ON GUARD
It was great to read the letters regarding the Kerry loss
and to see the strong feeling of “let’s not give up” (The Mail, November 24).
This is a period of low ebb for many of us who voted for Kerry and wanted
change, and it’s important not to give up on our ideas and programs.
A new issue
came across my desk, from BushGreenwatch, a
newsletter put together by Environmental Media services, an excellent group of
journalists who write about environmental issues and news. (The website is
www.bushgreenwatch.org. Readers can also go to the American Lands Alliance’s
website, www.american.lands.org, or saveourenvironment.org for more information
on saving forests.)
Republican
Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon
has proposed spending $40 million of taxpayer funds to build roads into
previously unlogged, old-growth areas of the SiskiyouNational Forest. The project would
let logging companies clear-cut another great swath of the national forests,
extracting 74,000 truck-loads of logs. This while our forests are dying due to
forest fires and, often, to bad logging practices.
The logging
project would also damage salmon spawning areas nearby, plus several other fish
species. While we cut funds to our welfare and environmental programs, we help
large companies overlog areas that should not be
logged in the first place, in federal forest lands that are specifically
protected under federal forest-conservation laws. Smith also wants to deny any
judicial review of the project.
This is no
time to use up more old-growth forest and sacrifice the ecosystem. We should be
spending these funds on the needs of the poor. We ought to utilize our federal
environmental protection laws in a more consistent, coordinated fashion,
emphasize recycling and conservation, and fund clean-up of the toxic sites that
often plague the poorer neighborhoods of America.
People
should be aware of the threat to the SiskiyouForest and write or email their
members of Congress.
Elizabeth A. Katz, East Avenue, Rochester
LET BREEZE GO, BUY SMALLER FERRY
It’s just like you to come out unabashedly in favor of Mayor
Johnson’s proposal to save the fast ferry.
In a Democrat and Chronicle letter in
September, I, too, called for saving the fast ferry, but I also asked that we
be honest about what a venture like that entails. This mayor belongs to a party
— the Democrats — that claims to be for the common man and against big
business. But he saw fit to sink millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money into
the purchasing of an oversized mode of public transport, and the infrastructure
(terminal, etc.) needed to operate it, to then be given to a private
corporation, CATS. He did so without asking any hard questions of the operators
of this ferry or getting satisfactory answers.
This mayor
has also seen fit to sink several more millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money
into the building of a soccer stadium, of questionable usefulness, also to be
given to a private corporation, the Rochester Rhinos, no questions asked.
However, he
nixed the proposal by Wegmans to build a super store
on Elmwood Avenue in the
city. This proposal was not going to cost the taxpayers money, would have
created a nice chunk of jobs in addition to providing tax revenue for the city,
and would have revitalized a section of a city that is dying in front of our
eyes.
I call for
the impeachment of this mayor.
Regarding
the fast ferry: I propose that 1) we let the current one be repossessed; 2)
buy, with the issuing of bonds, a smaller one; 3) put it under public ownership
and not run by anybody connected with the mayor; and 4) expect, at least at the
beginning, that the venture will have to supported by taxpayers’ money.
Let’s be
honest about it, and a fast ferry just may become the focus for a renewal of Charlotte
and the city at large.
Italo G. Savella, FernwoodPark, Rochester
TIME’S RUNNING OUT
Between your article about the fast ferry (“Ferry, Ferry,
Quite Contrary,” November 24) and the Democrat
and Chronicle’s November 25th article, it’s clear that the fast ferry
problem is far from being easily settled.
The D&C articlepresents the more serious challenge to CATS: ABN AMRO and EFIC
have started foreclosure proceedings against the ship, and I bet that these will
take precedence over anything else. As this article pointed out, the ship needs
to be protected from physical deterioration during the coming winter months,
and as there is no money available for mothballing operations, the powers that
be will have to make a decision within the next week or two about the fate of
the ferry.
It’s a
shame that the CATS operation has come to this point in its short life. I guess
what has become obvious is that in order for any business operation to succeed,
it must have its financials, including contingency funding, in impeccable
order, or it will fail in time.
David Troup, Wintergreen Way, Brighton
CUT THE PRICE FOR TAXPAYERS
If some of our legislators are concerned about the dollar
burden to local residents, why not allow some sort of annual discount ticket to
everyone — say, $10? That could on top of any other discount or savings offered. It would go to only city and MonroeCounty residents, only once each
year. It would provide large savings to those who are paying, with a stimulus
for those who haven’t had the pleasure of an excursion.
Bob Miglioratti, Highland Avenue,
Rochester
WRITING TO CITY
We welcome and encourage readers’ letters for publication.
Send them to: themail@rochester-citynews.com or The Mail, City Newspaper, 250
North Goodman Street, Rochester14607.
Our
guidelines: We don’t publish anonymous letters — and we ask that you include
your street name and city/town/village. We don’t publish letters that have been
sent to other media. While we don’t restrict length, letters of under 350 words
have a greater chance of being published. We do edit letters for clarity and
brevity. And in general we don’t publish letters (or longer “op-ed” pieces)
from the same writer more often than about once every two months.
This article appears in Dec 8-14, 2004.
