Published: July 01, 2008 05:50 pm            

LETTERS: July 2, 2008

Big thanks to Silver Creek Little League



On behalf of the New Albany Little League, I would like to send a big thank you to the Silver Creek Little League for allowing our 13 to 14-year-old boys a place to play and practice this year.

Unfortunately, New Albany Little League does not have a field available for this age group to play on because the high school or Indiana University Southeast's field is not available and there is no other field in New Albany big enough for this age group to use.

Hopefully, the leaders of this community will someday provide New Albany with the same facilities as our surrounding communities have. I can only wonder why Jeff, Highlander Youth Recreation, Silver Creek, Charlestown and Clarksville all have beautiful new or refurbished facilities and New Albany is still playing at a facility that is over 50 years old with no big field for the older kids to play on.

Again, I want to thank Silver Creek Little League for saving the baseball season for the 13 and 14-year-old New Albany boys by allowing them the use of their facilities to practice and play games on. Your generosity is much appreciated and you all should be proud for your actions.

— John Worrall, New Albany



Open letter to Clarksville restaurant operators



As a former restaurant operator, I ask you the following question: Would you tolerate customers in your business who create extra dirt, makes your establishment smell, cause you to incur extra expense, cause damage to your restaurant and force you to sometimes make the majority of your customers have to wait or eat in an atmosphere that they despise?

If you permit smoking in your restaurant, the answer is a big yes!

I, personally, will not eat in a restaurant that allows smoking. That is why I go to Jeffersonville, Louisville or the few of you that have made your businesses non-smoking when I eat out. These include Steak ‘n Shake, Golden Corral, Bob Evans, Cheddars and McAllisters and perhaps others that I have not been to yet.

Why is smoking banned in the Clarksville Town Hall?!

I know that many of you are “afraid” that you will lose business if you forbid smoking. But let’s look at the numbers. Over 70 percent of the customers in this area do not smoke and the percentage of smokers is going down every year!

If you are waiting for the Clarksville Town Council to pass an ordinance like Jeffersonville and Louisville have, you have a long wait. Most of the councilmen smoke and one in particular has said “as long as I am on the council, there will be no smoking ban.” Of course, this could be changed by an election but that is another subject.

When a no-smoking ban was introduced earlier this year at a town meeting, most of the people at the meeting supported the ban and some had letters from Clarksville restaurants supporting the ban. Was anyone allowed to speak? No!

The council voted it down without asking for any input from the people that were there! I think this shows the total arrogance of the current council very plainly. Later they said that the state should make this kind of law. It would serve them right if the state, like California, Florida, Michigan, Washington, Colorado and many other states, banned all smoking in all public places.

Since our Council will do nothing, it is up to you.

Do you like having to maintain separate eating areas? Do you like burn marks on your tables and floors? Do you like dingy windows and curtains? Do you like extra cleaning costs? Do you want your restaurant to smell like an ashtray to the 70 percent — and growing — of your customers? Do you want to lose their business to other places that are defying the bunch of old men who obviously don’t care what the people they represent want?

Since the council will not allow people like me to speak, it is entirely up to you to make a change happen.

— John Haendiges, Clarksville





Current administration showed experience isn’t a cure-all



May I remind the June 26 writer, who insists experience is essential in a presidential candidate, that we have endured an embarrassment of riches in the experience department during the failed Bush 43 Administration. The Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove cabal had decades of government experience. John McCain has been in Washington for 30 years. And yet how have the American people benefited from their experience? Are we better off economically? Do we have universal health care? (something the Democrats have been trying to pass since Harry Truman in 1949?) Where are the good jobs that created the American middle class? Do we have modern, efficient transportation systems like other developed nations? What happened to our stature in the world as a result of the “cowboy diplomacy” that passes for a foreign policy? And dare I mention the exorbitant debt to China and other creditors that will burden our grandchildren?

So much for “experience.”

We need real transformational change to reclaim our government. Barack Obama is our best hope for that kind of change. He has been a champion of the poor and the powerless — not the “haves and have mores” as our current president once bragged were his “base.”

— Ruthanne Wolfe, New Albany

        

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