The MAA is willing to sacrifice the safety of the passengers and visitors to save money, but they are more than willing to spend, according to your article, $16.3 million on a sky window, sculpture gardens, signage and graphics. Where is the logic in all of this?
The men and women of the BWI Fire Department are highly trained professionals. The MAA has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to train these personnel on disaster preparation and specialized crash and rescue techniques.
Now the state in its infinite wisdom wants to bring in a private for-profit company with minimal experience to run the department. This is not only about money, it's about safety.
Proposals are being made, and by the end of the year a low bid contractor could be manning the BWI fire department. If the MAA can spend $16 million on trivial things, why can't it afford to give passengers the highest quality of protection?
It seems to me the MAA is more concerned about the appearance of the airport than the safety of passengers. The state is willing to throw away the money it has invested in personnel to save what is a minimal amount in comparison to what it plans on spending on these so-called enhancement programs.
I think the public should be aware when they pass through BWI in 1995 that safety is not a main concern to the MAA.
Peggy McComas
Glen Burnie
Judge Officials Their Records
I applaud you for your series of articles on the Baltimore City police department. It is clear that this is an important series that enables people to understand how government works or does not work.
Now that an election year is before us, our elected and appointed officials from the president down are emphasizing their opposition to crime. Surprise, they are agin' it.
The occurrences of events like inflation, unemployment and crime and society's response to these occurrences are not natural phenomena like earthquakes or hurricanes, but the culmination of rational choices by citizenry and elected officials.
Too often newspaper reporting apologizes for bad decisions or outright lies by elected officials by acting as if our problems (other than natural phenomena) are beyond our abilities to predict or even to counter.
Thus, then Mayor William Donald Schaefer's choice to "save" money by cutting the Police Department budget was not a choice to "save" money (the city budget increased every year, after all), but a reallocation of taxpayers' dollars.
Crime was down, so it seemed like a rational choice, at that time. But choices change over time, and we elect people to make those choices.
With an election forthcoming, we, the citizens, are fortunate. Our elected officials from the president down have a record on the crime issue. All current elected officials, including judges, have a record on the issues that are before us.
These officials made choices and acted upon them in the legislative area in sponsoring judicial candidates, in appointing judges or by chairing or serving on legislative committees that adjudged fitness to serve on the bench or elsewhere in the criminal justice system.
The challenge to The Sun is to examine fairly every official's public record, scrutinize their current utterances and determine if these utterances square with their public record. It is important for voters to know who are altering their political persona in order to be re-elected.
Pre-election conversions are insincere and short-lived. We elect people to lead and to make choices as to where our money will be spent. If they have made mistakes in the past, they should not have a political future.
F. Patrick Hughes
Linthicum
