City should rethink plan on tax break for apartments

City should rethink plan on tax break for apartments

EDITOR:

Youngstown City Council is talking about giving a 10-year, 75 percent tax abatement to a proposed apartment complex catering to Youngstown State University students and medical residents. Why? If the project doesn’t make sense on its own merits, then don’t subsidize it.

The tax abatement would come at the expense of the Youngstown City Schools that are in a fiscal emergency and existing apartment owners who are having their own troubles paying their taxes, without the additional competition encouraged by City Hall.

GODFREY ANDERSON

Hubbard

Septuagenarian believes McCain is too old to run

EDITOR:

As a septuagenarian who has witnessed so many of his former work colleagues and golf links companions pass on at roughly my age, I’m afraid I have to agree with Dr. Robert Gillette that Arizona Sen. John McCain is too old to become the next occupant of the White House.

We must remember that McCain, who would be, at 72, the oldest person ever to be sworn into the presidency (Ronald Reagan, who became our oldest president, was 69 when he took office) and that McCain has already had serious health problems, notably malignant facial melanoma and the effects of injuries incurred during his heroic Vietnam War service.

We also have to note that although McCain’s mother appears to be doing quite well at age 96, her Navy four-star admiral husband died at 72, and that his father, also a four-star admiral, died at 62.

One might also wonder if a man so seeped in the military should, at this juncture in our history, assume the presidency. Although McCain’s service in Vietnam was indeed heroic, one might question the views he maintains today on an insane war, which took the lives of 58,000 Americans, cost an immense amount of national treasure, but brought the nation nothing but grief.

McCain’s views on Iraq fit the same mold. He has ardently supported the war, which so many now call a mistake (now including President Bush’s former press secretary, Scott McClellan) from its initiation, and has said off the cuff that we may have to remain in Iraq for 100 years. What other military blunders, such as bombing Iran, might McCain support were he to become president?

Finally, one could ask that if we are now, or ever in the future, going to select a military man to lead our nation, why pick one who, as in McCain’s case, graduated near the bottom (894 out of 899) of his service academy class? (Although McCain has made light of this, saying in a speech at Annapolis that it was nice to return to the school “where I had done so well,” his class rank is certainly still an issue.)

And given the military pecking order, wouldn’t a President McCain be inclined to be quite deferential to Pentagon brass who he well knew graduated much higher in their respective West Point or Annapolis classes than did he?

In short, I’d say that if McCain were elected President, he’d need a couple of Navy supply ships sailing up the Potomac to transport all his “baggage” to Washington.

ROBERT S. STANGER

Boardman

A job well done at GM plant

EDITOR:

As an outsider looking in with no affiliation to the GM Lordstown plant, I feel the management and all the workers at that plant should be congratulated. These accomplishments just don’t happen. It takes great leadership and great workers who all care and have a team player mentality to achieve change and accomplishments. It is a very difficult time for all in our area. When there is a victory like this we need to wrap our arms around these people and thank them.

MARY SKUBE

Cortland