Letters to the Editor
These parking spaces are a matter of safety. Currently, we do not have enough parking for our staff in our lot. As a result, some employees are forced to park in a different lot, opening them up to harassment and harm from the protesters who are a constant presence in front of our health center.
Anti-choice activists photograph our staff, their cars and license plates, creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. No one should have to endure this type of harassment when entering and leaving their place of employment.
This parking situation also impacts the safety of our patients. When patients are forced to park in the Dominick's lot across the street, they have to walk through the protesters and are then subjected to the harassment and intimidation tactics of our opposition.
Our staff and our patients deserve the safety and protection these additional parking spaces will provide.
Adrianne Harkless
manager
Planned Parenthood Aurora Health Center
Our generation is not lazy; we are well educated and well aware of global issues. I will admit that a Twitter "Tweet" notified me of the Info-Celebrity Billy Mays passing, and that a friend's Facebook status informed me of the latest "Lunar Blasting"
I have decided to utilize the powerful social media platform towards an important cause. To assure our friends in uniform that we are aware of their sacrifice overseas, We Band Behind our Brothers and Sisters.
I do not care if you are a Democrat or Republican; a Jedi or a Trekkie; or a Mac or a PC.
We can all agree on one thing:
We have all been affected by today's war. Let's do this. Support them. They are our lunch buddies, our bathroom buddies, our lab partners, our wing men, our designated drivers, our FRIENDS.
An easy $1 donation will go towards the cost of sending a care package (each package costs $11.95 postage).
Why donate?
1. Prove to other Generations that we are NOT wasting away at the computer; we are making a difference!
2. Pressing the "Donate" button is faster than creating your latest Facebook status at your lunch break...
3. ... or thinking of the latest witty 140 character "Tweet"...
4. Let's Band Behind our Brothers and Sisters; and use our Savvy Social Media Skills to Support our Friends!
You can donate at the following Web sites:
Visit the official Facebook "Cause" page! Click Join, let our deployed friends be aware that we know that they are not forgotten! Search: Band Behind our Brothers and Sisters.
Or visit the official Fox Valley Troop Support Web site, www.fvts.org.
Olivia Giachino
Fox Valley Truth Support
St. Charles
The health care fiasco that's being rammed down our throats will increase taxes, spelled T-R-I-L-L-I-O-N-S (that's 12 zeros). A "stimulus" will raise taxes because it's "we, the people" who foot the bill for everything (remember, the government has no money except that which they take away from us and our families).
Speaker Pelosi, with no regard to public opinion, still wants to force the "public option" on us even though well over half the population wants no part of it.
We are discovering that our so-called representatives won't listen to "we, the people" (no representation). Our local congressman would not hold a town hall meeting this past August/September because he knew the outcome. "Let's do a town hall phone meeting!" Please.
And Senator Durbin refused to have one and was conveniently out of the country on "business." Uh-huh. I'm sure it was necessary. Official business, I suppose, paid for with public funds. And it's not just in Illinois.
The refrain is now "health insurance reform." Same idea -- different name. You can fool some of the people ... Do things need to be fixed? Of course. But you don't trash the car if you get a flat tire.
The people speak and our elected officials turn a deaf ear, suggesting that we are too ignorant to decide. We're "Astroturf," we're rioters and tea-baggers, or worse. We're racists because we don't lockstep with the White House. Debate is gone. You must agree or be vilified. You will obey. 1984.
"Taxation without representation is tyranny." If we are not being represented, then they must be tyrants. Now what?
Mark Werthmann
Aurora
President Mary Stith stated: "The Board appreciates the opportunity to inform the public about the work of the school board and wonderful things our administration and staff are doing ..."
Nonsense. If the board really appreciated more exposure, they would have done this long ago. They know the more public involvement, the more the public will question and challenge the board's will -- chaining it with a conscience.
Actually, it was FACTS members (For Accountable Controlled Tax Spending), a Geneva grass-roots organization, who encouraged and implored the board until they relented.
At the beginning of last summer, a FACTS member requested information about expenses from district credit cards through the Freedom of Information Act. Once made public, these costs forced the board to acknowledge them by publishing them on the school Web site, admitting to tens of thousands of dollars spent annually on food and entertainment.
To join over 200 other Geneva taxpayers dedicated to clarify spending and increase accountability, receive FACTS e-mails by going to taxfacts@sbcglobal.net Help to get our taxing bodies to tell it like it is. Richard Holinger Geneva
