood is how everyone knows everyone, is one of the weaknesses as well. Every day after school and almost everyone weekend, all the kids from the neighborhood including me, get together and play. Sports are a big part of everyone’s lives in my neighborhood. On every block there are at least a couple of kids who play sports for the school and some younger ones who plan to. We play all sports baseball, volleyball, but we love playing basketball. That’s how I met my boyfriend who I’ve been with for three years now. My boyfriend lives just around the corner from me. I met him four years ago by playing basketball in our neighborhood. When I was in high school and played for the school I would play year round everyday for four years. Until I graduated and got a job, I just couldn’t find the time for it anymore.

I work about forty five minutes from where I live. I work at Freeman Decorating with my older brother. My company sets up conventions and expos that take places like the San Antonio Convention Center, the Austin Convention Center, and sometime the Alamo Dome. My job is to keep track of the supplies that are ordered and used at the expos. My brother who is my boss is one of the foremen who make sure I do my job and is in charge of the total set up.

Anywhere I go is going to take me at least thirty minutes to get to accept Palo Alto College which takes me about twenty minutes. At exactly thirty minutes I would be as far as South West Military Drive. Any where further than Military will be longer. All my friends live about fifteen minutes away from me. Most of them live just outside of high way loop 410.

Although, my neighborhood is very far from downtown and is far away from the city lights, I’m more of a country girl and enjoy the landscape and feel of the country side. I love my “hood”.

Nuclear Power

The verdict is in and I vote nay on expanding the South Texas Project (STP). City Public Service Energy (CPS) is going to do a lot more than make grantees to the public, once the final costs are exposed. Costs that will come from the tax payer's pocket aka us, the public. CPS's own customers will really understand the massive amounts if they go through with the nuclear power plant expansion. CPS's customer bills will increase 5% every other year until 2016 where it will be at a 3.7% increase until the year 2018 where it will be at a .07% increase. These percentages were presented by a CPS Energy executive using a slide show to pitch the nuclear power effort. These increases in the customer's bills will eventually add up. CPS Energy estimates $13 billion will be needed to complete the entire project. $206 million has already been spent on planning and permitting alone. Later this October, the city council is expected to vote for an additional $400 million which will enable CPS to stay in the project. What I don't agree on is why should we decide to spend so much money on or towards this project if no one is for sure that its going to solve our energy problems. I haven't hear or read anywhere that CPS energy along with NRG energy investigated other alternatives such as wind, solar or natural gas. Neither one of these listed has been ruled out. So there is no telling what else might meet San Antonio's energy needs of the future. Another reason why I think the people of San Antonio should oppose nuclear power is because the companies are not believable. CPS estimates $13 billion will be the cost of the expansion and NRG estimates the project will cost $10 billion. So who do we believe?Finding funds for this project will be tremendously difficult. CPS's own deputy manager, Steve Bartley says that money could run out by this year or early next year. Eventually, this would mean CPS Energy may come forward this spring and ask the city council for more money. Mayor Julian Castro thinks a 40% ownership is too risky for the city and also thinks lesser ownership would be better for the city. Overall, financing will be very expensive and the project will be difficult to fund. Therefore, I oppose the South Texas Project and I vote NO on the expansion. Money does not grow on trees.
There are many questions that have yet to be answered, questions that should not have to be asked. City Public Service should tell everything there is to be told about the whole expansion so that everyone could be aware of all that is going on, and not have to ask or do the research themselves. The people of San Antonio want to see facts, estimates, and proof that the expansion is worth the time and money spent towards this project. People like me want to know who is going to be constructing the nuclear power plant and are they a trustworthy fair company to conduct business with. I want to know their past employers what their past building jobs were and were they done within budget and on time. I also want to know how CPS and NRG plan to get rid of the nuclear waste that can harm the environment and the people around it. Also, if they have a plan on getting rid of the waste, does it actually work? Has it been done before? These are some of the questions that should be asked and answered.