Letters to the Editor
From our weekly issue dated November 26, 2008
(Editor’s Note: Views and commentary, including statements made as fact, are strictly those of the letter-writers.)
Typed, double-spaced letters are considered for publication. Hand-written letters that are double-spaced and legible also can be considered. “Thank you” submissions are not accepted as letters
Open Door help
From Vicki Jones
Selma
I volunteer at the Illinois Valley Open Door, a nonprofit food and clothing bank in Selma that Dodie Vandermark has operated since 1995. There are only three of us who run our food bank, and we volunteer our time.
Three agencies provide a monthly cash donation to us personally, and a couple of private individuals send us cash donations, which defray some of our costs. But the price of food is rising, and donations are getting to be fewer and smaller. Things are getting tighter for all of us.
More people are coming for food, blankets, clothing. In October we served 663 patrons, up 145 from September. Our food boxes are going to be a little smaller.
People can come to our place twice a month, but it has to be in a two-week interval. In order for us to help folks and keep things running, we need food donations, money donations, blankets, old useable sleeping bags. Donations are tax-deductible. Whatever someone decides to give; one can or a truck load, one dollar or a hundred dollars, we will be pleased.
“Hunger knows no friend but its feeder.”
Fire danger
From Mark Rehmar
O’Brien
According to the article in last week’s Illinois Valley News, Illinois Valley Fire District Chief Harry Rich intends to submit a tax levy proposal identical to the one rejected by voters in the recent election.
We could speculate endlessly why voters rejected the fire levy. Certainly these are unusually difficult economic times. Certainly Illinois Valley has a history of not welcoming added taxes. Certainly the added state fire protection tax many of us found on our recent property tax statements didn’t help.
But the exact reasons for the recent levy rejection are not that important. What is important is that the levy was rejected by an overwhelmingly 40 point margin. There is little chance of the same measure garnering enough added support to pass in the near future.
However, a modified levy, for a smaller amount, would show that the chief and the fire district board are listening to their constituents. The good will this would generate may just make it possible to pass this smaller amount.
According to Rich’s statement, the failed levy would have provided for 12 full-time firefighters, the number he says we need for the level of fire protection he would like to see. However, what we as a community may just not right now be able or willing to afford this ideal level of protection.
Certainly a smaller levy that provided for six or eight full-time staffers would be better than none.
By staying with a proposal that almost certainly will fail, rather than devising a compromise proposal, Rich is in fact adding to the danger from fire that the citizens of the Illinois Valley Fire District face. By making the perfect the enemy of the better, we face being left with no improvement at all.
If the chief is truly concerned with maximizing the fire protection available in our valley, he must propose and campaign for a smaller, compromise levy proposal. To do otherwise would needlessly endanger those he is supposed to protect, and would create appropriate doubt about his ability to continue leading our fire district.
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Hawaiian eye
From Wallace Hardie
Selma
This is in response to Ed Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation, and his column on Nov. 12 in Illinois Valley News.
There are many errors and discrepancies concerning the Hawaii health plan for children that Feulner writes about. He states that the plan, called Keiki Care, was for children in the Hawaiian Islands younger than 18 who were not insured. He states that within only seven months the health plan was canceled because, “People already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it free.”
The truth is, it was canceled because a newer and better one that provided additional help for handicapped children took its place. It also was for children, not the parents, and they had to be applied for and pass a screening test for income. The plan was/is based on the overall income of the parents.
It was only a free service for those who could not afford to pay. Feulner also states, “Several states already cover families earning three times the federally designated “level of poverty” ($84,800) for a family of four. I know of no state that has a level of $84,800 as a qualification for welfare.
Feulner, as well as the Heritage Foundation, attack most programs that turn to state or federal agencies for aid to purchase health plans for the less-fortunate and children. They would much prefer that there were no medical health plans other than what each could afford, with or without a job to pay for it.
President-elect Obama’s health plan will finally bring the United States in line with the rest of the advanced civilized countries. And it will provide a care that will save thousands of children from dying from untreated childhood illness.
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