The Burlington Free Press from Burlington, Vermont • Page 24

THE BURLINGTON FREE PRESS a a Essex Merger Proposal Is Debated by Residents THE VERMONT PEOPLE'S Iroroinn OOflHlBOn FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1974 Lights Serve Vital Function THE HIGH INTENSITY sodium lights on Church Street, which now also are being installed on Main Street, serve a vital twofold function as a deterrent to crime and as a promoter of public safety. The Free Press strongly supports the continued use of these lights. Loitering, vandalism and other undesirable activities have been cut drastically on Church Street since the lights year-old Essex Junction Graded School District and the 82-year-old Village of Essex Junction. The unfortunate thing about this proposal is that almost nothing about the effects of this merger has been given to the voter. The Charter committee has given us a charter and nothing else.

No report on its effect on services and no concrete financial forecast has been given. Halfhearted philosophical and somewhat emotional ideas have come from those who support the merger and even these seem to be based upon "mights" and "maybes." In these times of recession and uncertainty it seems that the voter deserves more than has been given before making an irreversible decision. All that does seem certain about this proposal is that it will create a bigger, more impersonal government and it will cost you more. Under these circumstances, until a more favorable proposition can be given, a NO vote seems the best course of action. BERNARD PARIZO Essex Junction, Vt.

were installed there, according to the Burlington Police Department and the local merchants. Now it is safe to walk that portion of the downtown area late at night, in sharp contrast to the situation previously. Public safety on upper Main Street already has been enhanced where the sodium lights have been installed. University students seem to have an affinity for wearing dark clothes on dark nights, and now they can easily be seen on and beside the thoroughfare whereas previously they could not. The high intensity sodium lights may not be eye-pleasing, and there may be minor detrimental effects, but these objections are far outweighed by the lights' capacity to deter crime and promote safety.

We strongly support their continued use. Citizens Advisory Committee (how did they get appointed?) were members of organizations submitting proposals. This appears to us to have a strong potential for conflict of interest. Are they evaluating their own proposals or did they parliamentarily disqualify themselves from debate? Although we believe no ill intent, it does appear to be a questionable and unprofessional practice. Our professional interest is broad-based and civic-oriented.

Although we did not submit a proposal because we feel our service is inappropriate to the Act, we are certainly interested in seeing related and needed human services receiving a justifiable share of these funds. The intent of the Community Development Act may have already been buried beneath a millstone of procedural and process disorganization. We suggest that the city reevaluate planning procedures through the use of an independent, professional process consultant. The City of Burlington cannot afford to continue the patch-quilt procedures exhibited in this instance in this time of tight money, inflation, recession, and citizen need. RICHARD E.

KELLOGG, M.Ed. Project Director HENRY P. ALBARELLI JR. Development Specialist Employment Adjustment Inc. Alcchol and Drug Abuse Division Burlington, Vt.

miles of unimproved gravel roads the Village has one. Where will the highway money logically go after merger? Into the town's dirt roads instead of our streets. Logical? You bet! How about our Recreation Department? The Village has already bought a swimming pool, skating rink, ball park, etc. The town would like to. Under merger, guess who would pay for building another complete recreational set-up with 70 per cent of the total town revenue coming from the Village? Logical? You bet! What will happen to our police service? It is fairly obvious that police service in the village has deteriorated since the start of service to the town, through no fault of the police.

Under merger, it is also obvious that the size of the department must increase, with increased costs, or service will further decline. Logical? You bet! How about administrative costs? In recent years, the Town's administrative costs have increased sharply the Village's have decreased. What else but further increases could take place under merger? Logical? You bet! Logic should tell that this thing adds up to but one conclusion it will be all "out" and no "in" for the Village. No one has come up with any definite concrete advantages for the Village, either now or for the next 20 or 30 years, so PLEASE turn out, you Villagers, next week, and let's kill this thing, once and for all. Even if Christmas is coming, we just can't afford to play Santa Claus any more.

DICK EVANS Essex Junction, Vt. Much to Gain in Merger I was sorry to see the letter from the gentleman from Westford urging our local League of Women Voters not to be involved in local affairs. We need more participation, not less. Regardless of how you may feel, I urge everyone to participate and vote on Dec. 10.

