Letters to the Editor 02-16-1999
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By -
- NIPSCO - Challenge Met - Property Owners' Rights - What DARE Means - KCH Funds - KCH And EDIT - Worker's Comp - New Tax Group
NIPSCO
Editor, Times-Union:There has been concern about the NIPSCO operating headquarters closing in Warsaw, and the people that provide the best and fast service that we should expect from a provider will be moved. Lengthening the response time to a gas leak or electric outage can be the only result of such a move. Your concerns on emergency services need to be heard.
Case in point, on Feb. 2, 1999, in Wheatfield, Ind., a gas customer of NIPSCO lost their house and nearly their lives from just such a gas leak. Five people were hurt, two received bad burns. This explosion remains under investigation, but what really bothers me is the response time of the employees to the gas leak - from Crown Point to Wheatfield is approximately two hours. Could this happen in Warsaw?
To get your answer or voice your concern, the phone number of the East Region Manager of Operating is Harry L. White, Manager, Fort Wayne, Ind., 439-1333.
If the concerned citizens of Warsaw and the county would like to help this family (they lost everything) please send help to: Wachter-Gott Fund, LaPorte FCU, P.O. Box 44, Wheatfield, IN 46392.
Herschel Rainwater, Warsaw
Challenge Met
Editor, Times-Union:Warsaw has many public and private leaders having a vision of the future of our community. Thanks to Mac Silveus, Bob Gephart, Willis Alt, Rex Reed, Jeff Plank, Ann Zydek and Irv Lindemuth for having a similar vision of the need to bring our public library up to standards worthy of the community. Their challenge to me as a prospective library board member since 1994:
1. Enlarge the facilities to fit the population growth.
2. Enhance existing services.
3. Add needed services expected of a good library.
4. Enable the staff to grow and better serve the public.
5. Re-establish the library as a pillar of the community.
6. But be affordable.
A tough set of objectives! I accepted the position. To meet the objectives, I proposed this agenda to the library board:
1. Utilize as much of the planning, efforts and PR work done by Bob Gephart and past library boards.
2. Stay at our existing location.
3. Communicate all our plans openly to the public.
4. Petition the TAN group for public support.
5. Expand and remodel the existing facility to the professionally recommended size for our population.
6. Solicit the staff for recommendations of upgraded policies and job descriptions to retain qualified employees.
Although a 42,000 square foot building met the recommended standards, its cost did not. This was a new challenge accepted by Zydek, Lindemuth and myself to raise private funds to complete the recommendations. We did better.
The visionary challenge was met:
1. The building was expanded with maximum efficient use of each square foot and more efficient human comforts.
2. Successful fund raising also enabled a dedicated genealogy room, a state of the art computer lab, improved media center, children's library and more meeting rooms.
3. Strategic facility planning provided improved services, more useful meeting rooms and a new young adult library.
4. Library policies and job descriptions now fit the needs of the staff and offer them options in their opportunities.
5. Programs and services not previously allowed, because of lack of space or facilities, have been restored or added. Once, again, the library is fulfilling its responsibilities with dignity, quality and pride.
6. Our affordability objective of a maximum $.16 tax levy increase was met. In fact, this year's rate will be less than $.13.
Having met the library challenges offered to me, I am resigning my position as a library board member. My last meeting will be the February board meeting.
I do leave these challenges to my (excellent) board partners:
1. Maintain "accurately" correct and not "politically" correct world history in our resources.
2. Continue the "Window to the World" open house theme.
3. Solicit other private companies to follow the examples of National City Bank, R.R. Donnelley, Dekko Foundation, citizens of the community and others to assist the library in meeting future needs and opportunities.
4. Continue to improve patron services, and you will see the community support continue to grow.
5. Recognize the home study groups even more.
6. Complete the distance learning facility.
7. Enhance the genealogy services.
8. Enhance the computer lab services.
9. Enhance the services to public organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, United Way.
10. Provide services to adjoining areas not serviced by a library.
11. Cooperate with area libraries to enable more efficient usage of each area's tax dollar.
12. Continue to work with the state and other library organizations.
13. Maintain the five year plan, every three years.
I thank all the current and past board and staff members helping to meet the challenges given five years ago. It was an eventful and exciting time of accomplishments, and I will forever be proud of the results. I leave as a much stronger and richer person. Again, thanks!
