Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 17, 1994 TAG: 9403170137
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
This sort of proposal is full of holes and fallacies. Your suggestion that financially disadvantaged families be given subsidies to live in mixed-income neighborhoods is another unthinking attempt at social engineering. It won't work.
I have no quarrel with giving people a break. I've had a few in my time that I appreciated. However, I don't believe government should subsidize any situation on a continuous basis. There must be a termination point where financial support of an individual or family ceases. To go beyond that point is to weaken the individual's will and desires and make him or her dependent on that support.
What, in your proposal, would gain these lower-income families, moved into middle-income neighborhoods, the opportunity to work their way out of their financially disadvantaged situation? What would bring them up to speed with the rest of the neighborhood?
Would you subsidize existing housing that fits into a neighborhood, or would you build less expensive ones, commingled with higher-priced dwellings? I can't see home owners in Bridlewood or Brandywine with their $250,000-to-$500,000 dwellings stand still for a sprinkling of $50,000 houses in their midst.
If you've no plan or solution for those questions and phases of the problem, you've no right to propose commingling middle-class neighborhoods with low-income housing. The outcome would be that middle-class families would leave neighborhoods to be populated by additional financially disadvantaged occupants who'll be right back in the same situation they supposedly left.
It's more important that we upgrade the financially and socially disadvantaged than downgrade neighborhoods for the sake of social reform.
By the way, government isn't helping. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting wider every day.
DON TERP ROANOKE
Big power line would tumble first
IN MY FRIEND Sam Lionberger Jr.'s Feb. 17 letter to the editor (``Storm confirmed power line's need''), he extolled the virtues of a second Appalachian Power Co. power line as a backup in case ice and high winds blow down the first. But he failed to view the obvious. The proposed new line would be taller and larger than the current one, and would be the first to go in such ice and high winds. Two downed power lines would provide no more electricity than one.
I hesitate to mention ``underground'' for the storm of slick rationale that will rain from Apco against such an idea.
FRANK LONGAKER SALEM
The loss of two who were heroes
TWO VERY important people to my youth passed away in the span of a week - Don Bartol and Bob ``Guts'' McLelland. They had a positive impact on my upbringing, contributing both color and savvy to my youth and education, and made lasting impressions in my life. Many of my peers feel the same. If today's youth have such role models, they'll be OK.
Around 1969, in response to a no-smoking dictate at Patrick Henry High School, some of us students would follow Bartol daily through the halls, acting like we were coughing. He puffed on a pipe, and was sport enough to recognize our point, laugh, make a dignified point of his own and go on his way. We were challenged by his presence as a teacher and a role model.
As a student, I felt like he knew me when we talked. He had an extraordinary ability to connect and offered trusted guidance. He also taught algebra. Even though Bartol couldn't lure me into algebra, he became a giant to me. He was my ``Guts'' McLelland of academia. When we both were 20 years older, we became friends via the rigors of friendly politics. He was right on the money so many times. He was as colorful, open, opinionated, intelligent and as energetic as he was in 1969. I'm honored to have known him, and am sad he's gone.
During sandlot football scrimmage at about that same time in my life, ``Guts'' used to grab my face mask, lift me out of the dirt and say, ``Didn't you see?'' ``Didn't you see?'' He'd grit his teeth in a way you couldn't forget and was the genuine model of a football coach for a group of 16-year-old boys. He was a man's man - tough but fair. He instilled a devotion and focus on the task and guided our youthful energy, teaching us a strong sense of dignity. ``Guts'' was a teacher in so many ways. On the sporting field, he shaped reality. He provided us his love of sport, and we were lucky to have benefited from the extra things he brought us.
Although he coached many boys, ``Guts'' remembered me by name when I saw him about a year ago. He asked about my family.
McLelland and Bartol remain at the top of the most-trusted-men scale of my youth, and are my heroes.
DAN L. FREI ROANOKE
Sanitized lyrics just don't sing
SINCE the idiot politicians in Richmond are considering doing away with our 116-year-old state song, ``Carry Me Back to Old Virginia,'' I've been teaching my grandchildren songs that I sang as a child in school, only I've made them politically correct versions.
``I'm coming, I'm coming, for my head is hanging low. For I hear the gentle voices calling senior citizen, Afro-American, Joseph ... ''
Don't you feel like you're with Alice in the looking glass?
THOMAS N. HUTSON SALEM
by CNB