The July 10 headline reported budget woes for the Vancouver Police Department and on the same day I received a notice that our good city is going to repave my street. Moreover, the city decided to even pay a contractor to trim the vegetation so the street crews can work unobstructed. My street has no cracks or potholes visible for blocks.

I lived in snow country most of my life, where freezing weather destroyed city arterials and still did little or no damage to residential streets. I have friends who have moved to the mild winter side of this state and they report the same practice of repaving perfectly good residential streets.

Our city must be awash in money. How can our city waste our tax dollars on needless street paving while our police department is begging for money? This outrageous waste needs to stop.

Jerry Richards
Vancouver

Greener with fewer

I had to chuckle when I read the July 13 AP story, “Pope calls for green ethics.” Here is a man adamantly opposed to birth control despite an overpopulated planet with real challenges of providing the basic necessities to so many people. No matter that every newborn human will immediately be contributing additional pollution. A greener planet will be accomplished not only through behavioral changes by us already here but also through population control.

Discussion of “green ethics” should include plans for fewer human beings.

Carl Tuttle
Vancouver

Ads make impact on teens

The drug problem is impacting many youth, their families and the health of our society. Prevention is crucial. In Montana one man decided to do something about the meth problem. He funded commercials aimed at a young audience. The ads are designed to communicate the consequences of meth use. View them at www.montanameth.org/ads.

According to the Montana attorney general’s office, a recent report states that “overall meth use in the state appears to be declining. In particular, teen meth use is down nearly 45 percent since 2005. Meth-related crime has dropped by 62 percent in the same period, and the number of employees testing positive for meth fell 72 percent.”

We need to have these commercials on local networks on shows that are popular with teens. Call or e-mail television stations requesting the Montana Meth Project be shown locally. We might make an impact. The minds and lives of our young people are too precious to waste.

Daphne Perry
Vancouver

Tax states proportionately

Instead of the United States taxing its citizens, I would suggest the federal government should tax the states and let each state decide how it will support the federal government. Each state would be responsible for a portion of the total federal budget, based on the number of representatives it has in Congress.

Washington would owe 9/435ths of the total federal budget, Oregon 5/435ths and California 53/435ths. The more say a state has over the budget, the more it pays.

Control over taxation would move closer to the people, the federal budget would be balanced, states would not ask for so much from the federal government. As states take less money from the federal government, its ability to control the states would decrease. States’ rights would be strengthened. After all, these are supposed to be the United States.

Odell Sneeden Hathaway III
Vancouver

Refine our own resources

This is not the America I know. Consumer confidence dips. Dollar’s down. Oil’s up. Market’s turning south. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae hurt. Our response? We lost all shame by begging the Saudis for more, and some in Congress want to sue OPEC … and we still won’t dig, drill, refine, or responsibly use our vast resources.

What’s this country doing? We can change this, and it’s not a Republican or Democrat thing. Whip energy, and our future will improve.

How? Get government out of the way; give smart people tax incentives to find energy innovations; use our own oil, wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear, wave, coal, and hydropower; and yes, cut back sensibly.

I’m disappointed how quickly we fix blame — right, left, global warming, Bush. What bothers me most is our reluctance to get over politics and egos to see the problem, use our strengths, and fix things.

Phil Miller
Vancouver

Gramm, McCain unrealistic

Columbian editorial page editor John Laird used the term, “Hounds of Whinerville,” in a previous column. Now it seems that Sen. John McCain’s chief economic adviser accused Americans of “whining about the economy.” Not only that, he said that this was a recession of the mind, a “mental recession.”

Former Sen. Phil Gramm was “cut loose” as McCain’s chief economic adviser, but retains his position of co-chairman of McCain’s election committee.

With the price of gasoline up beyond $4 a gallon, and according to the media groceries are up 17 percent, and so on, it would appear that Gramm and McCain are living in some other reality. Unfortunately for McCain the reality is that the economy is in, as Archie Bunker would say, “the terlit.” McCain has no plan to get it out of the “terlit.”

Hugh Shuford
Vancouver

Not a great return for cost

After reading the July 16 story, “C-Tran goes hybrid,” it strikes me that the extra cost is not worth it. Although the hybrid buses are projected to save 23.5 percent in fuel savings, the capacity of each new bus is less. If you do the math, the new buses have a potential of 238 “people” miles to a gallon (35 riders times 6.8 mpg), as compared to the old buses with a potential of 234 “people” miles to a gallon (45 riders times 5.2 mpg). This true net savings is only 1.7 percent, at a cost of $200,000 per bus. It doesn’t seem to be a great return on investment.

Mike Leichner
Vancouver