WINTER STORM
A road unbuilt might have helped metro Atlanta
The post-snow finger pointing is getting it all wrong. The finger should be pointed at Gov. Roy Barnes for stopping the so-called Outer Loop highway. If it had been available, 80 percent of the trucks would not have been in the recent mess. Traffic, likely still slow, would have been much better than what we saw recently. Ironically the people Barnes was appeasing for votes were the most affected by the lack of the Outer Loop.
No money available to build the road? Make it a toll road with very limited access and the toll pegged at a multiple of the diesel fuel cost per gallon. The fuel saved by not having to drive down to I-285 will pay the toll.
Just a thought.
SCOTT CARRIERE, SANDY SPRINGS
SNOWSTORM
Clayton schools made
the right weather call
There always seems to be negative news about Clayton County, but kudos to the Clayton County school administration for deciding not to have school on Tuesday, Jan. 28 in light of the impending weather. Good call!
MARIA ACEVEDO, MARIETTA
MAYOR REED
Story about drive to interview uncalled for
The story about about Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s decision to travel on Jan. 28 to The Weather Channel for an interview (“Reed defends his ride to interview as city idled,” News, Feb. 1) was unnecessary and sensational.
Mayor Reed felt it was critical that he communicate to a broad audience with a simple message: Get home, stay home, and stay off of the roads so that our crews could continue making our roads passable.
The mayor’s job requires hands-on involvement in crisis, and asking him to stay off the roads is as unrealistic as asking journalists covering the storm to do the same.
The mayor traveled in a vehicle driven by a sworn Atlanta police officer trained and authorized in emergency driving techniques. These officers are part of his full-time security detail; a common practice for almost all big-city mayors. He traveled in one vehicle, in an emergency lane, and did not block, impede or interfere with any other emergency vehicles.
Mayor Reed participated in several interviews throughout the storm as part of a comprehensive communications effort to let the citizens of Atlanta know what was happening. Since then, he has repeatedly apologized to those who were caught in the gridlock.
CARLOS CAMPOS, INTERIM DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS, OFFICE OF MAYOR KASIM REED
DEATH PENALTY
Focus should be on victims, not how killers are dispatched
Columnist Mary Sanchez (“We all should know how our states execute felons,” Opinion, Feb. 4) compares the death penalty with crime and opines that “we” do not want to know details of how those sentenced are executed and that “we” would prefer to think they just went permanently to sleep. I think most of us do not care about the details and prefer to think of those executed as dead and gone, unable to repeat their crimes on new victims. Liberals like Ms. Sanchez want to give mothers the right to terminate their unborn children, but do not want to let society decide when to terminate those it deems deserve the death penalty. All this concern about how people are executed is just another attempt to eliminate the death penalty altogether. Maybe we should just go back to the gas chamber and the electric chair. As for me, I will save my concern for the victims of those criminals sentenced to die.
STEVE HAVEY, CUMMING
