On Vietnam Veterans
On March 29 I doubt you hear greetings of "Happy Vietnam Veterans Day." Matter of fact, most folks have no idea it is even a celebrated day. No parades, no big ceremonies, no big anything except for those of us that served.
No war is good, but the Vietnam War was so very different. American men and women serving on foreign soil for a cause most did not understand. In many cases we witnessed death: death of the enemy as well as death of friends and comrades. Very few Vietnam vets talk about it. For many, even after 50-plus years passing, sleep still brings us to a place we never wanted to return.
Vietnam Veterans are a tight brotherhood, a proud group of men and women that served their country without question. On this Vietnam War Veterans Day, I salute you all. Welcome home!
STAN JAROS
Little Rock
Traffic enforcement
We often hear of a huge surfeit of cops: too many retirements, too many unfilled positions, too few applicants (understandable, actually, in the face of the "defund" movement). Violent and property crime soar while we hear these excuses. We can no longer justify using these scarce human resources for routine traffic enforcement.
And clearly we aren't. Any central Arkansas driver sees it every day, on virtually every street: speeds at least 15 mph over posted limits. Drivers whiz by, darting from lane to lane. Our neighborhood asks the substation for enforcement, but the answer is always that they don't have the resources ... they are allocated for more serious crimes.
So why not use increasingly sophisticated cameras to automate the process? A number of states do this already: high-resolution video ID of the vehicle and plate, with radar measurement of speed. Ticketing is done by mail, with appropriate opportunity for appeal. I am told that whenever our state Legislature considers this, it's shot down for "privacy concerns." What privacy right do I have if I'm speeding down the road, endangering fellow citizens, and am fined by virtue of a validated video of my violation?
Our Legislature should debate and pass enabling legislation, and our traffic engineers should prioritize and put into place this method. Then the all-too-few cop cars behind bushes watching a radar screen all day can be reassigned to burglaries, assaults, and worse. Are we serious about crime or not?
PETE MARVIN
Little Rock
Warning system ills
Once again Friday afternoon's storms showed just how antiquated our tornado warning system is in Little Rock. The possible tornado was basically south of the city and moving to the east. But sirens unnecessarily sounded in far west Little Rock.
Why can't we get a system that can be directed to only the areas most threatened? This has been a problem for years.
MICHAEL C. McKINNEY
Little Rock
Law won't benefit all
During public discussions of the LEARNS Act, some government officials have offered only one reason for supporting the Education Freedom Accounts (the vouchers program). That reason: It increases the ability of parents to choose a school for their children. That is true, for vouchers will reduce the costs for students that attend private schools or have home schooling, but another result will be public schools will lose both students and dollars from their budgets. However, the fixed costs for operating public schools will still be there.
There are 11 counties (Pulaski, Washington, Benton, Sebastian, Faulkner, White, Saline, Craighead, Garland, Phillips, and Crittenden, in that order) that contain more that 75 percent of our private school students, and 30 counties with no private schools. The reason there are no private schools in those counties is the private school market requires people, dollars, and density. Those requirements don't exist in the needed amounts in those 30 counties for, as an example, those 11 counties have an average per capita income $16,000 greater than the no-schools counties.
Vouchers will result in none of the intended benefits of LEARNS to students in 40 percent of our counties, for there are not now, and will likely not be, a private school there. Thus, that part of LEARNS will not benefit a large portion of Arkansas families. At the same time, the teacher-pay provisions of LEARNS will increase the costs of private schools so the vouchers will be less valuable to the families that do use them.
It is likely a majority of any future increases in private-school enrollments will occur in the same counties where schools exist today. If that is what happens, vouchers will result in draining tax dollars from rural, less prosperous counties to pass on to counties with higher levels of wealth.
PHIL TAYLOR
Fayetteville