Voices From The Readers

Voices From The Readers
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Taxi Changes Inevitable

Editor:

As a one-time taxicab company owner, I seen it coming three years ago and here it is.

This is why I left Ocean City. The mayor and city council does not care about the taxi owners. I was even threatened at a council meeting when I asked about selling ads on my taxis. Are they going let the taxis do this now so they can make up the cost of the new fees? Are they going to raise the rates so the taxis can make up the cost? Remenber you get what you pay for.

Tom Wagemann
Spokane Valley, Wash.

Opposed To Increase

In Winterfest Fees

Editor:

It seems nothing is left untouched even though the country is supposed to be in a recession.

Looks like Winterfest is next. How can we be in a recession while prices go up all around? So the attendance was down due to a weekend storm, just raise the prices, that will fix it, right?

Don’t think so. Maybe the attendance was down due to the fact the display at the Inlet lot was cancelled. You don’t suppose that had anything to do with it do you?

Every year I invite family down to see the lights, not just at 127th Street, but after that it’s most fun to drive through town taking in all the other sights then finally going through the Inlet displays. This year most of the family just stayed where they lived to go to their local displays. Why travel all the way down to OC just to see 127th Street?

I guess you could multiply that with all the others that felt the same way. That’s olay, just raise the prices just like everything else with less, that should bring in a few more folks.

Bill Grape

Ocean City

Thanks To Honest Stranger

Editor:

On Saturday, Jan. 30, I was in the 7-Eleven on 26th Street and Coastal Highway. I mistakenly left my husband’s wallet in the store while picking up the local papers. 

The wallet had over $50 cash and credit cards, ID’s, license, etc. Over an hour passed before I discovered my mistake. Retracing steps, I figured out I had left it at the 7-Eleven. You can only imagine our relief when we went back and someone had turned it over to the cashier. It has restored our faith in the kindness of others.

So a big thank you to the 7-Eleven staff and especially the kind stranger who was honest and turned the wallet in. We are so very grateful.

Thanks again. We hope to "pay it forward" if we ever get the chance.

Patty and Stephen Fingles

Ocean City

Campaign A Success

Due To Generosity

Editor:

This is a sincere "thank you" to the local community, business leaders and individuals from the 1st State Detachment, Marine Corps League, for your help in making the "2009 Toys for Tots" campaign a hugh success.

Your support of this worthwhile endeavor made a merry Christmas for many kids in your neighborhoods who otherwise would not have benefited thru your generosity. We appreciate your continued backing and support in our future programs. Semper fidelis.

Jack Carey

Dick Tanner

Jack Rine

Benefit Support Appreciated

Editor:

Star Charities is blessed to have the support of the local community. It was evident at our recent Beef and Beer Fundraiser on Jan. 16 at the American Legion Post #166 in Ocean City in support of the new local Coastal Hospice on Route 589 near Ocean Pines.

Over $1,500 was raised and presented to Judith Dorsey, director of the Clinical Costal Hospice on Monday, Jan. 25 at the Ocean Pines Library. Thank you to American Legion Post #166 for the use of their facility, to Bob Hughes who donated his services with live music, to Graham Caldwell who emceed the event, to performers "Jazz Line Dancers" and "Tera Rocketts", to the Star Charities Committee that worked so hard to put the event together and to the local media who published and broadcast announcements letting the public know about the event.

Thank you for all your efforts and God Bless all of you.

Anna Foultz

Ocean Pines

(The writer is the president of Star Charities, Inc.)

Thankful For Great Care

Editor:

I would like to express my deepest appreciation to the Berlin Nursing and Rehabilitation facility. My aunt, Mary Macko, was a recent patient, and I was extremely impressed with the care that she received. I found the personnel at this facility extremely caring, kind and helpful.

We are truly fortunate to have an institution of this caliber in our community. I would highly recommend Berlin Nursing and Rehabilition to anyone needing these services.

Betty Hyle

Ocean City

Who Will Protect Schools?

Editor:

The big question for 2010 candidates is: “Will you resist efforts to defund the schools?”

The taxophobes are really exploiting Great Depression II. Now they want to emasculate Maryland’s Maintenance of Effort Act (MOE), the statute that protects public school funding. MOE makes counties continue or increase their current per-student school spending.

Taxophobes want the Assembly to weaken MOE by allowing easy waivers of its firm requirements. They are angry that the State Board of Education has refused three requests for waivers this year, one from Prince George’s, one from Montgomery, one from Wicomico.

The State Board knows what’s going to happen if it’s not tough on this. Counties will routinely ask for waivers rather than raise taxes or carefully examine budgets for places to save. They will take the easy way – “one big whack at the schools and we’re done.”

There will be several take-a-cleaver-to-the-schools bills in the 2010 Assembly session. Ask your assemblymen to resist them, to support instead either an increase in the existing county surtax inside the state income tax or passage of the Rich People’s Emergency Tax, an extra 10 percent on incomes $250,000-plus, 20 percent on $500,000-plus, 30 percent on $750,000 and 40 percent on $1 million.

Maybe we also need a bill to require a county, before submitting a request for waiver, to either raise its county surtax or impose the Rich People’s Emergency Tax.

Taxophobes have already put the poor into the jaws of the casinocrats. Will taxophobes now be allowed to blight the education of middle class kids – the future guts of this country? Face it: To want waivers is to want America to sing to No. 2 or 3 or 4 or worse.

James A. Hoage

Severna Park

Alumni Concerns

Editor:

In response to the letter written in the Dec. 19, 2009 issue, this article raised several concerns that should prompt alumni to get involved. As an alum of the Worcester Junior-Senior High, I feel that as a non-profit organization, all financial credits and debits should be open to concerned members.

Betty Washington

Selbyville, Del.