If You Build It, They Will Come – Rail Trails and Heroin Trails ~ PAYING ATTENTION with TOM DUGGAN

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Rail Trail

Last month, the state legislature approved giving Lawrence another $1.5M for … get this … improvements to the “rail trail”.

For those who don’t know what the “rail trail” is, check this out.

Your local and state officials have been spending millions of your tax dollars every year to create pretty walking areas along dead rail road lines. They stretch all over the Merrimack Valley.

After millions are spent, these areas are then taken over by homeless addicts who set up tents, create piles of garbage, and shoot heroin every single day, hidden away from the general public.

It’s happening.

We cover it on Facebook every day.

And it doesn’t matter if you are talking about North Andover or Lawrence, Groveland, or Salem NH. Rail Trails have become the preferred squatting grounds for drug users, drug dealers, and other types of criminals who understand what our clueless politicians don’t, the value of a secluded area hidden from public view, and only accessible by foot. It’s the perfect place to commit crimes.

Ask any police officer who has had to respond to an overdose anywhere on the rail trail. In Lawrence they get 8 to 10 calls a week, and that’s on a slow week.

The cops I talk to on the scene of these “narcan” calls describe the trail of needles they have to follow and climb through to get to the “man down” from an overdose on a rail trail. Gunshot calls on the rail trail are much less fun for our first responders.

I particularly hope the people of Methuen are paying attention to this problem. It’s growing there faster and more dangerously than in Lawrence.

Something really bad is going to happen over there, and you won’t be able to say you didn’t know.

IS THIS BY DESIGN?

This huge rail trail funding push over the last few years has been sold to the public with fairy tale promises of safe and clean fresh air spaces, where families can hold hands and take nature walks, singing songs, and bringing back a sense of “community” for everyone.

Most of the people who advocate for rail trail spending when there are so many other problems to solve are puppets for leadership in the house and senate. They don’t use the rail trail. They don’t know anyone who ever will use the rail trail. They really could care less about a rail trail.

They are political opportunists.

I believe the true purpose of this rail trail funding craze is a deliberate attempt to create permanent places for homeless people to set up shop – hidden from the public – where they can create mini tent cities and shoot all the heroin they want – a place where they aren’t a menace to the rest of us every day.

Get it?

State leaders are trying to hide the problem of opioid abuse, homelessness and the myriad of social problems caused when you combine the two.

They are not trying to solve it.

I have driven the rail trail from Methuen to Lawrence more than once. I have also walked and driven parts of the rail trail in other communities numerous times.

They are cesspools of dirty needles, piles of garbage, prostitution, and in many places, heroin tent encampments of users and drug dealers.

No elected official should ever support funding for rail trails.

That bears repeating.

NO elected official should ever approve one dollar of our tax money for rail trails. 

I have never once heard a voter at election time say, “you know, I’m voting for Suzie because she increased millions in funding for a rail trail”.

Sure, politicians get photo ops to pretend for the little people that they are actually accomplishing something when that rail trail check comes in. But, at the end of the day they are literally throwing money out the window.

That $1.5M in Lawrence alone (more elsewhere) could have funded quite a few new police officers.

It could have funded new voting machines, a new communication system for the fire and police, better teachers, maybe even more home heating assistance for poor Latino children going to bed cold every night in the dead of winter.

But it’s not.

Which makes you have to wonder. Why would our state leaders choose to take tax money needed for so many other things, and use it for landscaping along rail road lines. Lines that 99.99% of the people in our communities will never, ever be able to enjoy.

Weird huh?