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Health & Fitness

Just Joe: Random Thoughts From a Community Activist

News and Views from a community activist not afraid to ruffle a few feathers or shake things up a bit.

It was suggested that I do a weekly blog that sometimes covers just one topic and other times just has random thoughts.   So for the first such blog let me throw out a bit of news, an interesting fact about Santee, and a few things that just make me shake my head.

* I was just reviewing the agenda for the upcoming City Council meeting and noticed that there are public hearings for conditional use permits for both Chik-Fil-A and In-N-Out.  Both will be built in the Lowe's / Kohl's sopping center.  Very exciting news!  I love both of these places! I'm wondering though if In-N-Out will have any negative impact on Sonic.

* I recently learned an interesting fact about how Santee got its name.  The original founder of most of the land in the area was George A. Cowles.   When he died in 1887 his land was sub-divided and some of it sold off.  The area now known as Santee was then known as Cowlestown.  Cowles School was built within the town.  Cowles widow Jennie eventually remarried a man by the name of Milton Santee.  Mr. Santee (not to be confused with current day Mr. Santee Rob McNelis) was not at all happy about living in a town named after his wife's previous husband.  In 1893 Cowlestown official became Santee.  Cowles School also was renamed as Santee School.

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*All that is left now of what George A. Cowles owned in this area is the infamous Cowles Mountain.

* Did you know that almost everyone mispronounces Cowles name.  It is actually pronounced just like the store "Kohls".  Yet very few people pronounce it that way.

Find out what's happening in Santeewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

*It amazes me sometimes to see how little some parents care about their child's education and work. Having volunteered in my daughters classroom for three straight years I have seen some shocking things.  None of us are perfect parents, but I'm telling ya there have been a few that are perfectly awful.

*The phrase "stepping on toes" is completely lame.  It is entirely about someones ego.  The only reason you feel like your toes are stepped on is because someone is doing what you failed to do...or doing it better. 

*So the Coronado Starbucks is going to be the first one serving beer and wine.....I can finally join the Starbucks craze!!

*While I can appreciate the Stop The Santee Power Plants effort...I think leadership is the key to success for this group.  I attended the last Tuesday night meeting and several things stood out like a sore thumb.  One of them being the leader of the meeting who kept cutting people off.  So much so that my 9 year old daughter pointed it out to me after we left.  Too many people spent too much time pointing fingers at the city council and talking about ridiculous things that were opinionated as opposed to factual.  They have had exactly ONE speaker at the previous couple of City Council meetings.  The person they chose to speak had a very heavy foreign accent and was very argumentative with the Council when it was time to be quiet and listen.  Not exactly the professional image you want to portray to get a message across.  Gotta fix these things to be successful.

 

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