Letters to the Editor for Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Campbell board just doing its job

I read Rick Boyer’s Jan. 23 letter to the editor with great interest.

As The News & Advance has reported, the Campbell County administrator submitted a case for a restaurant and hotel consumption tax, something that other area governments have established, but is not in place in Campbell County. The county administrator asked the supervisors to think about it, and they are — all of them. Keeping an open mind and looking for solutions to the serious fiscal deficit that the county faces is not advocacy for a tax increase. The supervisors are simply doing their job, seeking public comment.

The discussion is good, necessary and healthy for everyone. We should all be seeking solutions to the county’s budget problems. Like balancing a family budget, the discussion should stay focused on the problem and possible solutions. Personal attacks, such as Boyer’s letter, are a distraction from the effort to find real, creative solutions.

One more note — the voters of Campbell County were not lied to; Supervisor Steve Shockley, at numerous public forums, said he would seek public comment on the budget issue if he were re-elected. Obviously, the voters were quite happy with Shockley’s brand of openness about the county’s challenges and zeal for finding conservative solutions for them.

LAVERNE SMITH

Lynchburg

Drug testing for aid

This is my first letter to the editor in 20 years of reading The News & Advance, but after reading John Justice’s Jan. 19 letter about how undignified it is to require those seeking assistance to take a drug test, I could not help but respond.

I had to take a drug test to get my job to earn the money to pay the taxes to give to the people who need assistance, so why shouldn’t they be drug tested to get the money?

Most will read this and think I am a Republican supporting my party, but I am not a Republican nor Democrat. If someone has a good idea, he should be supported no matter what the party. I have to give kudos to Del. Ben Cline and Sen. Tom Garrett for sponsoring this legislation; I would say don’t stop here.

MARK SMITH

Lynchburg

Slavery in the New World

Darrell Laurent was sadly out of focus in his Jan. 22 column (“Looking through history’s sharp lens”) when he wrote that “slavery was instituted in the New World” in 1619.

The “New World” embraces North, Central and South America, and by 1619 the Spanish conquistadors had been enslaving (and slaughtering) Native Americans in Mexico for a full century. Closer to home, Columbus began enslaving (and slaughtering) the original inhabitants of the West Indies as soon as he landed in 1492.

It does no service to your readers, to history — and most particularly, to Native Americans — to be so careless and short-sighted.

HANK BURCHARD

Amherst