Building projects require seeing long-term effects

Building projects requireseeing long-term effects
EDITOR:
During the groundbreaking for the Caff & eacute; Capri in Boardman, the storm water consultant, Canfield Consulting, and Christy Brown, the designer and planner of the new restaurant, explained the project will have a 100-year detention basin. This exceeds county or township requirements. The goal of the Quaranta family to be a good neighbor and conscientious business owner is commendable.
As a Boardman trustee, my first responsibility is to the residents of Boardman Township, but the magnitude of the flooding problem involves Mahoning County as well. Water does not respect political boundaries. If large areas of the flood plain become filled by construction or paving, additional land area is needed to store potential flood waters. We need to be aware of the impact on others. We need to fix short-term problems and begin long-term restoration of our flood plains.
Each community affected by flooding or sewer backup should be inventoried to identify storm water projects that need to be completed in their area. As a county, we can then prioritize projects based on the impact to the area's watershed and move forward to prevent future flooding.
The next step is to determine how to fund the projects that are on the priority list. Suggestions have been made to consider a storm water utility. It's a low-impact cost to users with significant financial power. The other is for the county to establish a drainage maintenance district. On a large scale, funding options are low-interest loans with Ohio EPA, the Ohio Emergency Management Agency and federal funding secured by lobbying our U.S. representatives and senators. Congressmen Ryan and Strickland have agreed to work with us on this project, but they have asked to see a definitive plan.
The answer may include enlisting the support of the area political subdivisions, the county sanitary engineer and county engineer as well as all park districts, schools, the Ohio Department of Transportation and the Army Corps of Engineers. Community partnerships are needed to leverage our limited resources. We must work to build flood-resistance communities and to remember that prevention is less expensive.
KATHY MILLER
Boardman Township trustee
Voters: Make a clean sweep of White House, Congress
EDITOR:
The truth is finally out. The Bush administration has presented America with a new "gate" -- Medigate.
The Medicare program's chief actuary was warned that he would be fired if he told the truth -- that the so-called Medicare reform program was going to cost at least $100 billion more than the Bush administration was telling Americans -- and ruin its chances of passage. And the Republicans held the floor of Congress open long past the time the voting rules allowed for, to twist more arms to insure a passing vote. All Americans, of any political persuasion, should be aghast at this chicanery and deceit. Why is this not grounds for impeachment?
These are the very same people who tried to topple our past president for lying about an affair with a woman. Comparing the two lies (and many, many more lies by the Bush administration) is like comparing the Titanic with a rubber raft. The arrogance is truly stunning.
Day after day, the Bush administration tells us "we are adding more and more jobs every day and the economy is recovering." And day after day, more and more American jobs are being sent to foreign countries. There are millions of highly qualified Americans begging for work, yet we are told that sending our jobs to foreign countries, and importing foreign workers to take even more jobs away from Americans is "good for the American economy." Wake up America. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and there is no such thing as a "jobless recovery."
It's time for the voters of this nation to take a big broom and make a clean sweep of the White House and the Congress. The future of our nation depends on it.
LEE GUY
Boardman