Thoughts on policing, school vouchers, development and our planet | Voice of the People

Do police understand poverty?

I would like to comment on the recent controversy about the Memphis police. I think the assault on Trye Nichols highlights some class and economic divisions in America. Police officer jobs offer competitive salaries and benefits. Many police officers are recruited from the middle class and have not faced the hardships and barriers that many criminal defendants have faced.

The poverty that many criminal defendants endure can lead to a criminal lifestyle. Diversity in police departments should include overcoming various forms of hardship as well as race. Having more officers who overcame poverty may help in addressing the breakdown between those who are policed and those doing the policing.

DaJuan Beaty, Akron

Vouchers don't help kids and hurt schools

Mike DeWine’s budget proposal shows that Republicans haven’t yet learned their lesson about poor performing charter schools. He wants to spend an additional $178 million on school vouchers.

An investigation conducted by Akron Beacon Journal found that more than $27 million was misspent by charter schools between 2001 and 2015. ECOT owed the state $117 million when it closed down. That money will likely never be retrieved. It’s a story repeated across the country. There is growing acknowledgment that charter schools have drained resources from public school districts and have operated with little oversight, leading to scandal in too many cases.

Tell Mike Dewine and his Republican friends that throwing good money after bad at failed voucher programs isn’t helping Ohio’s school kids.

Nancy McDowell, Akron

Build on vacant properties

I see that the Ohio Supreme Court has thrown out Menards challenge by an appeal from Citizens Action Group to block construction of a new store on a 125-acre site along Route 18 and Medina Line Road. With a Home Depot, Lowes and Walmart all within five minutes of this proposed new construction, it appears that someone is foremost only thinking of how much money they can make off of this transaction or the additional commercial property taxes this will generate.

Approval of this plan would be an overkill resulting in competitive demise of many more large already vacated storefronts throughout the Montrose, Akron and Fairlawn business districts.

The proposal to level the Fairlawn Holiday Inn and Hyde Park restaurant is a different situation as a new Sheetz gas station and two restaurants would possibly not be building on or disrupting green space as they would be building on previously “used ground.”

But with an existing Sheetz gas station two miles west on Route 18 and many gas stations concentrated in the Montrose/Fairlawn area, this too would be an overkill.

Tax abatements and incentives should be offered to businesses considering moving into an area that is “over commercialized” by firstencouraging them to consider existing vacant properties.

Gary Vitatoe, Akron

A victory for our planet

Few have heard of the Kigali Amendment, but the Senate took a huge step in fighting climate change by ratifying it in September. It shows that progress is possible when corporations realize that reducing emissions is in their own interest.

Currently, nearly all refrigerators and air conditioners use hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), industrial chemicals that work great as refrigerants, but release potent planet-warming gases into the atmosphere when they leak. In 2016, more than 100 countries signed an agreement in Kigali, Rwanda, to phase down HFCs. The United States shunned the agreement.

Fortunately, since then, environmentalists have found an unlikely ally in the cooling and refrigeration industry. Though fossil fuel companies and utilities have spent recent decades fighting environmental policy, refrigeration companies supported the Kigali Amendment.

After years of negotiations and lobbying, 69 senators voted to ratify the Kigali Amendment and join 137 other nations in phasing down HFCs. According to the EPA, “The ambitious phase down schedule will avoid more than 80 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions by 2050—avoiding up to 0.5° Celsius warming by the end of the century—while continuing to protect the ozone layer.”

Hopefully, more corporations will see the wisdom and goodwill behind this.

Todd Schneider, Cuyahoga Falls

Taking credit for no votes

Republicans who voted against and have worked to undermine the Inflation Reduction Act, are starting to see the benefits of the landmark bill, and have even started to publicize its benefits. According to a Politico report, companies have begun to announce billions of dollars in clean energy, battery and electric vehicle projects that will benefit from incentives in the law. According to Politico, about two-thirds of these projects are in districts represented by Republican lawmakers who opposed the bill.

This has prompted Republicans to tout the jobs and economic benefits coming to their constituents, but not the underlying bill that provided them. Hopefully, voters in their districts will examine which party was really working for them – Democrats – and reward them at the ballot box in 2024.

Sherry McMillen, Cuyahoga Falls

Ban assault weapons

In 1994, Congress passed a bipartisan bill banning most assault weapons purchases. After that, the rate of mass shootings declined significantly. Unfortunately, there was a sunset clause allowing (but not requiring) the bill to be rescinded 10 years later. The Republicans chose to do that, and the mass shootings rate rose dramatically after that.

In the first 24 days of 2023, the U.S. has endured 39 mass shooting deaths.

Given these statistics, it seems obvious that Congress should consider coming together, in a bipartisan manner, to pass sensible legislation against assault weapons. The only purpose of these guns is to kill human beings.

Carol Button, Cuyahoga Falls

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Thoughts on policing, school vouchers, development and our planet