The Buffalo News : Opinion

The liberal philosophy of criminal and juvenile justice is not working in New York State, as demonstrated by the murder of a youth worker in Lockport and the increase of police calls to a youth home in Amherst.

Renee Greco’s death at a not-for-profit agency-operated boarding home in Lockport last month was tragic.

The Buffalo Niagara Association of Realtors’ philosophy has been questioned and our recent positions opposing two similar referendums —one in Amherst in 2007 and the other in Aurora in 2008 — are misunderstood. Both called for bonds to purchase land to be used in order to preserve green space as well as deter an overabundance of development.

What is the rush? I do not understand why Buffalo continues to push for a new hotel in the Waterfront Village, next to Shanghai Red’s, in this terrible economy.

I was quite moved by Thomas J. Caulfield’s recollections of the opening day at Woodlawn Junior High in 1964. I, too, was there that day, entering eighth grade after spending my entire school career at School 74, near my inner-city home. I remember how excited we students were at the pristine appearance of the new building, at the modern desks and equipment, at the first lockers most of us had ever had. We were full of hope, though we were too young to understand it as such, and the sparkling new school gave us a feeling of moving toward the future.

It was amazingly brazen for the New York health insurance industry to submit a letter blaming doctors for inflated out-of- network medical bills the same week a U. S. Senate investigative committee confirmed that insurers have been secretly cheating patients on valid medical claims (June 28 News).

Whenever people ask me why I teach, my answer is usually quite simple: I teach because I have to. I say that, because every once in a while something will occur to remind me of the importance of education and the necessity for my having to be in the classroom.

I would like to set the record straight for those who believe that their tax bills are too high and for those who believe that universal health care, through social democracy, would be too expensive for this great country.

In the spring of 2000, a time when talk of Peace Bridge expansion was on everyone’s lips, I had the opportunity to attend a bridge design charette in Toledo, Ohio, where an enthusiastic citizenry was planning a new river crossing. I was so energized by what I saw and heard that I became determined to spread the word in Western New York about the benefits of a great public project.