DEAR EDITOR:
I am appalled at the lack of outrage from community leaders about what has happened recently in our town. I expected an editorial expressing outrage when two old people were beaten and robbed in their home, where one is accustomed to feeling safe.
What I got instead was a wimpy article stating that old people are a target because they get their checks on the first of the month and they should have direct deposit.
So should they post on their door: "Don't bother. I have direct deposit?''
How do they go from a victim to the cause? The only editorial from this paper that has been a call for rage was the editorial covering the Port Authority executive director and her salary.
In Warren, you learn not to expect much from the leadership. But just once, I would like for either the Tribune or the city administration to have some intestinal fortitude and say something. Make a statement. Show some outrage.
On a Sunday in broad daylight we have a gunfight in our downtown, and no response from leadership or the local newspaper.
Look around downtown Warren. What we have is a failed community and a downtown area that is surrounded with low-income housing and rentals. What business wants to invest in a town where the dress code is pajamas?
Our leaders have fostered a culture of poverty. Is there an uproar over putting our tax dollars into the Warner house?
I'm sure it's grant money, but it is still our tax dollars.
I am not saying that the poor and disenfranchised need to be out of sight and out of mind, but a downtown business area is not the place to have people wandering around talking to themselves or bothering customers of downtown (few though they may be) by begging for a handout.
I live in what I fondly call ''the ghetto.''
I stood in my home and counted the gunshots that killed a man before calling 911. He lived in a rental. Had I come home when I normally do, I would have witnessed a murder. The house next to me was a crackhouse. Also a rental. My family wants me to move. Why should I have to move? It is my home.
Some suggestions:
Put all police on the street, including supervisors. Not every day, but maybe on the weekends to beef up police presence.
Limit the number of rentals, although this is basically closing the barn door after the horse is out.
Seize drug houses and force owners to forfeit the property.
Have a newspaper that investigates, not just regurgitates what is told to them.
Shrink the size of the city so that the number of city employees are proportionate to the population.
Have a leadership that is effective to the true needs of the community, not just singing the one-stop one-note song.
I love Warren. It's my home. It is our home. We should be able to feel safe in our home.
Cathie McLennan
Warren