Children’s agency needs help

10/23/2012

Sup­pose a child you knew was be­ing abused — per­haps the vic­tim of phys­i­cal, emo­tional, or sex­ual abuse be­cause of mount­ing stresses on his or her par­ents, who lacked the fam­ily or com­mu­nity sup­port they needed to raise their child safely (“Chil­dren Ser­vices: Yes,” ed­i­to­rial, Oct. 1).

You’d want to know that your county child pro­tec­tion agency was there to pro­tect the child and help the par­ents get their lives back in or­der.

For that rea­son — and more — we ask peo­ple to vote yes on Is­sue 25, the 1.85-mill levy re­newal and in­crease to sup­port Lu­cas County Chil­dren Ser­vices, the agency that pro­tects chil­dren from abuse and ne­glect in Lu­cas County.

Your sup­port rep­resents more than half of Chil­dren Ser­vices’ bud­get. While we have twice re­duced our lev­ies, de­clin­ing prop­erty val­ues and re­duced fed­eral and state fund­ing mean that Chil­dren Ser­vices re­ceives less money, even though the need for our ser­vices re­mains the same.

With­out your yes vote on Is­sue 25, we will be­gin lay­ing off staff, po­ten­tially leav­ing chil­dren at risk.

Is­sue 25 will cost the res­i­dent of a $100,000 home an ex­tra $26 a year. The money will not be col­lected un­til Jan­u­ary, 2014. We will use the next 14 months to con­tinue our in­ter­nal cost-cut­ting ef­forts. Vote yes on Is­sue 25, to pro­tect chil­dren from abuse and ne­glect.

DEAN SPARKS
Ex­ec­u­tive Direc­tor Chil­dren Ser­vicesLu­cas CountyAdams Street

Where’s spirit of Rea­gan-O’Neill?

Re­pub­li­cans vowed not to com­pro­mise with Dem­o­crats. Com­pro­mise is syn­on­y­mous with ne­go­ti­a­tion. Re­fus­ing to ne­go­ti­ate equals stale­mate.

Pres­i­dent Ron­ald Rea­gan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill were op­posed po­lit­i­cally, but they worked out agree­ments that were good for our coun­try.

Our pres­ent House speaker does not have the back­bone to stand up to the right-wing zeal­ots of his party. This is bad for all of us.

Com­mon sense, ne­go­ti­a­tion, and com­pro­mise have been the rule of the sane and re­li­able.

ROBERT HAYNES
San­dra Drive

Komen event a form of wor­ship

I re­cently lost my wife to breast can­cer. I took of­fense at the Oct. 8 Read­ers’ Fo­rum let­ter “Sun­day events sup­plant wor­ship,” which named the Komen North­west Ohio Race for the Cure as an ex­am­ple of an event that makes peo­ple choose be­tween church and the ac­tiv­ity.

The writer’s point was that Sun­day events should start in the af­ter­noon to avoid a con­flict with wor­ship. I can think of no sports event that starts at 9 a.m. on a Sun­day.

The Sun­day of the Komen event, 10 of us were walk­ing in mem­ory of my wife. It was touch­ing to see so many names of the liv­ing and de­ceased that were hon­ored.

I feel that walk­ing for such a good cause, and cel­e­brat­ing life, are the high­est form of wor­ship there is.

JIM SULLIVAN
Bowen Road

Churches should ad­just start times

The 19th an­nual Komen North­west Ohio Race for the Cure made peo­ple choose be­tween go­ing to church or to the event, where there were about 17,000 par­tic­i­pants.

Hav­ing the event on a Sun­day fairly early in the morn­ing helps min­i­mize the ef­fects on traf­fic flow.

In sup­port of breast-can­cer sur­vi­vors and those who have not sur­vived, per­haps churches could ad­just their start time on the Sun­day of next year’s race to 12:30 p.m. or 1 p.m., or of­fer a Satur­day ser­vice so a choice won’t have to be made.

ELAINE MARLOW
Wag­goner Bou­le­vard