Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 11, 1993 TAG: 9312140007
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
First, it was stated that Norfolk Southern had spent $10 million to build the track and buy the specially designed rail cars. Then, it goes on to say that the resource authority will have to reimburse Norfolk Southern for its expense and pay more than $1.7 million a year for hauling the trash. The news story further stated that Norfolk Southern expects to receive $150 million in revenue during the life of the contract.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you mean that the general public, and not the resource authority, will really repay Norfolk Southern for its expense, through higher dump fees? I know the fees have increased from $25 a ton to $55 a ton since Jan. 1, and I'm the one paying this bill, not the resource authority.
Second, why are we paying Norfolk Southern for the expense of building the track and buying these cars when they stand to make $1.7 million a year? It seems to this poor old country boy that if I wanted the business I'd have to furnish the cart.
Last, and I mean no ill feeling to David Goode, chairman and chief executive officer of Norfolk Southern, but he states that the trash train will be a selling point in attracting new industry. Well, if I were locating an industry in Roanoke, I'd definitely be attracted to the area, knowing the local government is willing to increase expenses on the general public to buy my equipment, and still allow me to receive a handsome return.
Somewhere along the way I got confused.
WALLACE H. CLARK III
ROANOKE
Put those sitting criminals to work
BECAUSE of the rate of crime, I know it's time to use the prison road-gang camps again.
My best friend, Sandra Wilson Smith, was murdered by her ex-husband, who's now sitting in the city jail. This inmate gets to have three hot meals and a cot. Oh, what a joy it would be to see Sandra eat an earthly meal again. (I know she's having one of those heavenly meals.) This inmate can call collect to someone and carry on a conversation. What I'd give for Sandra to call me collect, telling me, ``Girlfriend, I'm not dead, I'm over here in Barbados.''
Sure, the ex-husband can cry the sob story that he's locked up and has no freedom. Sandra no longer has freedom in this world.
It's time to put murderers on prison road-gang camps - making little rocks out of big rocks.
I hope Gov.-elect George Allen and Attorney General-elect Jim Gilmore are true to their words and will be tough on crime. Virginians will be watching them.
CLARA W. DENNIS
ROANOKE
Pity for desperate hunters
I'VE BEEN reading about the new ``game preserve,'' which is the pride of Alleghany County.
Seems to me any ``hunter'' who can be conned into paying good money to shoot at sheep, goats and pigs in a fenced-in pasture is more to be pitied than censured.
Whoever promoted the loan of public funds to this outfit is in need of counseling.
BILL WOODS
BEDFORD
Spare the ugly labels for children
THE DEC. 4 letter to the editor from Louis Glenn (``Immoral use of taxpayers' money'') really got me upset. I resent people like Glenn having the right of our free press when he labels little children born out of wedlock ``bastards.'' He may label the parents of these children anything he chooses, but please leave the little children out of it. They'll suffer enough from the likes of people like Glenn all through life.
I was born in the '30s in the Blue Ridge Mountains, illegitimate. My grandmother raised me without any help from any taxpayer and without the help of welfare. I was taken to church and raised by her to believe that I was as good as, but certainly no better than, any other person, be they black, white, red or yellow. She gave me a high-school education. In high school, I was persecuted by the Glenn society, then I went on to business school.
This bastard is a taxpayer, as is Glenn. I, too, resent my taxes supporting women and men who are welfare deadbeats. But please, let's not label their children as bastards.
THADDEUS RIDDLE
BLACKSBURG
Goal is safety for everyone
SEVERAL clarifications are needed in response to Bill Cochran's Nov. 28 Outdoors column (``Landowners, anglers fighting to protect their rights'') in the Roanoke Times & World-News.
First, the Smith Mountain Lake Policy Advisory Board, a tri-county organization, requested area legislators to consider a no-wake speed 50 feet from shore on all inland waters in Virginia, or to allow the localities the option of adopting such an ordinance. The latter alternative was approved, however, with the term ``below planning speed'' instead of no-wake speed. It was never the intention of this board to prohibit operation near the shoreline, only to control boaters' speed and distance.
Second, Howie Davies, tournament director for the American Bass Association, endorsed and stressed the need for the proposed ordinance at a Bedford County public hearing on Nov. 22. Cochran's column quotes Davies as having a negative position toward the ordinance.
Third, these efforts to have an ordinance regulating speed and distance from shore are not intended to favor property owners but to provide a moderate degree of protection for swimmers from boaters and protection for boaters from docks. This past year, 11 of the 35 boating accidents on Smith Mountain Lake involved contact with a dock or shoreline.
Approvals of no-wake regulatory buoys averaged one per year from 1967 to 1985. From 1986 to 1990, the average increased to six per year, with 1989 having 12 requests approved. The board decided to research other alternative solutions before Smith Mountain Lake's shoreline became decorated with a white picket fence of regulatory buoys. An alternative is the proposed ordinance.
ELIZABETH P. PARCE
Executive Director
Smith Mountain Lake
Policy Advisory Board
MONETA
by CNB