Letters to the editor (10/31/09)

While your editorial "Running schools" was fair and balanced, I think you are overlooking some key points.

Carol Comeau is certainly smart, but her approach to running a huge budget up every year is simply to get more out of the taxpayers. She is an entrenched educrat, charged with operating a budget fast approaching $1 billion. Her business experience is nil. Her annual budget increases far surpass what the municipality gets. The school district does not have to manage its funds conservatively because "Joe Taxpayer" is always expected to save the day. A real business either performs or shuts down. If the bonds fail, she conveniently locates the money anyway. Isn't it time for an independent audit of ASD? Something's not right.

Many mayors come from more varied backgrounds in the business community and often know how to manage a budget for maximum efficiency. The move nationally to mayor-run schools deserves a closer look here.

-- David Hobson

Anchorage

Halloween roots ancient

Rhonda Hubbard ("Missing Halloween History") is mistaken about the Christian origins of Halloween. The "holiday" as we know it has its roots in the pre-Christian Celtic festival of Samain, which marked the transition from summer's light to winter's darkness. Indeed, most of our Christian holidays have pagan antecedents that were tied to seasonal changes. Christmas was established in late December, in part, to displace the Roman festival of Saturnalia, which in turn has its origins as a solstice celebration. So, too, Easter -- from the Saxon goddess of spring, Eastre -- commemorates the vernal equinox and rebirth of life and light after the cold and darkness of winter. There is much to learn about the wonders of science and our rich cultural heritage that one won't find in a "holy" book.

-- Thomas Crowley

Anchorage

Illegal traps are a danger to dogs

Attention all dog owners. Do you ever walk or run your dog(s) in scarcely populated or wooded areas? If so, please keep your dog on a restraining device at all times. A problem that has yet to be solved is the illegal setting of traps close to roads, used trails, and other public areas. Although I personally do not own a dog, I saw and felt the sadness that was inflicted upon people when a dog died in an animal trap that was about 20 feet off the Indian Pass Trail. I have also heard of many more incidents in which a dog is running free of restraint, smells the bait that trappers use to lure the animals they intend to catch, and in a matter of seconds is dying or severely injured from the snapping clamp-like device. Because of the occasional illegal placement of traps, it is primarily up to you to be responsible and ensure the safety of your dog.

-- Christopher Scott

Indian

Chief's girl should have walked

After reading the column on Fire Chief Hall's use of a fire engine and crew to pick up his daughter from school, and the letters to the editor in response, I am left wondering why everyone seems to accept that this girl needed a ride home. Was she ill? Or injured? Did this incident take place after dark? If Miss Hall, presumably an able-bodied 15-year-old, needed to get home during daylight hours and her parents were unavailable to provide a ride, why didn't she walk? Walking briskly, one could cover two miles in 30-40 minutes. Taking it easy, this distance would take no more than an hour.

If, when I was 15, I expected my parents to drive me home from school, they'd have laughed so hard their sides would still be aching to this day. If Chief and Mrs. Hall can afford the gas to provide door-to-door chauffeur service, certainly they can afford to outfit their daughter with proper shoes, outwear appropriate for the climate, a bicycle, a bus pass, and a map. If he taught his daughter to become self-reliant instead of training her that she is entitled to be catered to, Chief Hall could spend his time and the municipality's resources in ways that better serve the public interest.

-- Melissa L. Markell

Anchorage

Theft adds to family's pain

This is to the person who stole the magnetic breast cancer symbol off my daughter's car Tuesday at the Walmart in Wasilla.

Breast cancer killed my Grandma Ragna when I was a child. My Aunt Betty had a double mastectomy when she got her breast cancer diagnosis. My sister Jan, my best friend, died a year ago last March, after years of battling breast cancer that turned into bone cancer. She was 51, and the bravest person I've ever known. Her daughter Shelly was pregnant with Jan's first grandchild when she died. Jan never got to hold him in her arms. Ironic, isn't it, that Jan's birthday is in October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month. You see, this month really means something to me and my family. The breast cancer symbol really means something to us.

What a sad and pathetic little person you must be to have stolen someone else's pain. When your friends ask you where you got it, please, please, make sure you tell them you stole it from a family that is still grieving.

-- Debby Zeller and family

Houston

Senate must act on climate change

I live in Alaska because I love the beauty of this state. I love enjoying the outdoors by camping, hiking, fishing, and kayaking. I am concerned about what the changes predicted, not to mention the ones we are seeing due to climate change, mean for these activities. Climate warming will affect all the activities I love to do in Alaska. It will also have an impact on the economy of Alaska, which depends on the tourism industry. Do we want to jeopardize the reasons we live here by doing nothing about global warming?

More than 600 organizations from across the country have called on the Senate to include 5 percent of the funding generated in the climate and energy bill it is currently developing to safeguard our wildlife and wild spaces. Every man, woman, and child who has ever hiked through a healthy forest, stood in a beautiful stream casting their line, or kayaked in a mountain lake should call their senators and demand nothing less.

-- Penny Sorenson

Anchorage