Letters to the Editor

PRIVATIZATION PERILI have been hearing and reading about the trash issue for many years, yet nothing ever gets done [see “Garbage in, garbage out, garbage everywhere,” by Bruce Rushton, July 5]. Currently in Normal the city provides waste pickup. You can put most anything at the curb and it’s gone. However there is a debate […]

CELEBRATE FREEDOMAs we celebrate Independence Day, we should also remember that not all Americans were free until 89 years after 1776, when Union soldiers sailed into Galveston, Texas, to announce the end of the Civil War and enforce President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, issued 2 1/2 years earlier. That act freed the last of our […]

HIRING MINORITIESI don’t profess to know the answers, but you can’t just give a person a job without determining if they are qualified to do the job [see “Hiring minorities: All talk,” by Bruce Rushton, June 21]. There has been great effort made to recruit minorities in Springfield, although you wouldn’t believe it from reading […]

GRATEFUL SENIORFor a long time, I’ve wanted to write a letter to Illinois Times, expressing my gratitude for all the services provided to senior citizens in Springfield. For retired immigrants from St. Petersburg, Russia, such as my companion, Alex, and myself, the experience has been an unexpected and delightful surprise. Such gems as the Senior […]

COMMUNITY CARERe: “Leaving homes – Plans to close developmental centers provoke fear,” by Bruce Rushton, May 24: Every family with a developmentally delayed child has their own reality. During the last 5 to 10 years most of the people living in state-operated developmental centers (SODCs), who could live in community, have moved. Only those people […]

POT SMOKERS GET SLEEPYIn response to Sheldon Richman’s column [“When will Obama evolve on the drug war?” GUESTWORK, May 24], I agree. Marijuana should be legalized. In the late ’80s I worked as a correctional officer in a men’s work release facility. Most of the inmates were 18-35, serving the last few years of their […]

TAX GAMBLING, NOT PEOPLE The Illinois budget would probably be balanced today, except for the $37.5 billion to $46 billion given away to Illinois gambling interests over the last two decades. Faced in 1990 with a choice between a continued consumer economy or a new casino/slot machines economy, Gov. James Thompson’s lame-duck administration chose gambling. […]

ROBBING STATE WORKERSI am a normal Illinois state government worker. I didn’t get my job because I knew someone. I got my job because I took a test, got an A, went to an interview and the person interviewing me saw something in me they didn’t see in the other applicants. I did give up […]

RETIREMENT SOLUTIONI think I may have come up with the solution for current and future state retirees and our concerns about health insurance and retirement. I think we should just operate under the same principal that our wizened leaders do. Even though you are living on a fixed income or have spent a lifetime planning […]

NO POT OF GOLD I read with interest the article on the city infrastructure written by Bruce Rushton [see “Plan? What plan? Still no fix for city infrastructure,” May 3]. The city inherited problems caused by streets that were constructed without adequate bases and under-designed because the amount of traffic was underestimated for various reasons and […]

PENSION RIGHTS I’m all for paying my fair share. However, proposed Illinois state pension reform goes beyond fair share into highway robbery. The current $32,000/year average (also the U.S. average) pension is far from a windfall. The proposed reform would ruthlessly violate workers’ constitutional rights to our pensions. We have paid generously into our pension […]

WOMEN AGAINST REGISTRYJerry Sandusky is at the center of the Penn State sex abuse scandal. Jerry Sandusky was not on any sex offender registry, which is the case in more than 95 percent of sexual offenses. [See “Reformers: six offender mandate would hurt Illinois,” by Patrick Yeagle, April 19.] More laws and more money being […]