Letters, 5/12: Save the trees

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In 1992, I started the first of several Natural Resources District tree grants that brought hundreds of street trees to my West A neighborhood, schools and local park.

The crowning achievement to all my street tree projects is a beautiful lane of 45 chanticleer pears and 15 prairie fire crabs along Coddington Avenue. All of my trees are important to me, but this particular stand of trees is a beautiful source of pride, not only for me, but for my whole neighborhood.

In order for me to get these NRD grants, I had to work closely with the city of Lincoln to get approval for the planting of these street trees. I was assured that even if Coddington Avenue was widened, these trees were planted far enough back from the street that they would be out of harm’s way.

Well, guess what? The city wants to widen Coddington to five lanes of traffic. Four passing and one turning lane, with some kind of median and a trail included that will lead to Pioneers Park. Does anyone see the sense in wiping out so many trees to build a trail to the park?

If they go forward with this plan, we will lose our sidewalks, trees and possibly part of our backyards.

Along with the loss of our trees, I feel that five lanes of traffic will insure that Coddington becomes a major road. If you build it, they will come. Heavier traffic, more noise, faster drivers, more accidents. This is a neighborhood road. We don’t want a super highway smack in the middle of our community.

The city is full of busy neighborhood streets that are only three lanes wide. Please let Coddington be one of these roads and save the integrity of our neighborhood.

Linda Vollenweider, Lincoln

Guns about rights

I disagree with most of what Police Chief Tom Casady had to say in his Local View on the Opinion Page May 2.

It’s easy to generalize and say the right to carry concealed handguns is unnecessary or not needed in Lincoln, but the question isn’t about need for the general public, it’s about “rights for the individual.”

Does a woman who is scared for her life and has a protection order against a violent ex-boyfriend/husband have a right to take some training classes and carry a concealed handgun for self-defense? Casady and Mayor Coleen Seng apparently don’t think so. I think she should have that right if she chooses and she meets all the requirements.

Casady also says one of his biggest concerns is loopholes that would allow people convicted of “stalking, violating a protection order, indecent exposure and impersonating a police officer” to get a permit because those are misdemeanors and not felonies.

The solution to that is to change those laws making those crimes felonies. That needs to be addressed, and I hope Casady and Seng put some time and effort into that.

Dale Smid, Lincoln

We’re not the enemy

I’m glad we have people like letter writer Joseph Vocht looking out for the welfare of the Israeli lobby and religious fanatics. (By the way, I’m neither.) If we extrapolate his view into our new foreign policy, I’ll have to switch jobs to selling prayer rugs and bomb vests.

Apparently, Vocht won’t figure it out until there is a radioactive mushroom cloud over Los Angeles or Miami. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has vowed to annihilate Israel and the West. (That means the United States, to you progressives.)

What kind of misery will we experience after a suitcase dirty bomb detonates in some metropolitan area? In Vocht’s eyes, the United States is the bully, so I guess we will have deserved it.

I do agree with Vocht that this country has lost its spine. If Mahmoud doesn’t terminate his nuclear weapons program and stop sharing their technology with other radical Islamic states, I just hope we find our backbone and turn his weapons sites to rubble. I make no apologies for wanting to defend this country and our way of life.

In case some of you haven’t figured it out yet, we have real enemies out there, and it won’t matter who’s in the White House, and diplomacy won’t work with these terrorists.

Kelly Sieb, Lincoln

Solution is to conserve

These days, whether you are reading the newspaper, watching the local news or CNN, or talking to your neighbor, a favorite topic of conversation is gas prices. Unfortunately, while we are paying more at the pump, oil companies are enjoying record profits and politicians in Washington are offering few solutions.

Several of our congressmen continue to push opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as an option to reduce gas prices. Talk about beating a dead horse. According to the Department of Energy, drilling in the Arctic Refuge would save consumers only about a penny a gallon in about 20 years.

The one solution that Congress has yet to seriously consider is making new cars, SUVs and other light trucks average 40 miles per gallon. By doing this within the next 10 years, the average driver would save about $2,200 at the gas pump over the life of the vehicle. Taking this step would save more oil than we currently import from the entire Persian Gulf or could ever get out of the Arctic Refuge, combined.

We don’t need our elected officials to think of more ways to help out the oil and gas industry. We need them to put American innovation to work and help consumers. Using existing technology to make our cars, trucks and SUVs get more miles per gallon, we could save money at the pump and protect special places from needless drilling.

Cammy Watkins, Sierra Club, Omaha

Isn’t that just grand?

Am I the only citizen who wonders what is wrong with the picture of enduring alliances among former Mayor Don Wesely, current Mayor Coleen Seng and Douglas Theatres?

Now we read that after the a Wesely/Seng-orchestrated, financially disastrous switch from private ambulance service to Lincoln Fire Department service, and after the eminent domain creation of The Grand, owned (through tax increment financing) and operated by Douglas (as is every other screen in Lincoln), Seng now supports a high-rise and civic center proposal which — how amazingly — buys Douglas Theatre’s now nearly worthless properties downtown for millions of dollars.

Am I the only one who is concerned?

Joseph W. Johnson Jr., Lincoln