Voice of the People - February 12, 2009
Benefit touched many hearts
My mother and I would like to thank all who attended and donated their love, time, talents and gifts at the Red Rose benefit on Jan. 25 for me and to promote breast cancer awareness to the community. Our thanks to Post Commander Sweet and the VFW staff for providing the facility and service.
Thank you to Kristy and Wane Marett for their planning and organization of a wonderful team of volunteers and musicians. They have all touched our hearts, and we will be forever grateful.
Jane and Abbie Jackson
Rock Hill
ETV station isn't serving community
WTVI, a public television station in Charlotte, has helped area charities with a live, prime-time special.
The ETV station in Rock Hill has slashed its one program ("Piedmont Politics") because of lack of funds or no underwriting, and has been instructed by ETV management to not turn on a camera without cash for the program. They have produced nothing since November and have shown no creativity nor industriousness to help the community. This makes sense because they have always relied upon the taxpayer for all of their television production budget. Not only does ETV in Rock Hill need to learn a lesson from their brother public TV station just up the road in Charlotte, so does the entire ETV network.
People in the community have no idea who they are and what ETV does. Perhaps if those involved with the station had not waited too late to produce programming like WTVI is trying to do, the community would actually want to save the network.
Charles Warren
Rock Hill
York County Council denies personal freedom
Shame on the GOP-controlled York County Council. Their cries for personal responsibility and limited government have been reduced to nothing but meaningless hypocrisy.
The people of York County just voted in November to allow Sunday alcohol sales because of our belief that government should not stand in the way of a willing buyer and a willing seller with an antiquated rule forbidding choice. The county smoking ban spits in the faces of the adults of this county who believed themselves capable of making their own decisions. Indeed, we already had plenty of private restaurants choose to disallow smoking. That was their right to do.
What the council has done is remove any choice from smokers while announcing to the world that York County is closed for business.
Christian Hine
Fort Mill
Where was anger during Bush years?
What an angry man Steve Lewis is. I wonder if he spewed his venom on the editorial pages when Bush led us into two wars and stood by and watched Wall Street and bankers ruin the economy. Relax, Steve, have another glass of Rush Limbaugh's Kool-Aid and everything will be all right.
James B McManus
Lancaster
Gov. Sanford should get facts straight
I'm a little miffed, just being a Southern lady, about Gov. Sanford's article in the Feb. 1 paper. Did he state that South Carolina was No. 1 in what we allocate to higher education? In what year? Of course, I did notice the little "percentage" word thrown in. Gotta find those loopholes where we can.
It's a shame he didn't read the latest "Chronicle of Higher Education." Then he would have seen that within the last year, South Carolina state colleges have received 17.7 percent less in state appropriations, a higher drop than in any other state. This ranks us a big 50, dead last in monetary support of our higher education institutions.
Maybe he needs new glasses, or another higher education degree. Whoops! At the rate allocations are dropping, he might have to go out of state for that.
Dana Bruneau
Rock Hill
'RINOs' failed to protect rights
I am writing this in light of the York County Council's recent passage of the smoking ban. The two Democratic councilmen are exempt from this letter; they did what was expected of them.
The other five RINOs are who I would like to take issue with. It is a sad day when our elected Republicans use their collective power to take freedom from the citizens they took an oath to protect. Councilman Joe Cox recently made the statement that he "was elected to get involved in your life." No, Mr. Cox was not; his job is to protect the freedom of the citizens, and he and his cohorts failed in that task.
Frank Taylor
Clover
This story was originally published February 12, 2009 at 12:53 AM with the headline "Voice of the People - February 12, 2009."