Donald A. Sweatland, Past Library Board President
Property Owners' Rights
Editor, Times-Union:An Indiana Property Owners' Civil Rights Act of 1999 will likely be voted on during the current Indiana legislative session. The Indiana Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Affairs, empowered by the legislature, held public forums in five Indiana cities and towns during 1998 to gather input for consideration by the 1999 legislature in framing a new annexation ordinance. The committee report contained several suggestions that could conceivably cause cities and towns a bit of inconvenience in forcibly annexing property. But the one and only guarantee that would restore property owner's civil rights to maintain control over their property and their right to be governed "by consent of the governed" as per the Declaration of Independence is the right to choose by the ballot under which local governmental entity they will live. This precept is the basis of all our freedoms and is abrogated when property owners are forced under the jurisdiction of an adjacent city or towns' governing body.
The present annexation laws only give the annexed property owners the right to legally challenge the municipality's financial capacity to provide services. The costs of such a legal challenge are conservatively estimated to require at least $50,000 for expenses through appellate court. All who own property adjacent to Indiana towns or cities (and this includes most non-city dwellers) which they don't want to become forcibly annexed to should urgently contact their legislators in support of a new law to this effect. The Indiana Association of Cities and Towns will certainly have their lobbyist in action (probably at taxpayer's expense) as most mayors are expansionists at heart.
Nearly all states have annexation laws that allow property owners a vote on annexation. When will Indiana restore to its citizens this freedom? Do we need a Martin Luther King to lead a march on Indianapolis to convince the lawmakers to refranchise us?
John H. Kerr, Valparaiso
What DARE Means
Editor, Times-Union:D.A.R.E. means so much to me. Some people think it's just to scare you. I don't. I think it is to warn kids about drugs. Some parents think that since their kids smoke, drink or do other bad and deadly drugs, that the D.A.R.E. program does not work. That is not necessarily true. D.A.R.E. stands for: Drug Abuse Resistant Education. What the "E" in D.A.R.E. stands for is something everyone should understand. It means that the D.A.R.E. officer gives the lesson in fun ways and others not as fun, but he/she gets the point across and whether the child soaks it in or not is something he/she will live with his/her whole life. When I say that I mean that most things are addictive (or it is hard to quit).
In the past year or two, there have been, in our county alone, a lot of deaths, accidents and other unpleasant happenings. So many that you can't name them all.
I think people do drugs because someone else did. Another reason is that they are depressed or hurting emotionally and think that there is no way out, so they turn to drugs. Drugs don't make you look cool they make you look older (older than you were going for) and they make you stink. They also don't make your problems go away like a person might think. They make them get worse because some people who care about you might beg and plead for you to stop and you might want to but it will be harder than you think.
When you take drugs, you don't just hurt your body, you hurt other people who care about you, like your mom, dad, brother, sister, aunts, uncles, etc. Some parents abuse or mistreat their children and they get taken away from them. I should know because my parents have the training to be foster parents (or take in children that have been mistreated). To my surprise there are a lot of kids that are mistreated. I'm lucky to have loving parents that love my sister, brother and me. There isn't anything my parents wouldn't do for us. I just wish that other kids were as lucky as me and my brother and sister. My kids are going to be taken care of as well as me, if not better.
That is what D.A.R.E. means to me.
Kim Clevenger, Warsaw
KCH Funds
Editor, Times-Union:I have been thinking about KCH getting sold.
As I remember, a few years back, people in Kosciusko County gave the money to build the hospital. I was wondering, where is all that money going to go now?
Seems to me that someone is getting rich from money that was given in good faith that the hospital would stay the same as it has always been.
So, where is all the money going? I think that all of us that gave should get a share of the profits (sounds good anyway).
Ellen Prater, Warsaw
KCH And EDIT
Editor, Times-Union:I have never written before, but must speak out now. I would just like to know why the people of this county are being asked to pay a new tax "EDIT" to cover some of the cost for a new sewer system when, in the mean time, we have accumulated a profit of $63 million from the sale of a county hospital. I, for one, object to being taxed by a county while a major profit sits in numerous bank accounts. It is time for people to speak out on this. After all people, it is YOUR MONEY.
