Youngstown's East Side not as bad as portrayed

Youngstown's East Side not as bad as portrayed
EDITOR:
For the past two weeks you have given major exposure to the Youngstown's East Side, but you have done so with incorrect information.
First we do not have drug dealers and gang members located everywhere in the East Side. It is only a couple of streets that are responsible for the majority of the problems in this ward. And this happened because the people who live in these affected area chose to remain blind to what was taking place in their neighborhood.
Instead of calling the police to report the illegal activity they saw occurring, they chose to look the other way and allowed the problems to take root.
The news media should have spoken with community members who are working hard to make this ward a better place to live. And not with the one whose only contributions are to complain and belitle the efforts of others. The police department is doing an excellent job, and the presence of the sheriff's department is very welcome in our community.
Our councilman, Rufus Hudson, is working very hard to make the East Side a better place to live. And we have too many hard working people in this ward to receive the bad publicity that we have been receiving from the news media.
RAUL VALENTIN
Youngstown
X The writer is a Precinct 2A committeeman.
Gambling's toll too great for communities to pay
EDITOR:
Bertram de Souza's tongue must be in his cheek, suggesting the arena project as a major gambling hall. Think of the toll it would take of the many legal gambling halls in town. Think of the toll the gambling culture has taken of this community; the professional suicide of how many people whose greed for gambling money has ruined their careers and disgraced their families; or whose gambling debts have brought them to bankruptcy or even death by their own hand or that of another. Gambling does not solve problems. It creates them.
In Detroit recently, a man was at the end of his rope. He had lost $500,000 stolen from his business and had run up $60,000 on his credit cards when despair overcame him. He came home from his last gambling trip and smothered his three children, then shot his pregnant wife before turning the gun on himself. He took their lives because he thought they would not be able to live without him.
In his suicide note, he wrote, "There is nothing more destructive to life than gambling. I wonder why there are government agencies to fight drugs and not gambling. A drug addict destroys his life, a gambler destroys his life and the lives of those he cares about and care about him." Gambling breeds on greed and feeds the Death Culture. It solves problems by killing people, if not physically, then spiritually by the ethical minimalism it promote.
In Biloxi, Miss. an Alabama native was sitting at $100 slot machines when he shot a couple and another woman who were playing blackjack. He then turned the gun on himself. A casino employee said, "I guess he lost his money and had enough of the people winning."
"But gambling money helps to pay for education." Indeed, it does more. It educates the younger generation to expect "Big Money" without having to work. It's an addiction that squanders time that should be put into getting an education or to helping others or to improving the community. It breeds on greed, it grows on greed, and destroys the greedy.
For politicians to promote expanded gambling as the answer to fiscal problems is to blackmail the citizenry. "Unless you vote for the gambling expansion we will raise taxes." That's blackmail. It's dereliction of responsibility, and complicity in the corruption of old and young alike.
God expects better of us.
FATHER WILLIAM J. WITT, M.A., M. DIV.
Youngstown
X Father Witt is Pastor Emeritus, St. Brendan Church
Prime-time coverage of criminals unwarranted
EDITOR:
Arthur Shawcross, the serial killer from New York responsible for the murder of 11 women, has caused a little controversy.
Shawcross has been selling his art for as much as $500 a picture in the annual inmates art exhibition in New York.
Shawcross should have started drawing before he started killing. Or maybe in his mind the two go together.
Tim McVeigh, through books and television coverage, has people wondering, "Is he a madman or does he really believe he is a patriot?"
When the media panders to the McVeighs and Shawcrosses of the world it only proves one thing. If a madman wants a book or his bad art or his bad poetry published, go out and commit some demoniac or ghoulish crime and the media will accommodate you with all the prime time coverage they can muster. It's sad, but it is true.
STEVE KOPA
Wierton, W.Va.
Education schools doing well in preparing teachers
EDITOR:
The data from the Praxis II tests for licensing new teachers has been released, and surprise. Ohio's schools of education did very well. This of course was contrary to what our government, the political pundits, and letters to the editor writers were leading us to expect. So now, "the ball is back in their court."
After shooting the chickens out of their roosts, hoping that they would roost somewhere else, our governor, legislators, and school boards have found them back on their own roosts.
So now for some radical ideas. First, that those institutions involved in the education of our children, public schools, libraries, and state universities, be given the full support needed to make them the best in the country. That should give a true edge in attracting real high tech industries to Ohio, but the idea seems to be beyond the comprehension of our governing bodies and the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.
Second, if we want to attract and keep high quality teachers, we should pay them. Salaries equivalent to the $1.50 unskilled wage I received on my first job out of high school back in 1950 just don't hack it. Consider that a family of four that makes less than $25,575 a year is eligible for home energy assistance. Also, a family of four with a combined income of $36,000 in Loudoun County, Va., could receive free winter clothing from the clothing bank there.
Now we have a new school financing plan. It looks like our state legislature is making the same mistake New York made several years ago. Of the billions appropriated to improve their schools, most of it went to school districts that didn't need money. Extremely little of it went to school districts that did need the funds.
JEROME K. STEPHENS
Warren