Voice of the People

Please accept this as a very grateful thank you from the members of the Lesslie Volunteer Fire Department! You have once again made our annual barbecue a great success.

Missionaries put bad light on U.S.

I am thankful that I have always had health insurance -- first as a daughter of an insured worker, then as an employee, and now as a retiree. I am grateful that this insurance has made health care affordable.

In the Thursday editorial, “Schools don’t need holiday,” you wrote about the proposal for schools to be closed on Veterans Day. Whether or not I agree with the proposal, I do take offense to the next-to-last line, which says, “which we assume also would be a paid holiday for teachers.”

Don’t you think your readers would have benefited from some discussion of the substantive issues surrounding nuclear and competing technologies (price, safety and environmental impacts compared to oil and gas and coal, need for transmission lines, when building wind farms, etc.)?

South Carolina is very fortunate to have a congressman like John Spratt representing it. He has used extremely good judgment during his tenure in Congress. Mr. Spratt has demonstrated time and again the qualities that are invaluable for his office.

During the bad weather last weekend, the newspaper delivery person for Herlong Ridge subdivision here in Rock Hill was very kind to my neighbors and me. He got out of his car and walked on the icy driveways to put our newspapers closer to the porches where we retired folks could get them easily and safely.

City manager doesn’t need bonus

South Carolina is one of the few states without water permitting regulations. Legislators must pass a water withdrawal bill to protect our state’s water and ecosystems. Proposed legislation in the Senate and House Ag Committees would promote ongoing access to precious water resources by requiring permits for larger surface water withdrawals (3 million gallons per month, or the amount that a small business might use).

Secondhand smoke is extremely dangerous