Editor:

On Monday morning at 10 there was the Orleans County public hearing at the Barre Town Hall for the proposed PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) by Heritage Wind.

Each person was given 3 minutes to make a comment to the officials regarding the PILOT. However, there were certain people who spoke over their 3 minute limit and even one person who shined a strobe in their eyes to simulate wind terrine flicker! How disrespectful is that?

This was not a public hearing for pro or con on turbines. It was for the proposed Orleans County PILOT!

The pros would be that a set amount of money would be paid to the affected municipalities on a set schedule. The “con” thoughts are that the assessments may change over the years thus increasing taxes paid by Heritage over the years.

If New York State takes over the turbine taxation, the local government could be excluded all together and receive no funds!

Ruth Miller

Barre

Editor:

It’s crunch time. Politics and crazy proposals or science.

Alaska has joined Idaho and countless hospitals in low vaccinated states and declared statewide “crisis status.” Patients are being allowed to die without intervention!

People are: “More likely to die” no treatment; “Less likely to die” treatment; “Good enough” to go away and hope they do not die from lack of treatment.”

A year ago both the Finns and Israelis concurred that without a mask 21 feet was the safe radius. On April 27, 2021 Tucker Carlson encouraged viewers to confront mask wearers. Unlike most evening commentators, Carlson has a college degree but became a journalist after he was rejected by the CIA. He compares Covid to the flu. I note that as some here keep paraphrasing him.

But as of July 29th Johns Hopkins estimates that when dealing with the variants that respond to monoclonal antibodies – and I respect to people in the UD that have access to them – that the death rate is 10 times that of flu. (Several resistant variants “of concern” have been identified and the final number will takes years as the raging pandemic becomes an epidemic.)

Logically, since most deaths are now among unvaccinated Republicans (who increasing are coming to believe in the “big lie” about the insurrection and a danger to the Rule of Law) it’s interesting that Democrats seem disproportionately concerned about getting people vaccinated.

Legally requiring polio vaccine when there were lower standards was OK. Is Republican versus Democrat now worth betting one’s life to prove a point? (What point?)

As an employer I would never hire or keep anyone who could not solve this problem.  As an employer and human being, I also want all to not only live but also get needed hospital care. Therefore, I sometimes wonder if some of these radio and TV personalities are actually captives of their listeners. Do they have to say what their listeners want to hear to keep their market share?

In fact, sticking with denial when hospitals are crumbling is not rational. It not even sane. All kids learn to reevaluate who is telling lies and who is actually being straight and their friends when they catch some  making up stories out of thin air.

Now, today,  the truth is Covid is a global problem and only Peru is doing worse per capita. Most countries figure they need 80% vaccinated. Not us.

Jimmy Kimmel has an easy solution – a crazy political solution – to clear out beds and solve the current crisis. It’s “no vaccination, no hospital admission.” The time is coming that uncaring hard-nosed solutions like that may be the rational.

Till then who lives and dies is a medical judgement. I hope we can keep it that way. Better yet I hope adults remember the lessons they learned about as children.

Conrad F Cropsey

Albion

Editor:

Congressman Chris Jacobs complains that President Joe Biden vaccine mandate “serves no public health interest and will only further divides an already fractured nation.”

More than 1,500 American citizens are dying every day because of Covid-19 and most people sick enough to be in the hospital and dying are unvaccinated.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (DHW) issued a “Crisis Standard of Care” for hospitals in their panhandle. DHW Director Dave Jeppensen issued the following statement: “Crisis standards of care is a last resort. It means we have exhausted our resources to the point that our healthcare systems are unable to provide the treatment and care we expect. The best tools we have to turn this around is for more people to get vaccinated and to wear masks indoors and in outdoor crowded public places. Please choose to get vaccinated as soon as possible – it is your very best protection against being hospitalized from Covid-19.”

Hospitals in Florida and Texas are ordering mobile morgue units to handle overflow of dying patients. Waco Tribune-Herald reported, (8/25/21): “Local mortuaries have brought in a second mobile morgue to handle Covid-19 deaths, hospitals are short on nurses and Waco’s mayor is warning that the local health care system is near ‘the brink of collapse.’”

