She’s looking for ethanol in all the wrong places

She’s looking for ethanol
in all the wrong places

EDITOR:

Is there a reason why we don’t have an E85 fuel pump anywhere in our three-county area? I have grown frustrated waiting to be able to fuel my Impala with ethanol here in my own “neighborhood.”

The National Ethanol Coalition Web site lists all E85 pumps in Ohio and the nation. In Ohio, numerous E85 pumps can be found in the Toledo area, the Columbus area and the Cincinnati area (I can’t help but note that these are Republican “blocks”). There are no E85 pumps to speak of in northeastern Ohio (one in Medina, and a private facility in Cleveland). Why is this the case? Is there some red tape or a bureaucratic obstacle which inhibits gas stations from installing E85 in Mahoning or Trumbull county? Is no station owner progressive enough to offer alternative fuel here?

If there are overriding circumstances causing the absence, I would be curious to know about them. Otherwise, it is time for a few E85 pumps to be operating in the Youngstown metropolitan area.

CAROL OPATKEN

Lake Milton

Halloween ends in horror

EDITOR:

For the past three years my friend and I have been putting together a yard haunt every Halloween for the trick-or-treaters in Boardman. This year we decided to have the haunt at my friend’s house a few blocks away from Midlothian Boulevard on the border of Youngstown. We spent the past 6-months preparing. We built an authentic looking iron fence out of plastic pipe, a gate, many tombstones and countless props. Both of us spent a lot of time and money putting our haunt together for the trick-or-treaters in the hope that people would enjoy walking through it and get a good old fashioned Halloween scare.

On Halloween, several friends and I dressed up in costume and prepared to bring our haunt to life. We decided to wait and open the gates at 7 p.m. since trick-or-treat ran during daylight hours. A large crowd of people soon formed outside our gate. I took to crowd control and started letting groups of five in at a time. For the first few groups everything ran smoothly and we were having a blast. However, the crowd got out of control and everyone outside the gate started rushing in. There was nothing I could do but watch in horror as our cemetery was destroyed. It was utter chaos as people were running crazily through our haunt, knocking down tombstones, props, breaking fences and harming my friends.

Six months of hard work went down the drain in a matter of 15 minutes. People started fighting on the streets and out in front of our haunt as three or four police cruisers showed up. The police made everyone leave, so our haunt was shut down after only 15 minutes.

I was extremely disappointed and disheartened from this unfortunate incident. We were only trying to do good for the community and a bunch of ignorant troublemakers had to ruin it for everyone.

SCOTT BLAUROCK

Boardman

Police union wants its say

EDITOR:

The Youngstown Police Association, the labor union for the Youngstown Police Department Patrol Officers, has recently come under attack by Bertram de Souza, whose column attempted to link completely unrelated matters.

On the parking issue, our membership has had possession of 28 parking spots in the lot located at Boardman and Hazel streets for more than a decade. These spaces were provided as part of an agreement reached with the city. Our grievance on this issue, as with many other issues, is the fact that the city makes deals with our union, then reneges.

The comments made about the weight of the equipment we carry was only one issue brought into the parking issue. The safety issue was that carrying this equipment, which can weigh up to 50-75 pounds, will result in hazardous conditions to our members on icy sidewalks and streets in the winter. Our stance on this issue is due to the city’s failure to salt the small parking lot which our members once used, resulting in injuries to our members as well as civilian employees due to falls on the ice. If the city is unable to control ice build-up in a small parking lot, how will it maintain several city blocks and an additional parking lot to ensure that these icy conditions do not exist?

Secondly, Mr. de Souza made a point of stating that our union rejected the increase in pay which was received by YPRO (Youngstown Police Ranking Officers) Union. The pay increase was not an issue in the rejection of the fact finder’s report. There were several parts of this report which we agreed with and some we did not. Unfortunately we have to accept or reject the fact finder’s report as a whole and cannot accept the acceptable and reject the unacceptable.

We also do not live in a bubble. We realize that health care co-pays are a fact of life. We have been paying a co-pay for three years already. Mr. de Souza made it seem that we have not been paying a co-pay and are attempting to block efforts to institute a co-pay.

As far as our union requesting 143 patrol officers minimum, this was the number of patrol officers our department had in 2002, prior to the passing of an income tax increase that was predominantly geared toward the safety forces.

Although Youngstown’s income tax was increased to 2.75 percent, our numbers have actually declined and there are times that certain beats are unmanned. This shortage has been addressed by the implementation of 10- hour shifts, a strategy that has worked to a point but cannot totally fill the void.

ED COLON

YPA President

Youngstown