There are really three choices to this entire problem: Stay the same, merge, or separate. Staying the same is rapidly becoming intolerable. Multiple tax years, different billings, and duplication confuses the Village-Town. A Town high school will be a viable and a cheaper alternative in the near future unless we merge the schools. This will lead to two choices: Merge or separate.

We have had a common image too long. Our schools, churches, and dividing all this will only lead to higher taxes and simply won't be in the best interest of either community. Merger has its pros and cons. The biggest disadvantage may be a small change in the tax rate for the next couple of years; however, this should straighten out after that and lead to a lesser tax rate. We will never have a situation where all tax rates will be absolutely identical.

We are probably as close now as we will be at any time in the future. I feel both communities have a great deal to gain in merger. I do urge everyone to vote on Dec. 10 regardless of their position as this is probably the most important matter to come before the community in many years. PHILIP A.

KOLVOORD Essex Junction, Vt. Changing Human Behavior Essex Proposal Unfortunate On Dec. 10 the voters in Essex are being asked vote on a plan which will radically change their form of local government. Merger of governments Essex will mean the abandonment of the 101- Against the Current THAT THE GOVERNMENT is financing experiments to control "anti-social" behavior with brain surgery, drugs, computers and radio transmitters has raised serious constitutional questions, a Senate subcommittee on Constitutional Rights concluded in a report last week. "There is a real question whether the government should be involved at all in programs that potentially pose threats to our basic freedoms," said U.S.

Sen. Sam Ervin. chairman of the subcommittee, in a preface to the report. "The question becomes even more acute when these programs are conducted, as they are today, in the absence of strict controls." In the 651-page report which took three years to compile, the subcommittee noted the government, through a number of departments and agencies, was going ahead with behavior modification projects, including psychosurgery, without a review-structure "fully adequate to protect the constitutional rights of the subjects." The Department of Health, Education and Welfare was cited as the highest spender on behavior research while other agencies involved are the Justice Department, the Veterans Administration, the Defense Department, the Labor Department and the National Science Foundation. Florida high school students who took part in a HEW-funded drug treatment program were described by a high school counselor as Foreboding at Sears let's Kill' the Merger Idea Halloween is long gone, but the scary stories continue.

To listen to some, it would seem that the Village of Essex Junction will shortly become a poverty-stricken tax-ridden wasteland if we turn down the golden opportunity to merge with the town. Among other things, we'll be stuck with our monster school, with no room to grow more kids to fill it with. This just isn't logical. It is, however, logical, that we, the Village, will lose $180,000 immediately if we merge. Two communities, two payments one community, one payment.

Logical? You bet! Let's use logic instead of being "almost sure." What does logic tell you would happen to our streets after merger? The town has many many rcf GOP Leaders President's WIN Whip Inflation Now public relations campaign is ridiculed as outdated in the face of national unemployment expected to approach 8 per cent next summer. Gov. William Milliken of Michigan, arguing that "mere rhetoric cannot save our free enterprise system," came here handing out lapel buttons of his own contradicting the White House WIN pins. His pins say BAC Buy A Car. Milliken's reelection by 114.000 votes against multiple adversity in the depression-threatened automobile state was a stunning offsef to his party's national disaster, but not a single White House political aide has bothered to call him for a post-election analysis.

Worse yet, Milliken's carefully considered economic program, sent to Ford in a letter one week before the election, has never been answered. He proposed a blend of tax reform, vastly more public service employment, extended unemployment compensation and public works. But Milliken's proposals were not considered important enough to warrant a reply. MOST CRITICISM OF Ford and what one governor called his "Nixon holdover" administration was private. But New Hampshire's Gov.

Meldrim Thomson, the anti-tax crusader who is indisputably the most conservative of all Republican governors, felt no such scruples. He delivered an angry statement to what he called the "closetful" of Republican survivors (sitting around the huge horseshoe conference table with embarrassingly wide spaces between them) attacking Ford for "not caring enough" about the future of the Republican party "to help us set the course for the long climb back." An hour spent with the governors by Jerry Ford would scarcely make a dent on the staggering political problems of his defeated party. There was no such false hope here. "The GOP has a pinhead for a base and we're kidding ourselves if we think it can be turned around in anything like two or three years," Michigan State Chairman William McLaughlin told us. But that handful of Republican governors who survived last month would have been a good place to start.

