Readers

Kudos for dogging greyhound situation

Re: the Monday guest opinion by Susan R. Via (“Amendments would result in healthier, happier greyhounds”):

Great article. Why would anyone vote against this common-sense, humane approach to helping the greyhounds?

Although closing the track would be best, this initiative is a win for all – dogs, people, track and the city of South Tucson.

Keep up the good work, Susan! Thanks, Tucson Citizen, for keeping the plight of greyhounds in the news.

Jerold Tucker

Like 25% of schools, article falls short

Re: Oct. 1 article (“25% of schools fall short in progress report”):

Opening Minds through the Arts brings considerably more to Wakefield Middle School than “music, movement and playfulness.” To suggest otherwise undermines the program’s integrity, students’ capacity, educators’ quality and dedication and intelligence of Tucsonans.

Wakefield’s OMA program, not yet fully implemented, is building academic achievement by illuminating and celebrating connections between the arts and our academic standards.

Students develop and express thinking and problem-solving skills through application, synthesis and evaluation of the arts integrated with core subjects.

In an age of high-stakes testing and failing schools, we must change how we teach. OMA is at the precipice of this change.

The Wakefield program will change test scores, teacher collaboration and, undoubtedly, the climate of the school.

Parents, teachers, administrators, citizens and business leaders have roles to play in our children’s successful education.

You, too, play a role. So full and accurate presentation is fundamental but was sorely lacking in this article.

R. Darden Bradshaw

arts integration specialist

No room for bullies in consensus building

I recently helped organize a nonpartisan candidate forum on education. We received responses from eight candidates in LD26 and LD30.

Vic Williams, a candidate in LD26, did not respond to invitations but arrived moments before we were about to start and demanded a seat on stage.

The agenda and stage had been set, so I asked him to join us in the audience. He became very aggressive.

When I went to confer with the other organizers, he was so physically obtrusive that we had to ask him several times to step back.

We did not want to be unfair. I told Mr. Williams he could speak after the last scheduled candidate. He ignored this and tried to take the podium between two other candidates but was asked to sit down.

I have worked with assertive individuals. Mr. Williams, however, was bullying. I share this because character counts above any party platform or issue.

I fail to see how Mr. Williams could be an effective representative in a system that relies on consensus building. His brand of behavior has no place in the Arizona Legislature.

Lisa Hawkins

Patients pay twice for surgical errors

Re: Monday’s “Hospitals to pay for own surgical mistakes”:

Medicare will no longer pay for some surgical mistakes, but that doesn’t mean hospitals will.

Generally, a Medicare patient can’t get surgery at for-profit hospitals unless they sign a contract agreeing to pay any charges not covered by Medicare. That could leave the patient on the hook for all surgical errors Medicare denies.

Medicare rules used to prohibit this, but in response to industry lobbying, those rules were revoked, ostensibly to give patients more choice in their health care.

Dale Roose

Road projects, growth could drive us loopy

Re: the Tuesday article “Left-turn restrictions proposed for Grant Road widening”:

Since this is a needed widening of an important crosstown route, and businesses will be affected regardless, why is there no plan to provide left-turn loops at all major intersections?

Could there be some political causes for the businesses that would be affected where the additional left-turn loops would be placed?

It is difficult to get around downtown now. So you plan to make it impossible to save some businesses. There couldn’t be some graft involved? Let’s see the costs and plans of the alternatives.

It is bad enough how many businesses are affected by the I-10 project for what looks like very little benefit to Tucsonans. Why not plan an alternate east-west route to reroute the bottleneck coming soon because of the growth of areas north of Tucson proper?

Growth is good as long as the old town of Tucson is not destroyed by this so-called “progress.” Or is this part of the plan to pave all of downtown Tucson to create a new South Phoenix?

We have to provide more income to developers here where we already don’t have enough water. What next? Turn the whole area back into desert so the developers can start over making more billions?

Oh, well, we can surely find another $700 billion or $1 trillion in the next 20 years to bring in water from somewhere. Or maybe some genius business can discover how to make water. Might as well do it for the whole world; global warming is going to make the deserts as large as the oceans anyway.

Russell Hollen

This entry was posted on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Citizen Voices. Tags for this post: Arizona, Letters to the editor, page-2B, Tucson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.