DATE: Friday, June 27, 1997                 TAG: 9706250140

SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER      PAGE: 10   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Letters 

                                            LENGTH:  119 lines

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR - CHESAPEAKE

I would like to know who the mayor and the other City Council members think they're fooling.

They were quoted in The Virginian-Pilot June 16 as saying that extending sewer lines to the Edinburgh property and down Centerville to the Southeastern School won't mean any further development because it will still require their approval. Well, when is the last time they denied a rezoning request from a developer?

When I look in Sunday's Clipper, everything that is brought up at council meetings is approved. Hickory and the surrounding area will look like a checkerboard with zoning signs, and 99 percent of them will be approved.

It seems as if they have forgotten about the citizens of Chesapeake and are more concerned about what the developer wants. Some cases in point are the approval of the development at Butts Station Road and the one off Interstate 664 in the Jolliff Road area. Citizens even presented a petition to deny the rezoning of Edinburgh.

The statement Mayor William E. Ward made reflects his and council's true feelings: ``We need to do everything possible to help the developer for land that has been approved for development.''

No matter what it costs the citizens of Chesapeake.

Mayor Ward and council members must remember that developers cast only one vote each, while citizens cast thousands.

Grover R. Nash Jr.

Centerville Turnpike Apology in order

I resent the attempt by City Treasurer Barbara O. Carraway to divert attention from those in City Hall who are responsible for issuing paychecks to make city employees justify their attempt to cash paychecks. She said, ``. . . these people were at the bank at 9:30 in the morning, which is when they should have been at work.''

In the department I work in, two-thirds of the work force was off on that day. The police, fire and other departments all have personnel off on weekdays.

Instead of placing responsibility where it belongs, she casts doubt on every city employee who may be off and trying to cash a paycheck as being derelict and taking city time to pursue personal endeavors.

She owes every city employee an apology for her insensitive and inaccurate statement.

Donald A. Brown

Barger Street Extra fee justified

This letter is in response to the letter to the editor (The Clipper, May 30) from Frances Meadows of Portsmouth complaining that she had to pay an extra $5 to take a ceramics class in Chesapeake because she is not a resident of the city.

Take an excerpt from her letter: ``. . . someone will have to pay.''

Do you think the instructor works for free, the materials are free, the building is free? No, of course not. Where does the money come from to pay for the instructor, the record-keeping, the materials? The users. Where does the money come from to pay for the building, the utilities? The city of Chesapeake. Where does the city of Chesapeake get its money? Taxes from city residents. Are you a city resident? No.

Your mommy pays her taxes to the city of Chesapeake to cover overhead items, like the building and utilities where the ceramics class is held. Your Portsmouth taxes go to a different city.

The extra $5 ensures that you are contributing to the maintenance of the facilities just like the tax-paying Chesapeake citizens with whom you are taking the class.

Bill Mack

Woodcott Drive Not a deal

The front page of The Virginian-Pilot reported that the nefarious tobacco companies had reached agreement with Mississippi Attorney General Michael Moore and a majority of states in a historic settlement June 20.

The paper reported that $368 billion in compensation would be paid by the tobacco industry to the states over the period of the next 25 years to offset the cost of treating smoking-related illness and to underwrite health care for millions of uninsured children.

Additionally, the tobacco industry would admit for the first time in prominent new warning labels on every package of cigarettes that smoking is lethal and addictive. The plan further provides for a curtailment in advertising slated toward children. According to The Pilot, the agreement would give the Food and Drug Administration new powers to regulate nicotine as a drug and cigarettes as drug-delivery devices.

History shows us that just prior to World War I, the Food and Drug Administration exempted the tobacco industry from supervision. Specifically noted in the exemption was nicotine, tar and more than 114 additional poisonous chemicals. Obviously, it is high time that the FDA fulfilled its function as guardian of the people, and began stemming the tide of poisonous contraband. After all, the tobacco industry has been free from regulation for more than 80 years.

The Friday agreement ain't no deal.

The judicious manipulation of the giant tobacco industries' income stream is not ``just compensation'' for the millions of folks who have recently buried their loved ones because of cancer. It does not speak to the real question of right and wrong.

The issue before America today is this: Should any large company or corporation, operating under the laws of the land, be allowed to poison people to death for profit?

The stuff found in cigarettes is bad. It is poison. Anyone who has ever smoked or had to breathe second-hand smoke knows this is true.

If a jury of 12 men and women had the good sense to convict Tim McVeigh for the murder of 119 people, why should we have a problem dispensing justice to an industry that has killed millions of Americans?

Think about it. A contract killer murders for money and he is caught, convicted and sentenced. Tobacco giants murder for money, but nobody has to pay. Friday's deal is a preemptive strike to avoid accountability via the courts. If ratified, they still will not have made appropriate restitution.

The ``get-out-of-jail-free'' card that the tobacco industry wants ratified will be paid for by the poor, dumb addicts who buy cigarettes and cigars. Since since the $368 billion is being paid out over 25 years, the annual payments will be funded by interest earned and profit from the increased price of cigarettes. The poison-peddlers will still be in business. People will still by dying, and the tobacco companies will simply raise the price.

This ain't no deal.

Robert D. Ruffin

Virginia Beach

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