The fact that the President and his political staff didn't see it that way made a bad situation worse, alienating the governors at a time Ford needs every possible ally. WW Vat's is "'living in a robot-like atmosphere" when they returned to school. Among the other programs listed was one at a Vacaville, mental institution where the drug anectine was used in an effort to suppress assaults and suicide attempts bv the patients. In his book, "Behavior Mod," Philip J. Hilts details the reactions of persons who have been given the drug, noting they first have a sensation of paralysis and for two minutes in the final stages of their ordeal they feel they are suffocating.

"Its a frightening experience for the said a doctor. "And you're quite authoritarian as you're talking to him, telling him what he must and must not do. Usually two or three treatments straighten out these sociopaths beautifully Behavior control has been used on a wide range of people from drug abusers and alcoholics to hyperactive children, according to the subcommittee. No matter what the purpose, we are sure that such experiments on human beings are repugnant to most Americans, because they remind them of the thought control measures that were used in Nazi Germany under Hitler and the brainwashing techniques of the Communist countries. We think that government funding for such projects should be withdrawn immediately and that all future efforts to tamper with the human mind in this way should be vigorously discouraged.

prospects is the large volume of business that Sears is doing in bunk beds. Since the birth rate has pancaked faster than the Wall Street averages, this can only mean that more and more adults are doubling up rather than going out and renting or buying living space. But the mood and the shrinking purchasing power of Sears' customers isn't the only difficulty this enormous corporation must contend with. There's the problem of debt. By the end of last year Sears' charge account customers owed it a mere $4.7 billion.

That in and of itself wouldn't be destructive if the company could sit back and collect the interest accruing from all those revolving charge accounts. It can't. Sears, in its turn, has to go out and borrow the money to cover what its customers owe it; and even though you may think Sears has been ripping you off, actually the credit it's been extending you has been ruinous to the company. In the four months ending with October, the interest on the money Sears has borrowed to pay for its customers' charges accounts has run just shy of $107 million. That kind of dough can wipe out an awful lot of profit.

THE SEARS RESPONSE has ranged from a minimal amount of price cutting within narrow limits, they're locked into their prices to dumping unwanted inventory. The company is, for instance, disposing of $6 million worth of shoes it ordered but no longer thinks it can sell. That will cost Sears $2 million, and, while it may have some small good effect, it won't meet the basic problem of buyers, retailers, manufacturers and bankers all being loaned out and borrowed out. Pretty soon now, somebody is going to have to pay somebody else, but that's not happening with installment debt defaults running higher than at any time in the last 24 years. No wonder, when you consider that, not counting mortgage payments, at least 17 per cent of everybody's aftertax income is going to pay off consumer debts.

No doubt the government will try to force enough money into the system to keep us all afloat. Certainly, Sears' debt problems can be accommodated, and you hear more and more talk about rushing government loans to the sort of manufacturers who supply Sears, but whether money can be gotten to Sears' customers fast enough is more problematic. Unfortunately, though, success of this kind will bring its own bad news, since providing everybody with emergency money will only intensify the forces which put Sears in the trick bag in the first place. Don't despair, however. It's not all going down the tube.

Our economy is too big to fit. to in Lottery Would Tax the Poor I heard that they're going to give us a lottery. I don't like it. To me a lottery is just another way of taxing the poor instead of taxing the rich. I'd like to think that there is a way to stop politicians from taking cheap shots at those of us who do the work, but I guess that's what politicians are for.

BRIAN MILLER Burlington, Vt. Too Much State Bureaucracy I see by the paper that Martin Miller has decided to abolish the office of Deputy Chairman of the Public Service Board. Fine, I congratulate him. If we could get rid of more unneeded overstaffed departments and subdepartments, wouldn't it help to eliminate the need for more new taxes? I received a letter from the Department of Conservation and Development and nearly half the page was a list of the subdepartments. We are overstaffed and over-governed and over-taxed.

In fact, we are top heavy with bureaucracy. As Town Clerk I receive copies and copies of duplicate material from the state departments. The office is bulging with this material that we don't need, don't have time to read and nobody wants. I should like to suggest that the Legislature do a little belt-tightening. When I served in the Legislature, part of the salary consisted of the honor conferred upon me by our voters.