Nancy Collins, Leesburg
Worker's Comp
Editor, Times-Union:The article on worker's comp fraud by Jack Anderson (Feb. 5) and an article on "Americans feeling loss of health care control" (Feb. 6) that appeared in the Times-Union have prompted this letter.
Perhaps if Mr. Anderson had done a little more research he would have uncovered the other side of this story. On March 17 last year, I was injured lifting an unmarked "over 70 lbs." package. I am a UPS driver. My original complaint was of my leg and back, an X-ray of my knee showed no problem so all further complaints about my knee were ignored. After 6 months of unnecessary back treatments a physical therapist "popped" my back and it was fine.
My knee however was still a complaint, after a visit to a worker's comp doctor for my knee I was sent back to the "back doctor." This doctor scheduled me with an associate of his to see my knee. Then on the insurance adjustor say so, I was sent back to work even though I had a doctor's slip saying that I was to remain off work until my knee was examined. After 4 days of painful and unsafe work, I refused to work any more until my appointment for my knew.
To shorten the story...since then I have had arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn cartilage. However, I have not been paid since Nov. 20, 1998, and the charges for the surgery are unpaid also. I will remind you that the knee was an original complaint. Complaints to the Worker's Comp. Ombudsman, my state senator and my state representative have accomplished nothing.
Mr. Anderson, lest you should think I am milking the system, I have lost nearly $300 a week in pay while worker's comp was paying and am now getting into serious financial difficulty. I have all of the documentation on this if you care to see it. The fact is that, in Indiana, the system is set up so that there is no incentive for the insurance carrier to do what's right or to settle once things go wrong. Even if you have to take them to court, there are no fines or penalties against them and the lawyer's fees come out of the back benefits that you are owed.
The worker's comp carrier is able to control the treatment then deny benefits after they mess it up. They are even thumbing their nose at the provisions of our collective bargaining agreement, and why not? For them there is no penalty, they can't even be sued.
I urge all of you reading this to contact your elected state officials and ask them to change this system before you find yourself in this position.
In closing, I feel it necessary to mention that I know of two people that have had similar experiences with Indiana worker's comp. One of them is also a woman, the other is black. I wonder if the ACLU should do a study to look for a pattern in this.
Amy Harding, Warsaw
New Tax Group
Editor, Times-Union:Charity and ever vigilance begins at home. What's the sense of talking about, or ranting and raving over the doings of Federal or State issues when we have plenty right here in the county to address. Yes - TAN (Tax Action Network) is all but gone under - dead - sunk. A-ha, I can still see its pendant. Maybe we can learn from our mistakes and build a new platform from which we the people can speak from. A platform to voice our opinions, a forum for personal involvement in local government issues, an organization to help us all to become better informed voters, better informed on the issues of the citizens through public debate.
Young voters, hear this plea! This will be your arena someday. Don't let the mistakes of today destroy your chances for success tomorrow. This organization will give you and like-minded people the opportunity to stand and speak your mind, regardless of party affiliation.
Teachers, you too are invited and encouraged to please attend and become an active member. To help promote better understanding of county concerns and issues, perhaps get the kids involved and in turn get their parents involved. Teachers, with a little brainstorming all kinds of good can come from this. We are not listening to what the kids are trying to say. Let's give them a platform to speak from.
We also need the past experience and maturity of the senior citizens for guidance. Think of the impact we can make as retired people. Our young people must feel abandoned by our actions. I ask that all people attend, junior and senior citizens of the county.
The purpose of the new CCC (Citizens Concerned for the County): to provide an avenue through which individual involvement will give guidance to our elected officials and boards, thereby creating pride in ourselves and in our communities and also prudent management of fiscal resources and an overall better environment in which to live.
Our first meeting was last night at the new library, in the AB meeting room. The next meeting will be Feb. 22 at 6:30 p.m. in the same room to discuss the county Economic Development Income Tax.
I must state that this is non-profit and non-partisan.
