City Hall sanity open to questionHas City Hall gone over...

City Hall sanity open to question

Has City Hall gone over the edge? Events over the past few days should lead citizens to question the sanity of the city's decision-making processes.

The first event was the mayor's decision to go ahead with the construction of a new police station on Cold Spring Lane, despite potential savings in public money by instead using the modern but empty F&M building on 29th Street.

The city does not appear to have done any analysis of the relative merits of the two sites. Yet logic would argue that acquiring an unused existing building might be less expensive than constructing a new one. But logic, and a desire to save tax dollars, does not seem to be a prerequisite for decision-making at City Hall these days.

The decision to place a tax-subsidized convention hotel a mile from the Convention Center, should leave us incredulous. A hotel across town, instead of on an available site adjacent to the Convention Center?

It is no surprise that City Hall is planning to ask the General Assembly to allow the city to proceed without a public referendum. Even as removed from reality as City Hall has become, it must know what the citizens of Baltimore will do with this one, if they get the chance.

Jon Ayscue

Baltimore

Two for one deal increases demolition

When it was announced that 1,000 vacant buildings would be demolished this year, I was skeptical. However, if the city wrecking crews can continue at their current pace -- knocking down two or three additional dwellings for each targeted property -- Housing Commissioner Dan Henson may reach his goal quite handily.

L. Wasserman

Baltimore

Gay people have families, too

Rich Peoples' letter, July 5, equates the Walt Disney Co.'s non-discriminatory practices regarding gay people as ''anti-family'' and worthy of a boycott.

Being gay and being a loving, contributing family member are not mutually exclusive. Many families have a member who is gay. Most gay people, as most other people, value and nurture their family ties.

It is time that people stop using the Bible to discriminate and exclude gay people from society, and enter into fair and logical discourse about welcoming all people in our lives.

I do not believe God values hatred and discrimination. And I know that hatred and prejudice are not family values.

Brian Cox

Baltimore

Ball player's health is his own decision

A July 1 letter from Judy Glos criticizes Orioles outfielder Eric Davis because he is trying to decide whether to have chemotherapy immediately or postpone it so he can resume playing this season.

Ms. Glos states that "Mr. Davis is being selfish to his family, teammates and the fans who showed concern for his health."

Mr. Davis should know better than any one since he is dealing with his own cancer. While we hope that he is cancer-free, the fear of it reoccurring will probably always exist in his mind.

Ms. Glos needs to realize that the decisions Mr. Davis is making are his decisions and that it is his health, his career and his life.

Christopher Rudolf

Glen Burnie Every voice on the TV has been crying for Hong Kong to remain the same.

Does this include the people begging in the streets?

Sylvia S. Lazerow

Baltimore

Americans face fossil fuel quandary

It should come as no surprise that President Clinton refused to commit to drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., as proposed by the European Union at last month's United Nations Earth Summit in New York.

As the world's single largest producer of greenhouse gases, the U.S. was asked to join the EU's goal of reducing greenhouse gases to 15 percent below 1990 levels by 2010.

Saying that goal is impossible, the Clinton administration offered to create a program to install solar panels on millions of U.S. homes, generally promote green energy and smart growth policies, and pledge $1 billion to help developing nations reduce greenhouse gases.

What the rest of the world might not understand, and probably many Americans don't either, is that the U.S. economy is successful largely because of cheap and readily available energy -- specifically fossil fuels, the main contributor to global warming. Any major effort to stem the flow of fossil fuels and thus carbon dioxide emissions over a short period of time, even by 2010, could send the U.S. economy into a tailspin.

We are in a fossil fuel quandary. What if a heavy tax were placed on gasoline, aimed at reducing consumption and, subsequently, carbon dioxide emissions?

What if that tax brought the price up to levels seen in other industrialized countries -- $3, $4, $5 per gallon? Would Americans still drive many miles to the malls on weekends? Would we buy gas-guzzling minivans, pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles?

How would a typical working person, who might commute an hour or more each day to work, cope with a much larger monthly gasoline bill?

How would the stock market fare when oil companies were told their revenues would be cut in a dozen years because of reduced consumption? And what about our oil-producing allies? What would they do? Threaten another embargo?

So this is the quandary: Protect the planet for future generations, or reduce fossil fuel consumption and risk serious economic damage now. If you were president, what would you do?

Bruce Mulliken

Catonsville

Pub Date: 7/13/97