Duckworth's Court Experience
We need competent management of the Clerk of the Court's office. The clerk's office manages 87 employees, collects over $40 million in revenue yearly, must meet the needs of the judges, and most importantly serve you the public. The only qualified person in this race is Bob Duckworth. The Sun has lost credibility for failing to endorse Bob Duckworth.
For the past four years, Bob has been my right arm. His understanding of the clerk's office and knowledge of the operations is exactly what we need to keep my management reforms on track. We worked too hard to improve the operations of this office to let it slip back into the hands of inexperience.
Bob Duckworth has been responsible for the implementation of a personnel policy that stresses qualifications over political connections. We must not return to the days of political patronage when the spouses and friends of political contributors are hired over better qualified individuals. We ended that practice and we must ensure that it does not happen again.
When it comes to qualifications and background, Bob Duckworth is head and shoulders above his opponent, Janet Owens. Bob has held strong managerial positions supervising large staffs for over 20 years. Ms. Owens headed the county's housing agency for only two years. Ms. Owens' court experience is limited to a part-time job over the past four years.
This year we must continue the management reforms that made the clerk's office work again. . . .
Mary McNally Rose
Annapolis
The writer is Anne Arundel County Clerk of the Court.
Gary on Education
With so many politicians passing the buck on education in our county, it's refreshing to read in your news paper that John Gary, candidate for county executive, wants to be held accountable if he is elected. I like the changes he has proposed which will require the County Council and school board to work together and be held accountable for their actions. Currently, they just blame each other and nothing gets accomplished. I'm glad Mr. Gary has a plan for improving education, and will stick by it.
Gloria Hereford
Davidsonville
School Violence
The recent violence at Meade High School demonstrates that we need to address the growing problem of violence in our public schools. It's encouraging to know that candidates like John Gary have stepped forward, identified problems in our county and have offered workable solutions.
I like John Gary's idea of confronting violent students head on rather than looking the other way. His approach makes a lot of sense. Take disruptive students out of the classroom and place them in separate disciplinary programs within the school, and immediately suspend students who carry weapons and automatically refer them to the authorities, i.e. police. That's the kind of change our school system needs.
Jennifer Parker-Rauth
Crofton
'Huggers'?
I am writing in response to John Greiber's recent comments about eliminating all professional victim advocates or "huggers" as he called them and replacing them with volunteers. His comments are misguided and reveal a basic lack of appreciation for, and understanding of, the needs of victims of violent crime.
Professional victim advocates who work with domestic violence victims are a necessity in Anne Arundel County. The victim advocate helps domestic violence victims navigate through a very confusing and complex judicial system, a vital service needed to help bring safety and justice to victims.
It is not enough just to be physically there; the victim advocate also brings extensive knowledge about Maryland laws and the process of obtaining relief through the Anne Arundel court system. One confusing form too many can be the last straw for a victim already traumatized and anxious to "forget" the whole experience.
Professional victim advocates provide consistency and continuity for the victims. They provide support and guidance through the development of a relationship of trust with the victim. Volunteers are a much-needed component in the victim advocacy program but cannot replace the consistency and commitment of a professional victim advocate.
Further, Mr. Greiber's comments reflect a lack of understanding for the on-going efforts of the victim rights movement to institute basic constitutional rights for those harmed by crime. It seems our system is very protective of rights of the violent criminal, but falls short in caring for the rights and needs of the victim.
The Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence has seen clearly that battered women have a better response from and opinion of our criminal justice system when a competent victim advocate is involved. Abolishing the established effective victim advocacy unit would be tantamount to abandoning some of Maryland's most vulnerable at the moment of greatest need. . . .
Susan C. Mize
Silver Spring
The writer is executive director of the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence.
Pepersack's Signs
I am a voter who has volunteered to help Sheriff Robert G.
Pepersack get re-elected by putting up yard signs. It really is discouraging that the opposition feels that destroying "Sheriff Pepersack for Sheriff" yard signs will win the election. I hope the voters of this county look at the qualifications of Sheriff Pepersack and his promises kept over the past four years and not at the number of yard signs that appear and quickly disappear.
David R. Haight
Glen Burnie
. . . Murphy's Signs
I have always voted because I'm an American, but I'm disgusted with the moral character of some candidates seeking office today.