Herschel Rainwater, Leesburg
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- NIPSCO - Challenge Met - Property Owners' Rights - What DARE Means - KCH Funds - KCH And EDIT - Worker's Comp - New Tax Group
NIPSCO
Editor, Times-Union:There has been concern about the NIPSCO operating headquarters closing in Warsaw, and the people that provide the best and fast service that we should expect from a provider will be moved. Lengthening the response time to a gas leak or electric outage can be the only result of such a move. Your concerns on emergency services need to be heard.
Case in point, on Feb. 2, 1999, in Wheatfield, Ind., a gas customer of NIPSCO lost their house and nearly their lives from just such a gas leak. Five people were hurt, two received bad burns. This explosion remains under investigation, but what really bothers me is the response time of the employees to the gas leak - from Crown Point to Wheatfield is approximately two hours. Could this happen in Warsaw?
To get your answer or voice your concern, the phone number of the East Region Manager of Operating is Harry L. White, Manager, Fort Wayne, Ind., 439-1333.
If the concerned citizens of Warsaw and the county would like to help this family (they lost everything) please send help to: Wachter-Gott Fund, LaPorte FCU, P.O. Box 44, Wheatfield, IN 46392.
Herschel Rainwater, Warsaw
Challenge Met
Editor, Times-Union:Warsaw has many public and private leaders having a vision of the future of our community. Thanks to Mac Silveus, Bob Gephart, Willis Alt, Rex Reed, Jeff Plank, Ann Zydek and Irv Lindemuth for having a similar vision of the need to bring our public library up to standards worthy of the community. Their challenge to me as a prospective library board member since 1994:
1. Enlarge the facilities to fit the population growth.
2. Enhance existing services.
3. Add needed services expected of a good library.
4. Enable the staff to grow and better serve the public.
5. Re-establish the library as a pillar of the community.
6. But be affordable.
A tough set of objectives! I accepted the position. To meet the objectives, I proposed this agenda to the library board:
1. Utilize as much of the planning, efforts and PR work done by Bob Gephart and past library boards.
2. Stay at our existing location.
3. Communicate all our plans openly to the public.
4. Petition the TAN group for public support.
5. Expand and remodel the existing facility to the professionally recommended size for our population.
6. Solicit the staff for recommendations of upgraded policies and job descriptions to retain qualified employees.
Although a 42,000 square foot building met the recommended standards, its cost did not. This was a new challenge accepted by Zydek, Lindemuth and myself to raise private funds to complete the recommendations. We did better.
The visionary challenge was met:
1. The building was expanded with maximum efficient use of each square foot and more efficient human comforts.
2. Successful fund raising also enabled a dedicated genealogy room, a state of the art computer lab, improved media center, children's library and more meeting rooms.
3. Strategic facility planning provided improved services, more useful meeting rooms and a new young adult library.
4. Library policies and job descriptions now fit the needs of the staff and offer them options in their opportunities.
5. Programs and services not previously allowed, because of lack of space or facilities, have been restored or added. Once, again, the library is fulfilling its responsibilities with dignity, quality and pride.
6. Our affordability objective of a maximum $.16 tax levy increase was met. In fact, this year's rate will be less than $.13.
Having met the library challenges offered to me, I am resigning my position as a library board member. My last meeting will be the February board meeting.
I do leave these challenges to my (excellent) board partners:
1. Maintain "accurately" correct and not "politically" correct world history in our resources.
2. Continue the "Window to the World" open house theme.
3. Solicit other private companies to follow the examples of National City Bank, R.R. Donnelley, Dekko Foundation, citizens of the community and others to assist the library in meeting future needs and opportunities.
4. Continue to improve patron services, and you will see the community support continue to grow.
5. Recognize the home study groups even more.
6. Complete the distance learning facility.
7. Enhance the genealogy services.
8. Enhance the computer lab services.
9. Enhance the services to public organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, United Way.
10. Provide services to adjoining areas not serviced by a library.
11. Cooperate with area libraries to enable more efficient usage of each area's tax dollar.
12. Continue to work with the state and other library organizations.
13. Maintain the five year plan, every three years.
I thank all the current and past board and staff members helping to meet the challenges given five years ago. It was an eventful and exciting time of accomplishments, and I will forever be proud of the results. I leave as a much stronger and richer person. Again, thanks!
