Researcher from England sings praises of Youngstown

Opinion: August 9, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

EDITOR:

I am writing this having recently returned from my second visit to Youngstown. I am a researcher at Manchester University in the United Kingdom, doing some research about the city.

Having heard so many negative stories about Youngstown I wanted to write to say how much I’ve enjoyed my time there. Having travelled to a number of other cities across America, as well as in Europe and Australia, I can say I’ve never met people as warm, kind, full of humour, and welcoming as the people I’ve been lucky enough to meet in the city of Youngstown.

I’ve enjoyed every minute of my time in the city and hope to be able to return to live in Youngstown permanently one day. It’s great to find a place so rich in tradition and history with people who genuinely care about its future.

In an America that seems to be increasingly dominated by strip malls and sprawling suburbs, it is great to find a city with such character that maintains its traditions and still holds onto many of the blue-collar values that it was founded on.

The Mahoning Valley, and Ohio, would be a much lesser place without Youngstown and I hope it can prosper in the future without losing the people and places that make it such a special city. Thanks to all the people I met for making my time there so enjoyable, and I look forward to returning soon. I’d like to say a special thank you to everyone at the East Side Civics.

JAMES RHODES Manchester, England

State budget is death blow to Trumbull LifeLines; work to restore funding

EDITOR:

Trumbull LifeLines, the Alcohol, Drug Addiction, and Mental Health Services Board for Trumbull County, received a $2.4 million reduction in fiscal year 2010 allocations in the governor’s budget approved recently by the state Legislature.

This is a 26 percent reduction to our county. No other area in the state budget received cuts as great as the cuts to mental-health services.

As a result of these reductions, thousands of people with severe mental illness who do not qualify for Medicaid will not receive the services they need in order to survive.

Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression are “real” disorders of the brain. Left untreated, they can have serious consequences for the person with the disorder, their family and, indeed, their communities.

Effective noninstitutional treatments have been widely available in Ohio and have allowed the state to close most of its psychiatric hospitals.

Now, as a direct result of the budget reductions, counseling, case management, housing, employment, assessments and other services will no longer be available for the poorest and most needy persons with mental illness and addictions in our community.

More people are going to be homeless, jailed, hospitalized and desperate. Suicides and crimes that occur as a result of untreated mental illness could increase dramatically. Additionally, many jobs are likely to be lost at local agencies.

The governor and Legislature must work to correct this situation as soon as possible. There will be a corrections bill in September, and I’m asking each of you to contact your elected officials and ask them to return some of the money to mental health services. If this does not occur, this will affect you in one way or another. Please help me to restore services to our community.

APRIL J. CARAWAY

Executive director, Trumbull LifeLines

Warren

Congress must not ignore dental care in health reform

EDITOR:

I attended the health-care round table with U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan recently. Although I was happy to share my personal story about chasing health-care insurance due to a pre-existing condition, I was mainly there as an oral health-care professional. Unfortunately, that important part of my message seemed to get lost, and was not a part of your article in The Vindicator.

I am a dental hygienist and see how poor oral health can affect the entire body. Oral health care, including dental, is the No. 1 unmet health-care need in America. Poor oral health can lead to systemic disease. Plus abscesses can spread to the brain, and may even result in death.

I have traveled overseas on dental mission trips, and have seen the effects of a lack of oral health care.

I was at that meeting to encourage our leaders to include oral health in the health-care bill. I heard a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic once ask, “When did the head get disconnected from the body?” The answer is, “Never.” There should never have been a distinction between “medical” and “dental;” they are all connected. I hope that something can be done about that soon.

KRISTA VENTRESCO R.D.H.

Youngstown

Mahoning library system shows lack of judgment and fiscal responsibility

EDITOR:

I was born and educated in Youngstown, Ohio, and began my professional career there. When the economy turned south in the early ’80s, my husband and I moved south to find work in Dallas, Texas. In 2002, we returned to the Mahoning Valley to care for my aging mother until her death.

It was shocking to see what had become of my hometown during the years I was away. In the face of continuing population and economic declines, I soon realized that the only thing keeping the city and surrounding suburbs afloat was the spending power of huge numbers of retirees, most of whom still had pensions in addition to Social Security.

I wondered how the local government was planning to adjust to the imminent loss of the World War II generation and their discretionary income. Of course, they weren’t.

The library system is a case in point. Having lived in Irving, Texas (population 210,000 with one main and two small branch libraries), and Farmers Branch, Texas (population 24,000 with a single library), I was stunned to find that Mahoning County was still maintaining 14 separate library buildings for a population of less than 240,000. And still the library board was acquiring land for new buildings. When the state cut library funding, the library system went to local voters and asked for a levy not to replace the lost revenue, but to substantially increase its budget.

Donors launched a six-figure advertising campaign for the library levy, and it passed. This was at a time when renewals of school, police and fire levies were failing throughout the county. In more than one local community, fire stations closed.

What did the library board do with its windfall? They did not study the local demographics and scale down the size of the system based on an average loss of more than 20,000 people each decade. They did not build reserves for the future based upon the well-documented evidence of declining property values and tax revenues. They spent every dime as fast as it came in, faster actually — putting themselves into a deficit position by 2009.

At every turn, the library administration made poor decisions. They built new structures that were far more expensive and grandiose than the community standard for retail spaces. They gutted a fine collection of classics and reference materials and squandered their acquisitions budget on what can only be described as ephemera — CDs, paperback books and DVDs with little or no educational value and limited popular appeal after a few, brief months.

It is time for library administration to admit its folly, take responsibility and stop blaming their employees, the community and the state of Ohio for this situation.

The taxpayers deserve more respect for their longstanding support. Unfortunately, Mahoning County taxpayers, library patrons and library staff will suffer for decades for the shameful lack of sound judgment and fiscal responsibility in the library leadership.

JEANNE ANN MACEJKO

Dallas, Texas

GOP must stop playing games on health care

EDITOR:

We want the GOP to quit playing political games with our health-care future. If you ever want to win votes again from knowledgeable people, you will quit this nonsense now.

As for the other side, the Democrats should remember that they didn’t lose their control of Congress in 1994 because they tried to pass health-care reform. They lost it because they failed to pass health-care reform.

PAUL SHANABARGER

New Springfield

Betras misguided in urging Hitler-like support to Ryan

EDITOR:

Why is everyone that has an opinion or mind of their own tagged a liar by Mahoning County Democratic Party Chairman David Betras?

Honestly, he’s like the little kid that melts down in the grocery line with mom because he’s not getting a candy bar.

The debate, Dave, is not about Canadian health care. It’s about putting people in charge who have robbed us of our Social Security money, run Medicare in to the ground, nationalized the auto and banking industries, gave us the Freddie/Fannie disasters, guided the Post Office down the toilet — well, you get the idea.

And then Betras demands we give Hitler-like support to Reps. Tim Ryan and Charlie Wilson on a health-reform bill that I believe neither have read or understand.

What kind of attorney would suggest signing off on a document they haven’t read or understood?

TIM RYAN Newton Falls

(The letter writer is not related to the congressman.)

Obama did not betray IUE union at Packard

EDITOR:

President Barack Obama did not betray the International Union of Electrical Workers — Communication Workers of America.

That occurred a long time before his presidency. All one has to do is recall the big rush to become part of the CWA without the approval of the majority of the membership.

RHEUBEN JONES

Youngstown