Hats off to Vindy!; Love was in air at Valley Trump rally; Censorship needed to thwart perversion

Positive story on student’s scholarship appreciated

Kudos to The Vindi- cator for printing such a positive, heartwarming, inspiring story March 22 about the area high school student winning a speech scholarship. With all the negative and depressive events you read daily and see on television, it’s a welcome change.

Please keep reporting more positive and uplifting stories. Your readers will appreciate it. Thank you!

Kevin Flaherty, Poland

Love truly was in the air at Trump rally at airport

This is in answer to the question, “Where is the love that once united our nation?” asked by Lena Fox in her letter to the editor published March 20.

You would have seen and heard the love that once united our nation at the Trump Rally at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport on March 14 where I stood for four hours waiting to hear Mr. Trump speak.

Prior to his arrival, we all felt the love of God, country, and each other. Our love of God was felt while listening to a wonderful speech by a dynamic pastor (sorry to have forgotten his name). Our love of country was felt via veteran Leo Conley who spoke highly of Mr. Trump and led us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

We all then sang the “Star Spangled Banner” led by a very talented vocalist. Standing there in place for so many hours, side by side with strangers of all ages who soon became like friends with hope in their hearts for a “Greater America,” I realized the need to be thankful and grateful for a patriot like Donald Trump who loves God, his country and we the people enough to want to spend enormous amounts of his time, energy, and own money for our benefit.

He is not a racist and is sincere about keeping us safe by securing our borders and knowing for sure who is being allowed into our country. Most protesters are only parrotting what they are being paid to say and are trying to take away Mr. Trump’s freedom of speech and our freedom to hear him. Let’s hope and pray that Mr. Trump will be our next president – that will be a happy day for America!

Shirley McMahon, Canfield

Cutting leaf service offers no real savings in Canfield

Canfield City Coun- cil has been claiming the city is in financial distress if the current level of spending is to continue. In August 2015, an attempt to increase city income tax was soundly defeated.

Obviously it was not well- orchestrated and a mid-summer election gave the impression of trying to sneak something through when the turnout is normally low. In spite of the alleged financial difficulties, the city did borrow $500,000 to enlarge the police station, and city employees were recently given a raise.

For some time I have been asking the administration to provide information at the regular meetings such as how much is in the General Fund, how much was the last payroll, grand total of all funds and any unexpected expenditures over $5,000 and other information. After numerous attempts, I once again asked at the March 16 meeting why the reluctance to provide this information? No response.

At some point I believe city council is going to come back to the voters for more revenue. Now is the time for financial transparency if the residents are expected to support it. Why the big secret? Is something being hidden?

One of the services cut from this year’s budget is leaf pick-up. This is a service that has been provided for Canfield, a tree city, for many years. Hundreds of residents (including myself) depend on it. At the March meeting I asked how much this will save. I was quoted $100,000. And $35,000 of the savings is from not using an outside contractor to help. The remaining $65,000 is from avoiding the city’s portion of this work. When asked where this savings are, I could get no definite answer. If the Public Utilities Department no longer picks up leaves, where does that $65,000 effort go? “Make work” projects in place of leaf pick-up does not save any money. In other words, there is no internal saving.

Council, the monies you spend are provided by the taxpayers. You were elected to be fiscally responsible for the benefit of the citizens and provide city services. Admittedly there are financial challenges ahead. Being secretive, misleading and removing an established service as a wedge for additional revenue will not garner much support.

Frank A. Micchia, Canfield

Enact strong censorship laws to thwart perversion

How ironic and hypocritical it is to see President Barack Obama and some other politicians running for office jump on that political bandwagon for gun control, when violence of all kinds runs amok on TV programs, movies, gansgta rap, video games, etc.

If said individuals and other gun-control movements are so concerned with violence that is drowning this country, why don’t they exert their voices and actions to attack the root causes.

This goes for both Democrats and Republicans, who should use their political influence for real change, by initiating stronger censorship laws. If we don’t do something and do it now, then our youth and mentally unstable individuals will continue to be bombarded and desensitized to the violence all around them.

I don’t believe our founding fathers would consider it an attack on our First amendment rights to rein in those who produce the aforementioned media forms of violence for the sake of violence and perversion.

Are we so corrupt that we are willing to sacrifice our children and ourselves for the money and pleasures that we will one day have to answer for when we meet our maker?

Robert DeFelice, Boardman