Donald A. Sweatland, Past Library Board President
Property Owners' Rights
Editor, Times-Union:An Indiana Property Owners' Civil Rights Act of 1999 will likely be voted on during the current Indiana legislative session. The Indiana Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Affairs, empowered by the legislature, held public forums in five Indiana cities and towns during 1998 to gather input for consideration by the 1999 legislature in framing a new annexation ordinance. The committee report contained several suggestions that could conceivably cause cities and towns a bit of inconvenience in forcibly annexing property. But the one and only guarantee that would restore property owner's civil rights to maintain control over their property and their right to be governed "by consent of the governed" as per the Declaration of Independence is the right to choose by the ballot under which local governmental entity they will live. This precept is the basis of all our freedoms and is abrogated when property owners are forced under the jurisdiction of an adjacent city or towns' governing body.
The present annexation laws only give the annexed property owners the right to legally challenge the municipality's financial capacity to provide services. The costs of such a legal challenge are conservatively estimated to require at least $50,000 for expenses through appellate court. All who own property adjacent to Indiana towns or cities (and this includes most non-city dwellers) which they don't want to become forcibly annexed to should urgently contact their legislators in support of a new law to this effect. The Indiana Association of Cities and Towns will certainly have their lobbyist in action (probably at taxpayer's expense) as most mayors are expansionists at heart.
Nearly all states have annexation laws that allow property owners a vote on annexation. When will Indiana restore to its citizens this freedom? Do we need a Martin Luther King to lead a march on Indianapolis to convince the lawmakers to refranchise us?
John H. Kerr, Valparaiso
What DARE Means
Editor, Times-Union:D.A.R.E. means so much to me. Some people think it's just to scare you. I don't. I think it is to warn kids about drugs. Some parents think that since their kids smoke, drink or do other bad and deadly drugs, that the D.A.R.E. program does not work. That is not necessarily true. D.A.R.E. stands for: Drug Abuse Resistant Education. What the "E" in D.A.R.E. stands for is something everyone should understand. It means that the D.A.R.E. officer gives the lesson in fun ways and others not as fun, but he/she gets the point across and whether the child soaks it in or not is something he/she will live with his/her whole life. When I say that I mean that most things are addictive (or it is hard to quit).
In the past year or two, there have been, in our county alone, a lot of deaths, accidents and other unpleasant happenings. So many that you can't name them all.
I think people do drugs because someone else did. Another reason is that they are depressed or hurting emotionally and think that there is no way out, so they turn to drugs. Drugs don't make you look cool they make you look older (older than you were going for) and they make you stink. They also don't make your problems go away like a person might think. They make them get worse because some people who care about you might beg and plead for you to stop and you might want to but it will be harder than you think.
When you take drugs, you don't just hurt your body, you hurt other people who care about you, like your mom, dad, brother, sister, aunts, uncles, etc. Some parents abuse or mistreat their children and they get taken away from them. I should know because my parents have the training to be foster parents (or take in children that have been mistreated). To my surprise there are a lot of kids that are mistreated. I'm lucky to have loving parents that love my sister, brother and me. There isn't anything my parents wouldn't do for us. I just wish that other kids were as lucky as me and my brother and sister. My kids are going to be taken care of as well as me, if not better.
That is what D.A.R.E. means to me.
Kim Clevenger, Warsaw
KCH Funds
Editor, Times-Union:I have been thinking about KCH getting sold.
As I remember, a few years back, people in Kosciusko County gave the money to build the hospital. I was wondering, where is all that money going to go now?
Seems to me that someone is getting rich from money that was given in good faith that the hospital would stay the same as it has always been.
So, where is all the money going? I think that all of us that gave should get a share of the profits (sounds good anyway).
Ellen Prater, Warsaw
KCH And EDIT
Editor, Times-Union:I have never written before, but must speak out now. I would just like to know why the people of this county are being asked to pay a new tax "EDIT" to cover some of the cost for a new sewer system when, in the mean time, we have accumulated a profit of $63 million from the sale of a county hospital. I, for one, object to being taxed by a county while a major profit sits in numerous bank accounts. It is time for people to speak out on this. After all people, it is YOUR MONEY.