Shirley Murphy's volunteers put signs in my yard on two occasions and they were stolen in the middle of the night. I called the police, but they did nothing.
This was not an act of vandalism, no one else's signs were touched, but all seven of Mrs. Murphy's signs on my street were stolen. . . .
Butch Rommel
Marley Park
Chaney for Council
As a resident of Crofton and a public school teacher, I believe it is very important that the constituents of the Seventh District elect Dotty Chaney as our next County Council representative. Mrs. Chaney, a 10-year school board member and a teacher herself, has the knowledge and the hands-on experience we need, since so many Anne Arundel County tax dollars go to fund the educational system: 57 cents from every tax dollar is for school funding.
Also, Dotty Chaney's proposals to improve our economy demonstrate insight and understanding of practical solutions to many of the problems facing our county today.
Marcia Richard
Crofton
Buster's Demise
After reading the article of Sept. 27 describing the horrific demise of Buster, the 18-month-old friend and pet of Harley Moore, I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness. As I sit here trying to put these feelings into expression, I write this letter in memory of Buster and dedicate it to all the defenseless animals who suffer so much cruelty at the hands of humankind.
Has our society become so numb to pain and violence? Why do we continue to stand in silence? Have we become a society without tears? It's a society with a serious deficit in compassion -- the missing link that could restore us to sanity.
My thanks to Judge Patricia Pytash for giving William Mielke 60 days in jail; it is most unfortunate he didn't receive the maximum. Will stiffer laws prevent the impulsive acts of brutality? I doubt it. Is someone really going to stop and think before they act out in rage? I doubt it. So how can we eradicate evil? By starting with the self. And so it is sung, "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me." . . .
Patricia A. Willis
Glen Burnie
Wagner's Tax Errs
In the Oct. 16 Sun transcript of the debate between the two District 32 state Senate candidates, incumbent Democrat Michael J. Wagner stated incorrectly that the Republican Party "does not have a pledge for term limitations . . . as part of their national platform." A term limitation plank for members of Congress was, in fact, included in the 1988 National Party Platform, and, as one of Maryland's two members of the platform committee that year (Ellen Sauerbrey was the other), I helped garner committee support to put it there. Support for this plank was reaffirmed in the 1992 party platform in Houston.
Mr. Wagner also criticizes me and "the rest of these Republicans" for opposing gas tax and other tax increases. As Mr. Wagner is well aware, there were many Democrats in the General Assembly, as well as Republicans, who voted against the major tax increase bill of 1992, so his critique of Republicans only is inaccurate and hypocritical.
With reference to the gas tax, it should be noted that not all gas tax revenues are applied to the maintenance and improvement of highways and bridges, as Mr. Wagner implies. Millions of dollars of these dedicated taxes are diverted to the general fund with no payback provision, and less than 40 percent of the tax revenue is slated for the highway program . . . The Transportation Trust Fund has not been used for the purpose for which it was established.
Mr. Wagner also makes the erroneous statement in The Sun interview that "no taxes were raised, except the gasoline tax, that really affects anybody." From snack foods to newspaper sales to telephone services, Marylanders are paying more taxes and new taxes thanks to the General Assembly tax hike of 1992. In addition to cigarette tax increases, goods and services taxed include newspaper sales, food at college and hospital cafeterias, food equipment and utilities, prescription dietary dog and cat food, cellular telephone services and telephone answering services, snack foods, prepared foods in groceries and commercial cleaning services.
When Mr. Wagner states that these taxes do not "really affect anybody," he is dead wrong.
John R. Leopold
Pasadena
The writer is a Republican candidate for the Maryland House of Delegates in District 31.
Baldwin and Jabez
With the overdevelopment of our county, the destruction of our forest and the overcrowding of our schools, it is amazing to me that a candidate for this office would add to these problems.
Robert Baldwin, a developer, wants us to trust him in the Maryland House of Delegates. He is actively seeking to develop 142 acres of land mostly forested along the Jabez Branch of the Severn River. This is our county's last remaining trout stream and has already been damaged by development. He and his company want to build 78 houses with roads around this sensitive stream. Please, vote anybody but Robert Baldwin to the House of Delegates.
Kurk Hess
Crofton