Letters to the Editor - The Lakeville Journal - 3-17-22

Sincere thanks to Lime Rock Park

This a thank you letter to the new management team at Lime Rock Park.  On February 22, 2022, the team at Lime Rock went before the Salisbury P&Z (application #2022-0161) with a site plan to construct both garages and a new infield concession stand.  An audio recording of the meeting and the application are both up on the P&Z website.

The plans for the infield concession building are long overdue and an enormous step forward in handicap access.  Anyone in a wheelchair knows that there has never been any access by wheelchair to the Lime Rock concession stands because the walkway to each is covered in loose stone and in the case of the concession stand in Paddock A, there are also steps.

The proposed new infield kitchen will have both handicap parking and a 5’ wide concrete walk allowing access by wheelchair to the stand and the new seating area for the first time!

I realize that the wheelchair bound community is small here, but if you aren’t aware, with the exception of the old concession stands, Lime Rock Park is a wheelchair paradise in a closed off world. Having an expansive paved area to safely walk my son outdoors is an enormous plus for which Lime Rock Park should be proud.  It even has easy to access handicap bathrooms. The new accessible concession stands simply make it perfect. Thank you.

Theodore Rudd O’Neill

Lakeville

 

Sharon Hospital merry-go-round  

I am (again) sorry to read of the Sharon Hospital’s latest operational problems.  I was born there, and have had the pleasure of using its excellent services over the many years of its existence in our fantastic Northwest Corner of Connecticut.

Now, once again, the latest owner is taking the unfortunate step of slimming it down, reducing staff and services, all because Nuvance can’t seem to understand that a hospital exists to serve and benefit people, first, over their “economic health” needs.

To people like me, it has been a blessing to have the Sharon Hospital in our corner; historically, the doctors, staff and services have been routinely excellent. As a person making my life here in real estate, it has been a great asset when promoting our area as a place to own a home, whether full or part time.

Nuvance is just the latest in a series of owners trying to make Sharon Hospital be an asset in their holdings, instead of a “burden.” Nuvance, you “owe” it to us to keep this hospital open with all its services active for the people who need them, and for the doctors and other staff who give their lives to keep our lives as healthy as possible, without having to drive long distances to get the same services.

Robin Leech

Lakeville

 

Good reasons to save the hospital

Thank goodness the state will finally begin to investigate Nuvance’s proposed closure of the ICU at Sharon Hospital.

I am a retired nurse, and worked at Sharon Hospital for years. In fact, my first job after moving to Lakeville from New York City, in 1967, was in the “new” ICU, which was possibly four beds. That was 55 years ago.

Fast forward to 2007. I was experiencing “heart burn,” went to the Sharon Hospital Emergency Room and was transferred to the ICU for observation. During the night, the nurse on duty noticed something unusual on my EKG and after consultation with the physician, I was transferred to St. Francis Hospital in Hartford.

After examination by the new medical students and interns, it was suggested I had “heart burn.” However, the attending cardiologist prepared me for a cardiac catheterization and the final diagnosis was two vessel artery disease, 95% and 70% coronary artery stenosis, ripe for a heart attack.

In 2010, two weeks after a tick bite, I developed some very scary symptoms and went to the emergency room. I was diagnosed with babesiosis, a deadly parasite transmitted by ticks. Babesia parasites infect and destroy red blood cells that carry oxygen to the brain and body organs. The end result can be death. I spent about a week in the ICU, and was monitored around the clock by the very best doctors, nurses and auxiliary personnel.

I would not be alive today without the extraordinary and compassionate care I received in the ICU.

I believe it really is an emergency for us to rally behind Save Sharon Hospital, Inc. and demand Sharon save the ICU!

Shame on the hospital BOD for letting this happen. Again.

Judi Gott

Salisbury

 

Salisbury folks: Thanks for responding to POCD

On behalf of the Salisbury Planning and Zoning Commission, I would like to thank those individuals who completed the town’s online Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD) survey, which closed on Sunday, March 13. Close to 700 individuals (681) responded to the POCD survey.  Roughly a third of the town’s population above 25 years old participated.

These data as well as the additional written comments made by 25% of the respondents will be analyzed and presented to the Planning and Zoning Commission at a public meeting. For those individuals and organizations, including the media, who helped get the word out and encourage participation in this effort — thank you!

The Planning and Zoning Commission is mandated to update our Plan of Conservation and Development every decade. While the POCD helps chart our course for the future, completion of the POCD within the statutory timeframe makes the town eligible to receive discretionary state funding.

Michael W. Klemens, Chair

Salisbury Planning and Zoning Commission

Salisbury

 

Common sense politics are sorely needed

Common sense — the ability to make what most people would consider sound and/or prudent judgment decisions. How do you think our government rates?

Does it make sense to rush ahead with the attempt to push the use of electric vehicles? Presently we don’t have the generating capacity that’s required or for that matter sufficient charging stations. Worse, nobody wants a generating plant in their backyard.

Consider the protests over the gas generating plant recently opened in Wingdale. Solar farms and wind generators haven’t been that well received either, making any future expansion iffy at best.

It comes as no surprise progressives won out when the decision was made to discontinue oil shipments from Russia. It was always the intention of this administration to lower oil consumption via higher prices. Russia merely supplied the avenue to do so.

The socialist agenda has contributed to higher prices for housing. Two years of no need to pay rent comes with consequences.

On a local level, the city of Beacon recently enacted legislation that landlords cannot raise rents more than 5% without board approval, can we be far behind? No need to explain what that means.

Government interference is never a good thing. I’m not sure how it’s legal for any entity to tell a property owner how much they can charge to lease their property.

Open borders, artificially low interest rates, increased spending along with a huge increase in government entitlements have pushed inflation beyond our wildest dreams. They have also led to more government control. That should be a concern to everyone, yet we continually vote the same idiots back in office.

So, dear readers, will you use common sense in the next election?

John Walters

Millerton

 

Ukraine Strong: a courageous clan, fighting evil

“No tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other.” 

— Aristotle

 

A table set empty, white and long

Befitting a dictator, short on all

That’s good, true & rightfully strong

Shirted, dressed head to toe

Oblivious to his nation’s woes

Puffy faced Putin commands, solo

Ordering thousands, conscripted lads

Naïve, unready, battle untried

Fuel less, foodless, they do his bad

Enemies:  children, women, the old

Such easy targets, they move so slow

Babes in arms, Ukrainians bold

Bomb them, deny them, say they bear arms

Babies just born, cuddly, warm

In Mariupol doth do Putin harm

Cloistered in his B$ palace sublime

Putin executes a plethora of crime

Death, destruction, deceit - full time

Protestors afoot on Russian land

Blocked from news, steadfastly band

Thousands arrested, a courageous clan

In shuttered Moscow, glitzy stores

Big macs, apple bites,- the city core

Tastes of the West, present no more

The world ignites against Putin’s will

Oligarchs jerked from lavish to still

Nations together forge an economic kill

Wallowing, deranged, an ancient false past

A Russian Empire long since surpassed

Putin will perish, his evil can’t last

It didn’t for Stalin, Hitler or Mao

For Putin it’s just When and How

History favors not tyrants then, or now

Lessons in bravery, on day one began

Tall Zelensky speaks, Ukrainians stand

Cometh the hour, Cometh the man

 

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it — always.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Kathy Herald-Marlowe

Sharon

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