Vice president could foot his own energy bill

Vice president could foot his own energy bill
EDITOR:
At first glance the request of the president and vice president to shift the energy bill for the vice president's official residence, the Washington Naval Observatory, to the budget of the U.S. Navy seems to have merit. After all, the Navy owns the 33-room mansion.
However, in light of the administration's planned cutting of the budget for the Navy so drastically that the Navy will have trouble keeping up its fleet and will be hard pressed to continue re-enlistment bonuses for its highly trained, active-duty enlisted sailors, I think the Congress (House Appropriations Committee) should not transfer the energy costs.
Two solutions for the vice president: Congress could either raise the energy budget for the vice president's official residence or raise the Navy's budget for the Washington National Observatory.
Or how about the vice president biting the bullet on energy costs as we have the past year and paying it out of his budget.
Mr. Cheney, welcome to the real world the rest of us face every day.
ED & quot;FOOTER & quot; SEMPLE
Girard
Residents living nearI-80 need noise barriers
EDITOR:
The people living adjacent to Interstate 80 who suffer from high noise levels of over 75.5 decibels have been ignored by our state and federal government for many years.
Noise barriers are authorized through a combination of state and federal laws which strive to provide relief from highway traffic noise for the residents located adjacent to the highways. Noise barriers may be built if the houses adjacent to the highway were built prior to the highway's construction.
Residents adjacent to I-80 and 680 qualified for these barriers, but our state and federal legislatures turned a deaf ear toward this problem while grabbing our tax money for their raises. Not one barrier was built in the Youngstown area.
No state and federal legislators visited this area to be made aware of the problems. Rep. Latell took video pictures of the road situations for the Amish, but not one video was made of the serious traffic noise faced by residents in his own home town.
Legislatures are elected to serve the best interests of the people. They chose our area for their road, but 25 years later the high traffic noise has still been ignored. All our tax money went to barriers in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati.
S.D. SERRIAN
Youngstown
With Mr. Rogers gone, there goes neighborhood
EDITOR:
Although many people don't realize it, one of the quality personalities of television recently faded from our screens. Fred Rogers of "Mr Rogers' Neighborhood" was, indeed, a pioneer. For the past 33 years he had held forth at WQED in Pittsburgh with a nationally syndicated show which influenced many of us as we grew up.
At a time when television is obviously desperate for anything to throw on the air and when television executives must consult a dictionary for the meaning of the word "quality," the era of Fred Rogers will most certainly be missed.
True, the re-runs of his show will continue to run in syndication for some time, but it isn't quite the same as when they originally aired.
And for all of those people who get such pleasure out of ridiculing Fred and his show, perhaps they should watch some of those re-runs. Maybe they can pick up some of the growing up that they obviously missed the first time around.
For all of us who worked with him, we wish him the best. As far as he is concerned, he is not leaving something behind but rather he is moving on to create new things for a new audience that is geared to a newer technology. But he will still be missed.
J.E. BALLANTYNE, JR.
Youngstown