ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 19, 1996 TAG: 9601190018
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
ANYONE who has a question about Roanoke County schools' physical conditions and the impending bond issue is invited to visit Glenvar High School, Glenvar Elementary or Fort Lewis Elementary. Please note - we do not have a middle school! We have a middle-school addition that has no furnishings.
Junior high-school students must share many services and facilities - library, gymnasium, cafeteria. No place else in the county is there a similar situation. (Lucky West County.)
Also, Fort Lewis isn't air-conditioned, isn't renovated, and is waiting for a Literary Fund handout.
Please understand that the bond issue will not help West Roanoke County. It's a token gesture to get more and better for those who already have more and better. Take care of our needs and bring us up to the standards everyone else is already enjoying - and complaining about.
You won't believe the disparity between the areas of the county unless you actually see it. I invite everyone to visit Roanoke County's finest, and then come to the other end of the county. Put more money where it's desperately needed.
Vote no to the bond issue!
AMBER SAGESTER
SALEM
America works when its people do
WHEN THE 13 colonies were still a part of England, Professor Alexander Tyler wrote about the fall of the Athenian republic more than a 2,000 years ago. He said: ``These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.''
I think we're in the dependency stage. Does this mean the next step is back to bondage? I hope not. I don't know whether this process can be reversed. I do know the current situation isn't good. Each side blames the other. It's hard for us to know what's going on in Washington. It's our responsibility as voters to ask, and to let our representatives know that what they're doing to this country is wrong.
I've heard that government will be bankrupt or is bankrupt. What do our representatives think is happening to those who voted them into office? Budget standoffs affect not only government employees, but the entire economy. During shutdowns, those with government contracts who cannot operate are in trouble. The grocer is affected as well. If people cannot work and get paid, how can they buy food, gas, a house or a new car? Credit only takes you so far. Using credit has to stop, except for major purchases (home or car).
We need to keep America working. How can we sit idly by and let those we elected destroy what we put them in office to protect?
DONNA EGNER
NEW CASTLE
City's excuses piled up with the snow
I AM APPALLED at how Roanoke County and Roanoke city combatted the Blizzard of '96. I'm from Pennsylvania, and have seen more snowstorms in my life than most senior citizens living in this God-forsaken city have seen in their lives.
What on God's Earth are we paying these government workers to do?
I hear the same old excuse: We don't have money; we don't have trucks; it costs too much to buy salt and cinders; it costs too much to pay for the trucks and the men.
Yet the city's local yokels can take taxpayers' money for the so-called downtown of Roanoke - the sorriest city I've ever had the displeasure of knowing.
Why not spend a little of that pile of taxpayers' money on buying some snow-removal equipment, and teach these city drivers how to plow snow and combat this weather? Why not buy some salt and cinders to help remove snow off the roads, and let people get to work and kids go to school so workers can keep paying officials' fat, unearned wages? If money is the issue, then do something instead of nothing. Heaven only knows we pay enough into this city, and get nothing in return.
JIM MASKE
ROANOKE
It takes one to know one
I WAS certainly amused, listening recently to the evening news, when President Clinton was trying to defend Hillary's character. How would he know anything about that subject?
A. BROOKS JOHNSON
NARROWS
The city deserves an A+ for effort
REGARDING Dan Casey's Jan. 16 news article, ``Plowing complaints pile up'':
If I were a Roanoke city worker or administrator involved in the cleanup of the recent snowstorms, I would be discouraged over a grade of F.
Personally, I'd give them an A+ for the effort made and the effort continuing to be made.
ED NICHOLSON
ROANOKE
Who could respect our political mess?
IT AMAZES me that our country can come together with another to help in keeping peace. When I heard that we were risking lives in Bosnia, I had to shake my head in disbelief. We have so much trouble right here on our doorstep.
Our leaders can't seem to agree on much of anything now. They can't seem to keep our country running for more than a few weeks at a time.
This being an election year tells me it's nothing more than a political mess. If this bunch can't come to some sort of agreement, they need to be thrown back so somebody else can take a turn.
We're supposed to be a leader among nations. How can foreign countries look at us with the respect that our country has always demanded?
I'm glad its our men and women in uniform who are doing the actual peacekeeping, and not our politicians.
MAGGIE STEVENS
ROANOKE
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