Hospitals are having to turn away patients with cardiac, pulmonary, kidney or other illnesses because all their bed are full of Covid-19 patient. The public health interest is served when hospitals are not over-crowed and resources are not exhausted.

Vaccines are safe and effective as Mr. Jacobs noted in his press release. The science is clear; masks work, vaccines work. There is no politics in the science.

I am sure the Mr. Jacobs cares about the health of his constituents but for some reason he must feel he can exploit the issue for political gains. That is very shameful.

William Fine

Brockport

Editor:

In the Sept. 15, 2021 Washington Post, columnist David Von Drehle talked about how heroes like Jonas Salk, Sabin, Hilleman, Ruth Bishop and others changed our lives for the better by their invention of vaccines to eliminate encephalitis, Asian flu, measles, rubella, mumps, scarlet fever, polio, rotavirus and others.

How many of us would have died in our infancy if not for our state and federal governments declaring that the vaccinations were essential for our survival?

Von Drehle asked how many of us were born deaf and blind because of rubella, scarred by smallpox, paralyzed by polio or died at an early age because of tuberculosis. Probably very few of us, because we live in the age of vaccines.

I think he is correct in saying that vaccination today is not a choice, it is a responsibility.

Jack Capurso

Albion High School 1960 graduate

Ashburn, Va.

Editor:

Congressman Chris Jacobs is holding another phony phone town hall tonight (9/8/21). The idea is to have residents call into an event hosted by Mr. Jacobs and have Mr. Jacobs answer questions.

But based on past ones, this event will have callers pre-selected to have callers praise Mr. Jacobs and criticize Democrats. The entire event is staged as a love-in for Mr. Jacobs.

Why does Mr. Jacobs feel so insecure that he has to stage these love-ins instead of holding a genuine open town-hall meeting? Why is Mr. Jacobs so afraid of meeting his constituents?

William Fine

Brockport

Editor:

I see that the Skate Park is now open and also know that there will be an official ribbon cutting ceremony this Saturday. What a wonderful addition to the Medina community.

I would like to commend the efforts of the Skate Committee, especially Alex Feig. Alex has given time/energy/money to this project. He has directly led the efforts these past few years to organize and fundraise this project.

Without his tireless efforts, we may not have such a beautiful site. Thank you, Alex, and the other members of the Medina Skate Committee. Just another reason why Medina is a great place to live.

Tom Robinson

Medina

Editor:

As a former Orleans County public health nurse, I am concerned (like everybody else) about the Covid epidemic and the rising rate of cases in Orleans County.

I am especially worried for the elementary children, who will start school soon. They are not eligible to get their vaccine yet, and are therefore not protected. Our fully vaccinated rate is 45%, not even half of the population. August 16th the Pfizer vaccine was fully approved.

This is a good time to get your vaccine. The vaccine is available at pharmacies in Orleans County. The vaccine is free to you. There are no lines anymore either. Public Health also does vaccines on Thurs, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.

More children are getting sick from the Delta variant.  Please take the time soon to get your vaccine.

Thank you,

Rosanne Golden Leach and co-signed by Robert and Margaret Golden, Sister Dolores Ann O’Dowd, Gerard Morrisey, Grace and Gary Kent.

When I sent this letter to my brother to sign I remembered that our father wrote a letter to the editor at the beginning of the school year also. It was when I started kindergarten in 1947.

It was also a letter concerning personal responsibility to protect  ourselves and others, especially little children when they start school. He was a captain in the police force in my hometown  and the letter was asking people to be careful driving  and watch for children.

Here’s that letter, which was printed locally in Elmira, NY, 9/6/47, but then traveled all over the country and was still being reprinted decades later, even in the Albion Advertiser 9/3/75.

It still applies today as does my plea for getting vaccinated and protecting children and their teachers and our health care workers:

Dad’s letter:

Dear Driver,

A few weeks ago, I saw a little girl struck by a car as she tried to cross the street. I saw a father race toward her and hold her to him as she struggled in the agony of death. I saw all the plans that have been made for her dashed and saw he look of despair that came over his face. I could only offer a prayer that such a thing might never happen again.

Today, my daughter, who is 6 years old, started off to school. Her cocker spaniel, whose name is Scoot, watched her leave and whined his belief in the folly of education.

