With Lottery gains, restore fee payouts
When Lottery sales were declining, we were told that certain changes were necessary to ensure HOPE Scholarship funding. GPA levels were raised for students to qualify, and certain fees paid for by HOPE were reduced or eliminated. However, in spite of these cost-saving steps, the Lottery CEO and employees continued to get raises and bonuses while thousands of Georgians were struggling just to make a living on unemployment benefits and part-time work. Many of these same struggling Georgians were also parents of students attending our state colleges and universities and subject to the increased cost of their children’s education.
Now that the Lottery is reporting record profits, I feel it’s time to reevaluate HOPE and reinstitute payment of those fees eliminated or reduced in earlier years. I also feel Georgians and their dreams of making their lives better are the real success of the Lottery, not the Lottery CEO or employees, and they should not receive any further salary increases above the Consumer Price Index or bonuses until the Lottery is financially strong enough to fully fund HOPE, as Georgians were promised when they voted for it.
W. E. STAVRO, SUWANNEE
Writer’s welcome insight on ‘GWTW’
My thanks to Ernie Suggs for his Metro Focus column, “This writer ‘Done With the Wind,’” of July 27 on the film “Gone With the Wind” and to the AJC for printing his analysis. In the context of recent attention on the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Atlanta and the Civil War, his article offers essential razor-sharp focus on the racism of this cultural classic which all too often, even in 2014, escapes a proper critique.
ANN MAUNEY, ATLANTA
We all should help unaccompanied kids
The picture on the front page of the July 26 AJC changed my view of the issue of unaccompanied children attempting to enter the United States. We need to verify which are legitimate cases of people who could be facing death and privation in their home countries and partner with churches of all faiths and help these kids in need. There are countless families who would take these kids in. Come on, America, I don’t like freeloaders any more than the next fellow. Let’s obey the laws but not lose sight of the fact that these are children. I read that at one shelter, with every new safe arrival, the nuns let out a cheer. Sweet Jesus, please add my voice to that cheer.
BOB LOWTHER, DALLAS
