ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 17, 1996 TAG: 9601170010
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
REGARDING your Jan 6 Briefly Put editorial headlined ``Why not the 51st state?'':
By the sophisticated style of writing in your editorial about Salem, I couldn't tell if you were for real or trying to be facetious.
While Salem is self-sufficient, it just didn't happen. Great individuals and great organization make for a great city (or state). Salem has both of these assets.
As for Salem becoming a state, she is already - a state of mind. Salem's leaders make up their own minds. Her citizens elect and entrust them to arbitrate as individuals, not as puppets.
Note some of the end results of such profound leadership:
A top-rated school system.
Adequate water supply for years to come.
Excellent sporting complexes and ball stadiums that draw national participation.
An award-winning police department and police academy.
A respectable tax rate.
A civic center, operating in black ink, with no parking charges.
Abundant downtown free parking.
Incidentally, we have a fine weekly newspaper, void of all political bigotry and one that steers clear of officiousness.
Your writers shouldn't cogitate over Salem's future. We who support and believe in our city face the future with assurance and confidence.
CHARLES T. GWALTNEY
SALEM
Assessments out of bounds in county
WITH THE recent real-estate assessment, Roanoke County has ensured the defeat of any referendum on a school bond issue. Assessment on my property increased $6,600, an increase of 8.2 percent. My daughter's property assessment increased $8,000 or 11 percent.
A check of more than 12 property owners in the Cave Spring community indicates an average increase of more than 10 percent. Most of these people are retired and have no children in school. Others are buying homes with mortgages, and even now they're having difficulty meeting monthly payments.
Over the past six years, my assessment has increased more than 27 percent. Surely something is wrong! My supervisor said he was told the increase would be around 3 percent.
FREDERICK G. STEPHENSON
ROANOKE
It wasn't in keeping with the season
RESPONDING to Amina Al-Hindi's Jan. 1 letter to the editor (``Christmas was on display in public schools'') concerning the display of Christmas in public schools, Cathy Burdette (Jan. 5 letter, ``Show respect for U.S. traditions'') wrote: "If people don't like the display of Christmas or our celebration of holidays, they can go back to where they came from."
Gosh, look what's become of ``Love thy neighbor'' and the Christmas spirit.
PHILIP FLARSHEIM
President
Roanoke Jewish Community Council
ROANOKE
Beer ads also get teens' attention
I AGREE that minors shouldn't have access to cigarettes or any form of tobacco, and vending machines shouldn't be used to sell cigarettes. I even agree that cigarette manufacturers shouldn't have outdoor advertising within 1,000 feet of a school or playground.
However, I find it extremely hypocritical to say they cannot sponsor sporting events. Think about the Super Bowl. What is one of the most watched advertisements of the Super Bowl? The Bud-bowl! Here we have an alcoholic beverage as a main sponsor for one of the most watched sporting events. Isn't alcohol a serious problem with our teens today? Alcoholic beverages sponsor many sporting events - by name brand I might add.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not promoting cigarettes. I think they should go after both tobacco and alcohol, and not single out only one. There should be tighter restrictions on both.
I wonder if the Food and Drug Administration has the guts to go after beer companies like it's going after tobacco companies? I don't think so!
J. DONALD EARWOOD JR.
ROANOKE
The city made life hard for residents
``DISGUSTING'' is basically a nice word to describe downtown Roanoke's streets during the 1996 ``storm of the century.'' There may not be many - in fact, very few - downtown retail stores, but there are many businesses with hundreds of workers. A great number of those workers tried desperately to get to work, as well as get home after the work day.
All of us realize it may not be astute to attempt to plow streets during a peak traffic time. However, I cannot understand why all those city workers, working 24 hours a day as the media reported, couldn't have plowed downtown streets at night when there were few cars, if any, on the streets.
I'm not a planner or a procrastinator. I'm old, trying to make a living, and I cannot drive in the snow. The point is that with the amount of taxes that businesses and working residents of the city pay there has to be a process to eliminate the absurdity of the conditions during that storm.
I am fortunate enough to have a son who lives in Roanoke County. He and his neighbor navigated a vehicle well enough to get me and others to work (appreciated or not by the work place). Wonderful neighbors were kind enough to shovel my steep driveway so that I could make it to the bottom without falling in order to travel on city streets - and to pray that we arrived at the office without being killed.
Some may ask: ``Why get on the streets at all?'' Some wouldn't get paid if they didn't get to work. I would have, but why take advantage of that?
In one old woman's opinion, college-educated Roanoke city officials would be wise to use a little of the common sense that God gave us all.
ELSIE M. NICHOLS
ROANOKE
Faculty had a say in shifts at Tech
THERE are inaccuracies in Professor Anne Cheney's Jan. 11 letter to the editor (``Educators shouldn't give in to Allen'') that readers should know about as they analyze her conclusions.
Cheney wrote that Secretary of Education Beverly Sgro and I mandated that the Department of English move out of Williams Hall so that the Department of Psychology could move in. The future location of the Department of Psychology in Williams Hall is part of an integrated space plan for the College of Arts and Sciences that was developed by a faculty planning committee between fall 1988 and spring 1990. The summary of a space-usage report submitted by my predecessor in August 1990 delineates the grouping on campus of various related disciplines, and indicates that ``psychology would be located in Williams Hall, a location suitable for renovation to mixed-lab usage.'' Sgro was appointed secretary of education in January 1994.
Cheney also stated that I dictated the merger of English and communication studies. This isn't the case. As I wrote in a restructuring document that I sent to college faculty and staff on Dec. 11, I am ``challenging the two departments to explore how the existing graduate degree in English could serve English and communication studies with a joint, practical-oriented, high-quality master's degree.'' In a release to the news media in mid-December, I stated that the changes, which emphasize cooperation and collaboration among departments, would include ``a joint, practical-oriented, high-quality master's degree to serve both English and communication studies.'' The two departments remain separate. The cooperative master's degree is just one part of an eight-month restructuring plan and program review that involved the input of both faculty and staff.
ROBERT C. BATES
Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
Virginia Tech
BLACKSBURG
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