Tonight we talked about school. She told me about the girl who sits in front of her, a girl with yellow curls, and about the boy across the aisle, who makes faces, about the teacher who has eyes in the back of her head, about the trees in the school yard and the big girl who does not believe in Santa Claus.

We talked about a lot of things—tremendously vital and unimportant things.

Now, as this is written, she is sound asleep with her doll “Paddy” in her arms.

When her doll gets broken or finger gets cut or her head gets bumped, I can fix them. But when she starts off to school—when she starts across the street—then Mr. or Mrs. Driver, she is in your hands.

Much as I wish I could, it’s not possible for me to be with her all the time. I have to work to pay for her home, her clothes and her education.

SO MR. DRIVER, please help me to look out for her. Please drive carefully. Please drive slowly past schools and at intersections. And please remember that sometimes children run from between parked cars.

Please don’t run over my little girl.

With deep thanks for whatever you can do for her, I am

Very sincerely yours,

A Father

Thank you,

Rosanne Golden Leach

Kent

Editor:

Whether or not to get the vaccination jab is not a factual choice for those who are misinformed and afraid. But it also not freedom. It’s a moral decision.

The facts in favor the vaccine are endless if you do not get all you news from watching an admitted provocateur and dissembler like Tucker Carlson. But in addition the choice has a major moral – actually biblical – aspect that no one addresses.

Unlike the Spanish Flu which killed 50,000,000 and went away, Covid is developing variants that will stay. Covid, therefore will eventually turn from a an uncontrolled “pandemic” killing people worldwide into a persistent, but more manageable, “epidemic” since a portion will always die. It probably can not be wiped out like all the things I was vaccinated for standing in line as the school nurses administered the required shot each time science beat a new disease.

For vaccinated people (and all the unvaccinated people who survive) the quickest way to get our lives back is 1) for all to be quickly vaccinated or 2) for the unvaccinated to contract it and those who are going to die, die. The fact that the sooner the unvaccinated (but susceptible) die is one way to demonstrate that taking the jab has a moral dimension.

The other way of proving that taking the jab is a moral choice is to realize the plain fact that Covid’s spread is outpacing vaccine production worldwide. (The fact that this means as we so often hear that more variants will come back to try to get us as second time is not the point.) The point is that decision to not vaccinate when it’s there to take is immoral because it means the virus will spread faster and infect more people who are waiting and wanting the vaccine will die as they wait.

Till there is vaccine for all those that want it and die are victims due to the lack of morality and risk tolerance of the anti-vax people who justify endangering others as an exercise of independence.

The plain fact is that if the issue is independence and not death of other people, the time to exercise independence is when it’s time for a booster or treatment. Refuse either or both then.

Right now helping to slow this monster down is the only moral choice. For some it means overcoming fear. For some it means that just like not running a red light, they do what is safe for all. Either way, all ways, it’s time to take the jab.

Conrad F. Cropsey

Albion

Editor:

On Aug. 24, 2021 Congressman Chris Jacobs voted against H.R. 4, the John Lewis Act which would allow the Department of Justice to prevent states from restricting voting. Republicans claim that H.R.4 would federalize elections. The Hill wrote, (8/23/21): “The GOP lawmakers wrote that the legislation ‘would federalize our election system, give more power to unelected career bureaucrats in Washington, and unconstitutionally erode the ability of states to oversee elections.’”

Republicans went after states and cities that had the temerity to offer sanctuary status to undocumented people, despite the fact that these measures made their cities safer. There was no claims of State’s Rights when the Trump administration sent in un-marked officers to Portland, Oregon over the objections of both the mayor and governor.

Mr. Jacobs had no problem trying to disenfranchise millions of citizens when he voted not to certify the election of Arizona and Pennsylvania, even though those states had certified their states election as free and fair. Republicans’ claim of State’s Rights is just too convenient.

Beyond this is the 15th Amendment to the Constitution which states: “1) The rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. 2) The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

New voting laws in many states would make voting much more difficult for minorities. Putting barriers in places to ensure long lines and inconveniences to limit participation in our democracy is abridging people right to vote.

William Fine

Brockport