Published: August 28, 2008 12:35 pm            

Readers' Forum 8/29 | Richland event exceeded expectations

This letter will shock most hard-core Readers’ Forum readers, but I am praising Richland Community Days, rating it at 150 percent out of 100 percent. A total success, from my viewpoint.

I was privileged and honored to be a small part of this event. I was working the Cambria County Republican Party table in the tent on the Richland Township Municipal Building parking lot.

I want to thank Rob Gleason and those at GOP headquarters for asking me to work this event. I had so much fun that it should be a crime to call what I did work.

The organizers of this event should be give a medal. I only know two people on the organizing committee, Anthony Rizzo Jr., who went to Bishop McCort with my youngest son, Pat, and Bob McGowan Jr., who was on the ticket for state representative in 1990 in Richland’s old 70th district when I ran in the 71st district.

I met many people. Some I knew, like state Sen. John Wozniak and my good friend Wayne Langerholc, a Richland supervisor.

I also met three families new to the area, such as Clint Clouse and his wife and children from Flat Rock, N.C.

I loved this. I like talking to people. Just ask anyone who attended this event.

To everyone who had a part in this great event: I salute you all.

Ronald J. Esposito

Moxham



Start stockpiling good-quality water

My neighbors in the Ridge Road area of Hooversville, Paint Township, should be advised that the state Department of Environmental Protection is issuing permits for a mining company to strip mine parts of that area.

By December of this year, they should be done mining in Hillsboro. I live within a couple of feet of that mine.

I now have a problem with the quality of my well water that happened within a week of a blast in July. I cannot use my water for drinking, cooking, washing clothes or bathing. In addition, I lost my spring water, which was running before the blast.

DEP ruled that my water situation was a pre-existing problem.

Funny, before that last blast I could drink my well water and use it for other things, and my spring was running.

I have lived in my home for over 27 years and been a widow for 15 of those years. My children were raised in that house, and we never had this type of water problem. This past month has been an emotional and financial hardship for my son and me.

Therefore, residents of the Ridge Road area should start stockpiling their good drinking water now, before the mine moves into their area.

Those pre-blasting surveys are, in my opinion, a worthless piece of paper.

Betty Hadix

Hooversville



Storage shed site unsuitable

When is environmental “green” not environmental green? I’m referring to building commercial storage sheds near 17th Street in Windber. This area is a wetland/swamp and still is during hard or prolonged rains.

Why would Windber Borough Council and the borough planning commission allow a commercial enterprise to build on a wetland? The only reason it does not look like a wetland is because of all the ashes dumped there from the old Mine 35 heating plant. It could be an environmental brownfield. Has it been checked?

This area also is in a flood zone. The 1977 flood proved this as water came down the railroad tracks and did more damage to this area than from the creek side.

It is the last flat area that people can walk to and play sports – and they do play here. It is mowed and nicely maintained by neighbors.

Plus, the vestiges of the old playground are still there. It was a softball/baseball field, and the asphalt paved court – where basketball, paddle tennis or volleyball were played – remains. The site easily could support a legal-size soccer field.

So, why spot zone (illegal) from residential to commercial on a wetland, in a flood zone, and lose a wonderful, flat, green, play area?

Safety is also a concern. Because the area is along a narrow street, two cars cannot pass each other.

Or is all this environmental green just nice words for the other person, and we will do as we please?

Steve Shuster

Windber



What’s really killing U.S. economy?

Surely Joann Hunt (“Obama’s socialism wrong for America,” Aug. 22) must be joking when she says that “the government’s left-leaning, anti-American socialist agenda is killing the economy.”

Of course, it couldn’t be the unmitigated deregulation of the subprime mortgage banking sector or the wanton price-gouging by the energy industry overseen by the Bush White House, could it?

Surely it isn’t the multibillion-dollar invasion of Afghanistan that has no end in sight (luckily the end of our “war” in Iraq is on the “time horizon”).

If this “socialist agenda” is so deeply ingrained in Washington, why have millions of Americans been affected by substantial rollbacks in social programs such as Head Start and student loans that also are part of President Bush’s agenda?

If capitalism is the reason for our status as an “economic powerhouse,” why did Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac become nearly completely insolvent once they were “privatized”?

I am begrudgingly supporting Barack Obama for president, not because his views are necessarily in line with mine, but because he’s the far superior candidate.

Remember that it’s John McCain, like Hunt, who is trying to paint Obama as a “loud, arrogant elitist,” even though McCain was raised in relative comfort and left his first wife for a younger woman with a net worth of nearly $100 million.

Think about that before you vote.

Todd H. Holsopple

Johnstown

        

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