Pay raises for Charlestown’s elected officials

I’m appalled at the gall Charlestown's elected officials have got to pass a outrageous pay raise when we are in a recession, on the verge of a depression. Even as Gov. Mitch Daniels has asked all city officials not to request a pay raise at this time, and other elected state officials have deferred or donated their scheduled pay raises. Many elected officials all across the country are not taking pay raises that have already been scheduled. Why does the little-bitty Charlestown Mayor Bob Hall and the clerk-treasurer and City Council think they are any different?

I just can’t imagine that Charlestown is in that much greater shape than the rest of the country. And to request an “outrageous” 37 percent pay raise but I’ll settle for a “laugh all the way to the bank” 15 percent pay raise is nothing but a ploy. How much of a pay raise are the Charlestown trash collectors getting?

— John Gardner, Charlestown

Reader: Join the Pickens Plan

In the coming weeks, the 111th U.S. Congress and the new administration take office and begin work on a variety of bills to reinvigorate our economy, determine a new course in foreign policy, chart new directions in national defense and rebuild our infrastructure.

The Pickens Plan is the only energy plan that proposes U.S. energy independence within 10 years and is the only plan ready for congressional hearings within the administration’s first 100 days. This is a grassroots effort to develop a tangible national energy policy that actually frees America from overseas energy.

American citizens are joining with each other and T. Boone Pickens to demand that once and for all, that we as a country become energy self-sufficient. We recognize this will require a combination of technologies and a number of years to achieve, but we believe it is critical that we start now.

If you agree that energy independence is vital to our freedom as a country and to maintaining our individual freedoms, please accept my invitation to join the Pickens Plan at pickensplan.com and then join the Indiana 9th Congressional District Group at http://push.pickensplan.com/group/DistrictGroupIN09.

— Curt Grimmer, Huntingburg

Stigma and methadone go together like snow and sledding

Are there AA, or Alcoholics Anonymous, and NA, or Narcotics Anonymous, meetings in or near your community? Maybe a treatment center and some halfway houses, too?

Just like methadone clinics, they have people who go to work, raise families and they always welcome some using newcomers or returnees at their locations. Still, methadone clinics get the public outcry. For some, treatment clinics are acceptable near places where there are schools and downtown businesses. These clinics are abstinence-based programs. The stigma article online at methadonetoday.org/dole_nys.htm mentions the problems that the discovers’ of methadone maintenance faced and the stigma including that from NA and AA.

Also online: “Regarding Methadone and Other Drug Replacement Programs” (NA's feelings about methadone) na.org/bulletins/bull29.htm NA_Groups_and_Medication_Sep07. Also, JAMA — “Methadone Maintenance Four Decades Later Thousands of Lives Saved But Stigma” at http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/300/19/2303. And a positive article about methadone maintenance working at mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n1127/a07.html?343.

I wonder, if people started to think that they are stigmatizing methadone maintenance treatment but not the others — would they prevent them from opening in a certain area when it is OK for others?

It is possible to welcome a clinic because of the work it does in the community to reduce HIV, Hep-C and help others to be good residents with jobs, kids and a future.

P.S. I have never been addicted to opiates nor have I ever used methadone.

— George Clarke, New London, Conn., Advocates of Recovery Through Medicine Representative