Don’t rip Oregon official
3/13/2013I see the other side of the dustup at Clay High School involving P.J. Kapfhammer, the Oregon City Schools board president, and an autistic young man (“Oregon board president arraigned,” March 5).
Mr. Kapfhammer saw a person he didn’t know in a school facility. He confronted the young man, who had no outward signs of disability. If this young man had been bent on disruption, aggression, or worse, this board president would have been lauded as a hero.
I am a registered nurse who has treated autistic people. Autism is becoming known in the community, but it has no outward signs. So the board president did what everyone else would have done: confront the man and assess the danger if appropriate.
I feel sorry for the autistic man, but part of mainstreaming persons with disabilities is that they might meet people who don’t understand them and their actions.
SUZY LOWERY
Pine Trace Drive
2 lessons in taking responsibility
Three members of the Lake Township Fire Department broke a regulation and resigned for the good of the community (“3 quit Lake Township fire unit; Investigation of IV treatment after reception is under way,” Feb. 22).
In contrast, Oregon school board president P.J. Kapfhammer allegedly intimidated and belittled an autistic man who is an honorary member of the Clay High School baseball team, and has not resigned. Mr. Kapfhammer started to show remorse only after he was charged with menacing and disorderly conduct.
In Lake, individuals took responsibility for what they did wrong. In Oregon, the individual failed to take any real personal responsibility and keeps his post. The Oregon community will continue to have a bully as its school board president.
Which lesson about taking personal responsibility would you teach your children?
TODD FRICK
Oregon
Lawmakers must sequester selves
Sequestration requires widespread reductions in federal spending, but it does not apply to congressional salaries. What a bunch of hypocrites.
They’re willing to impose cuts on programs that benefit millions of Americans, but they won’t reduce their $174,000 annual salaries and average $1,353,205 annual office allowances by a single penny.
No wonder Congress is held in such low esteem by the American public.
ROBERT KELSO
Sylvania Township
Cut salaries of lawmakers in half
We are paying big bucks to our elected officials in Washington. Why aren’t they doing their jobs?
An elected official is a public servant. I don’t see members of Congress doing much public serving. Their salaries should be cut in half and put in escrow until they do the job they were elected to do.
SHARON TIPPING
Ottawa Lake, Mich.