Nancy Collins, Leesburg
Worker's Comp
Editor, Times-Union:The article on worker's comp fraud by Jack Anderson (Feb. 5) and an article on "Americans feeling loss of health care control" (Feb. 6) that appeared in the Times-Union have prompted this letter.
Perhaps if Mr. Anderson had done a little more research he would have uncovered the other side of this story. On March 17 last year, I was injured lifting an unmarked "over 70 lbs." package. I am a UPS driver. My original complaint was of my leg and back, an X-ray of my knee showed no problem so all further complaints about my knee were ignored. After 6 months of unnecessary back treatments a physical therapist "popped" my back and it was fine.
My knee however was still a complaint, after a visit to a worker's comp doctor for my knee I was sent back to the "back doctor." This doctor scheduled me with an associate of his to see my knee. Then on the insurance adjustor say so, I was sent back to work even though I had a doctor's slip saying that I was to remain off work until my knee was examined. After 4 days of painful and unsafe work, I refused to work any more until my appointment for my knew.
To shorten the story...since then I have had arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn cartilage. However, I have not been paid since Nov. 20, 1998, and the charges for the surgery are unpaid also. I will remind you that the knee was an original complaint. Complaints to the Worker's Comp. Ombudsman, my state senator and my state representative have accomplished nothing.
Mr. Anderson, lest you should think I am milking the system, I have lost nearly $300 a week in pay while worker's comp was paying and am now getting into serious financial difficulty. I have all of the documentation on this if you care to see it. The fact is that, in Indiana, the system is set up so that there is no incentive for the insurance carrier to do what's right or to settle once things go wrong. Even if you have to take them to court, there are no fines or penalties against them and the lawyer's fees come out of the back benefits that you are owed.
The worker's comp carrier is able to control the treatment then deny benefits after they mess it up. They are even thumbing their nose at the provisions of our collective bargaining agreement, and why not? For them there is no penalty, they can't even be sued.
I urge all of you reading this to contact your elected state officials and ask them to change this system before you find yourself in this position.
In closing, I feel it necessary to mention that I know of two people that have had similar experiences with Indiana worker's comp. One of them is also a woman, the other is black. I wonder if the ACLU should do a study to look for a pattern in this.
Amy Harding, Warsaw
New Tax Group
Editor, Times-Union:Charity and ever vigilance begins at home. What's the sense of talking about, or ranting and raving over the doings of Federal or State issues when we have plenty right here in the county to address. Yes - TAN (Tax Action Network) is all but gone under - dead - sunk. A-ha, I can still see its pendant. Maybe we can learn from our mistakes and build a new platform from which we the people can speak from. A platform to voice our opinions, a forum for personal involvement in local government issues, an organization to help us all to become better informed voters, better informed on the issues of the citizens through public debate.
Young voters, hear this plea! This will be your arena someday. Don't let the mistakes of today destroy your chances for success tomorrow. This organization will give you and like-minded people the opportunity to stand and speak your mind, regardless of party affiliation.
Teachers, you too are invited and encouraged to please attend and become an active member. To help promote better understanding of county concerns and issues, perhaps get the kids involved and in turn get their parents involved. Teachers, with a little brainstorming all kinds of good can come from this. We are not listening to what the kids are trying to say. Let's give them a platform to speak from.
We also need the past experience and maturity of the senior citizens for guidance. Think of the impact we can make as retired people. Our young people must feel abandoned by our actions. I ask that all people attend, junior and senior citizens of the county.
The purpose of the new CCC (Citizens Concerned for the County): to provide an avenue through which individual involvement will give guidance to our elected officials and boards, thereby creating pride in ourselves and in our communities and also prudent management of fiscal resources and an overall better environment in which to live.
Our first meeting was last night at the new library, in the AB meeting room. The next meeting will be Feb. 22 at 6:30 p.m. in the same room to discuss the county Economic Development Income Tax.
I must state that this is non-profit and non-partisan.
Herschel Rainwater, Leesburg
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