ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 25, 1997 TAG: 9702250033
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
Let's get going on Outlook
FOR ONCE, it appears that Roanoke got its money's worth from a planning firm (news articles on Feb. 15 and 20, ``Roanoke may see redesign'' and ``Movers and shakers like market idea'' and the Feb. 18 editorial, ``Take a look at Outlook'').
What a great and thorough concept for the city. Go, Roanoke! Proceed without haste.
This is a great area and one that deserves the finest updating. This plan is it. What an untold amount of difference it would make for the energy and vitality of this region. Seen and unseen benfits would surely follow its inception.
FRAN DLUGOPOLSKI
ROANOKE
Power outages were unavoidable
IN HIS Jan. 3 letter to the editor (``Did power losses predict the future?"), Ernie Miller, a resident of the Big Walker Creek Valley of Giles County, reported that he had 41 power outages lasting from 1 second to more than 4 hours at his home during 1996. He asks whether this number of outages is a ploy by American Electric Power to justify the need for its proposed 765-kilovolt Wyoming-Cloverdale transmission line.
Your readers are entitled to more information before reaching conclusions about our electrical service to Giles County.
The service interruptions he reported were related solely to the operation of the local distribution system. His residence in Big Walker Creek Valley is connected to a distribution circuit that provides electrical service to customers in the area along Virginia 100. From January through October 1996, this circuit was connected temporarily to another circuit while distribution-system improvements were being made in the area. As a result of this temporary connection of two circuits, customers were affected by operational problems over a much wider area.
Our records indicate four outages of 1 hour or longer that affected that area. Any other interruptions would have been a matter of a few seconds. The circuit serving the area resumed normal operations as a separate circuit on Nov. 1. We're not aware of any sustained outages since that time.
Improvements to the distribution system are part of an ongoing $800,000 upgrading of distribution station and line facilities in the Glen Lyn-Kimballton area of Giles County, made necessary by that area's growth. Growth in the electrical loads of AEP customers in Giles County, as in other parts of our Virginia and West Virginia service area, is driving the need for the proposed 765-kv line.
In addition to distribution-system improvements completed in that area, AEP recently completed a major transmission-system upgrade to meet the increasing power requirements of Hoechst Celanese in Narrows, the largest employer in Giles County and an important AEP customer.
JOE L. WEDDLE
Pulaski district manager
American Electric Power
PULASKI
Shuler's irrational, irresponsible votes
ON FEB. 4, the Virginia House of Delegates voted on two bills relative to parental involvement in the decisions of minor children. One bill would require parental notification before a minor could have an abortion. The other bill would require parental consent before a minor could have a tattoo.
Del. Jim Shuler voted against notification in the case of abortion and for consent in the case of tattoos. He would require a minor girl to be accompanied by a parent to get a tattoo, but he wouldn't require the same girl to even tell a parent in order to get an abortion.
His message is very clear: Tattoos are more harmful to the personal and family life of a teen-age girl and to society in general than the taking of the life of an unborn child. It's this type of irrational and irresponsible action on the part of lawmakers that has undermined the sanctity of human life in our country.
We shouldn't wonder why there is a growing problem of juvenile crime in our country, especially juveniles' killing and maiming. They have gotten our message in the legalization of killing for convenience - human life isn't really sacred.
MONROE A. HEDRICK
CHRISTIANSBURG
LENGTH: Medium: 83 linesby CNB