Mike Buffington

1 week ago | mainstreetnews.com | Mike Buffington

City of Commerce leaders again wrestled last week over the issue of housing. Like many communities, town leaders aren’t all on the same page about how to zone for housing. I suppose there are as many views about housing as there are people; we all have our own biases. Commerce Mayor Clark Hill said last week that community leaders should stop thinking about housing as they’ve done in the past.

1 week ago | mainstreetnews.com | Mike Buffington

The future of housing in the City of Commerce was the focus of a two-hour joint meeting last week between the city council and the city planning commission. While no decisions were made, there was a consensus to revisit some of the city’s earlier zoning decisions involving townhomes. Mayor Clark Hill has long advocated for more affordable housing in the city, but that idea has met with resistance from the planning board and the city school system.

2 weeks ago | mainstreetnews.com | Mike Buffington

I vividly remember taking the Polio vaccine as a young child. The adults of my parent’s generation considered it a miracle vaccine to prevent what had been a deadly disease that afflicted thousands of children. By the time I took the vaccine in the early 1960s, Polio had been largely contained in the U.S., thanks to several years of use across the country. Local schools helped by taking students to health departments to get vaccinated.

3 weeks ago | mainstreetnews.com | Mike Buffington

“Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men? It is the music of the people Who will not be slaves again!”--”Do You Hear the People Sing”from Les Miserables•••We focus a lot on the dysfunction of President Trump, on his chaos, his ignorance, his obsession with revenge against those who dare hold him accountable. It’s a daily $%#&show playing out on national television. But Trump is just part of the problem.

4 weeks ago | mainstreetnews.com | Mike Buffington

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a small donkey to the shouts of a crowd waving palm branches, it was to mock Roman rulers whose pompous procession into the city was on war steeds. The Romans were there for the Jewish festival of Passover where they were poised to quell any kind of uprising against Romenrule. Jesus’ procession, by contrast, was the antithesis of Rome’s. It was a staged event the crowd would have understood as satire — a “king” riding a peaceful donkey.