Home rentals are a problem
I very much agree that anyone buying a single family home should not be able to rent it out until they meet and discuss it with the immediate neighbors and- — most importantly — provide direct phone and mail access for complaints.
I have been here for 10 years, belong to the civic association and try to be a good, taxpaying, responsible citizen and neighbor. There have been many changes here in that time, as the original homeowners passed away, and their homes were bought by people who do not care about anything but the rent, certainly not about the quality of life for others.
The rare times the owners do come around, they can not look you in the eye for obvious reasons.
Some of the renters have far too many people living in a small house. They are very noisy, have barking dogs, blaring TVs and radios.
And for this you pay high property taxes, and that is not to mention all the people living off Section 8 and many city agencies that provide shelter and many other free services for people who have far too many children.
Why is it expected someone else should pay for this out of their paycheck? It’s a real crime to the working class and has been going on for a very long time.
Joan Dahlberg
Tacony
Better pay for substitutes
The School District of Philadelphia has entered into a contract with a New Jersey for-profit company for its substitute teachers.
The subs’ daily rates will be $75, $90 or $110 (for about a seven-hour day) depending on their certifications and the jobs.
These subs are college educated, and some have advanced degrees.
I remember when teachers and substitutes used to threaten us about getting a good education. They claimed if we didn’t, we would work at a fast-food joint or in retail.
With this contract, what does a good education get you?
Mayer Krain
Modena Park
Continuously frustrated by an irresponsible nation
You might say, after reading a recent Times article (July 1), that candidates Jim Kenney and Joe Sestak waxed downright poetic in defense of the Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage. Their eloquence, however, is misplaced. All the high court did was complete a trifecta of irresponsibility a long time in the making.
It began with our national debt which, due to decade after decade of mismanagement and outright negligence, is now out of control. It continued with the Roe decision of 1973, which legalized the willful killing of unborn children.
You could say irresponsibility piled on top of irresponsibility with the passage of decades, and then came this latest travesty from the Court. And so, after nearly two-and-a-half centuries as a nation, our national experiment comes down to a debt problem no one can manage, open war on unborn children, and now a caving-in to the demands of homosexuals.
Is this what we as a people have to offer the world?
I daresay this is a model all right, a purely negative one — what not to do!
I state with confidence — history will judge us as a nation very harshly. Our experiment with democracy, deeply flawed from the beginning, has obviously (and spectacularly) failed.
And as this stunning failure now begins to fade into the dustbin of history, I have a vision. A new republic will arise here, one truly blessed by nature’s God, wherein free enterprise is embraced, fiscal responsibility is a watchword, traditional marriage honored and revered in law, and the unborn are welcomed into the human family as the most valuable natural resource any nation could possess — its future.
George Tomezsko
Fox Chase
