Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 25, 1995 TAG: 9507250039
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In an effort to economize and reduce the overall number of state employees in Richmond, the Allen administration last year added the position of media coordinator in each of the eight Cabinet secretary's offices. This was accomplished by reducing 14 positions in several agencies for every one position created in the Cabinet offices, an overall savings of millions of tax dollars.
The purpose of this consolidation was to provide timely and orderly responses to the media and to ensure that proper policy positions of this administration were articulated.
But, instead of commending the administration for reducing the number of central office employees by 14 for every one position created and saving taxpayer's money, the media went into a feeding frenzy, criticizing additional staff members in the Cabinet offices. Rarely mentioned in news articles or on editorial pages was the dramatic reductions and savings we were able to accomplish. Rather, the focus was on the additions without regard to the overall net savings.
This year, using ammunition the media provided, Democrats in the General Assembly wiped out many Cabinet positions, attempting to thwart progress the administration was making in areas of economic development, public safety, education and others. In the process, media coordinator positions were wiped out and there was no provision to add back positions at the agency level to handle these requests.
Your beef shouldn't be with the administration. You should take your frustration out on yourself and on the majority party in the General Assembly, which played politics with a legitimate effort to save taxpayer's money and improve efficiency. Of course, we'll continue to provide information to the media as quickly as possible, even though we have only one-third of our previous resources now available to accomplish this task.
I think you'll agree that every employee at your newspaper does not have the authority to speak officially for your company. Instead, individuals are assigned such responsibility. The same is true for state government.
JAY TIMMONS
Chief of Staff
Office of the Governor
RICHMOND
Should widows get priority over babes?
READING between the lines of the July 11 letter to the editor, ``Medicaid rules exploit the elderly'' by Sandra Parks, her mother may be applying for Medicaid as a long-term-care recipient. Placing a loved one in a nursing home is a painful decision fraught with red tape. Only then must a Medicaid recipient sell her home, keeping only $30 per month for personal needs.
In judging the fairness of these rules, we should consider that Medicaid will pay most of the widow's major living expenses, including food, shelter and medical care. The widow has no need for her house, which ought to be used to pay for her care rather than go to her heirs. While $30 per month for personal needs such as laundry, toiletries and clothing is low, other public benefits also are inadequate. The widow will receive more Medicaid benefits in one month than a mother and child on Medicaid will receive in one year.
Parks disapprovingly notes that young, unwed mothers freely get Medicaid. These benefits are a minuscule fraction of Medicaid expenses. Moreover, babies do get sick. Denying them medical care solely due to the misbehavior of their parents having had them out of wedlock would be truly exploitative.
MARTIN WEGBREIT
ABINGDON
Name-dropping for political advantage
SINCE staff writer Sarah Huntley told of Spike Harrison's claim to immortality, or at least something that will get him a page or two in future history books (July 15 article, ``26 years ago, he helped catch man from the moon''), I think its only fair that I reminisce about my own brush with things that make one famous.
Not generally known is the fact that Ike (Dwight D. Eisenhower, then general and later president) and I served in the U.S. Army together. Later, the U.S. Air Force became a separate branch of service, and I was assigned to that while the general stayed with the Army.
President Truman requested that I be a part of his inauguration. Naturally, I couldn't turn down a request such as this, especially when he was my commander in chief. So I fell out with several thousand others at 5 a.m. that frosty January morning to march up Pennsylvania Avenue about 2 p.m. Hurry up and wait is not exclusively the Army's standard operating procedure.
I enjoy touring the Air and Space Museum in Washington. I see aircraft from the top-secret air base where I was responsible for their security. At the height of the Cold War, I never knew when I saw headlights coming down the tarmac whether it was a Russian spy or the sergeant of the guard making sure I wasn't sleeping on guard duty.
I wish that I had some tie with the space program, but the best I can come up with is that I have been swimming in the ocean that space craft landed in. Would my brother's watching an actual launch count?
I hope this is sufficient to get my picture in the newspaper because I also am running for the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors seat for the Catawba district. Every little bit helps.
DOUGLAS CHANDLER GRAHAM
SALEM
Time to heal Vietnam's wounds
I EMPATHIZE with Stephen Douglas Garnett's feelings about Vietnam (July 18 letter to the editor, ``For many, Vietnam isn't over'').
I saw the horrors there, too. I came home to a different world than the one I left to go to Vietnam, and I thought I had left behind in Vietnam things no man or woman should have to see or go through. But I was wrong. After 20 years, the memories and scars are still there. They may be hidden, but they will always be there. There's fear and loneliness of not being able to talk about it, not even to your best friend - who I eventually lost because I held on too tight. There is not being able to let anyone get close, for fear that something may happen to them and you won't be able to protect them.
I have no respect for President Bill Clinton or the Democrats who caused Vietnam - John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. But I have nothing but respect for the man who stopped it - Richard Nixon.
And as much as I hate to admit it, Clinton is right. It's time to put Vietnam behind us and move on, not for the dollars, as Garnett says, but because it has to be done. Maybe then we can find answers to so many questions. As for the POWs, I would like to know that everyone is accounted for. Those who served in Vietnam aren't animals and didn't deserve to be treated as such. They were real people with fears and emotions just like everyone else who served their country because they were asked to, not because they agreed with the war or killing.
The horrors of Vietnam will always affect us. Garnett says he wakes up screaming. After I came home, I didn't sleep but minutes at a time. But its been 20 years, it's time to heal.
LEWIS A. CRAGET
CHRISTIANSBURG
Getting Salemites into the swim
PLEASE, Salem, build a swimming pool.
Summer is a big time in the valley. And when it's as hot as it has been this summer, everyone looks for a place to swim. Not everyone can afford to join a private club.
I have lived in Salem more than 20 years, and intend to stay here forever. But I and hundreds of others have to travel all the way to Southeast Roanoke or Vinton to swim. When there are special programs that tie up Roanoke's pool, then you go to Vinton. And if you're lucky, you get there before the pool is overcrowded with swimmers.
Recently, we got to the pool in Vinton by noon. By 1:30 p.m., they had to lock the gate and turn people away. It's a shame those nice people who live in Vinton can't swim in their own pool.
Come on, Salem, let's go for a nice, big pool.
KATHY NEWCOMB
SALEM
by CNB