It was not considered a money-making proposition. Now, every year, they vote themselves a raise. Since the state has been redistricted, it is governed by the large population centers. The rural communities have little to say and we cannot see that the laws are any better, just more of them. Governor Salmon has been wondering if a little state like Vermont can afford so much government.

Dear governor, we can't and one of the best plans to start cutting down would be with the upper echelons. HAROLD B. WEBSTER Whiting, Vt. Town Clerk Killing of Bear Is Deplored I would like to congratulate Mr. James Booker of Shelburne on his recent bear kill in Huntington as reported in the "Buck Bulletin," Dec.

3. No doubt Mr. Booker will save the skin or possibly mount the head, with teeth bared, as a lasting memento to his feat. Certainly a trophy of this sort should not be left to memory alone and both will make fine conversation pieces when it comes time to tell of the kill. I hunt occasionally but will never know the sheer, raw courage it takes to sneak through the woods, gun in hand, sight in and drop a 66-pound bear cub.

Once again, congratulations for being a real sportsman. P.S. Isn't there any legislation to prevent this? South Hero, Vt. BRUCE HYDE Nursing Program Is Essential As a 1974 graduate of the two-year technical nursing program, I wish to express my concern and dismay over the proposal to eliminate this excellent program. Through this letter I am joining many others who are requesting that every effort toward the continuation of the associate degree program be made.

In my case, I was returning to school after two years of schooling in an unrelated field which lead to- a career that I found to be less than fully rewarding. I could not afford the cost nor did I feel I could afford the time involved in a four-year program. Many of my classmates were in similar situations. After five months of employment at the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont, I feel that the associate degree program more than adequately prepared me for a career that is extremely satisfying. Without this program it would have been impossible for me to become a Registered Nurse.

The other two schools in the state could not possibly absorb the number of students educated in our program. Only one of the other programs is accredited. In the current time when education is so very important, especially in the rapidly changing field of medicine, the loss of this program would certainly be detrimental to the entire health program in the community. Patients should not be deprived of quality nursing care due to a lack of availability of proper nursing education. Review and reconsideration of all possible alternatives to the elimination of the two-year technical nursing program is essential.

It would certainly be a shame if others could not have the educational opportunity which has meant so much to me. LANA J. NEWTON, R.N. Burlington, Vt. The Essex League's Position The League of Women Voters of Essex is an integral part of the League of Women Voters of the United States and the League of Women Voters of Vermont.

Our purpose is to promote political responsibility through informed and active participation of citizens in government. We are not affiliated with private groups who use "League" in their name. The League of Women Voters of Essex supports municipal and school merger for the Essex comm unity. ANN CASE, President League of Women Voters of Essex Essex Junction, Vt. Essex Merger Opposition In answer to the pressure items recently printed in The Burlington Free Press to confuse the voters of Essex Junction on the merger question, the 39 members of the Essex League of Women Voters do not in any way represent the viewpoint of the women of Essex Junction.

The village has always supported itself, long before any big industry came in, but certain elements would have you believe that because of IBM, we should be one big happy family and share the wealth. The fact is that Essex Junction has been supporting the Town of Essex (always known as Essex Center until the past few years) for as many years as I can remember. Many years ago, through some poor policy, it was thought best to incorporate the two communities into a town and call it the Town of Essex. Since then, Essex Junction has been paying heavily for the support of Essex Center, but Essex Junction has received nothing from incorporation into a town with Essex Center. That is how you have two of everything two offices, etc.

We are actually two places. The Town of Essex collects taxes from us in their office in Lincoln Hall and the money is used up the road in another community. The Village of Essex Junction has the best of schools and fine facilities including the fire department, police department, library, sewer system, roads, recreational, etc. The taxpayers of the village are paying for the Educational Center. Tuition received from those attending from outside the village is used for educational purposes only and that is where the highest cost of schools is today.

If we merge, we share ownership of all our facilities with another community and forcing us to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring them up to our standards. Many of their systems and roads are undeveloped. It is urgent that village taxpayers go to the polls and cast your ballot. The trustees and the prudential committee have both taken a stand that it is better for the village of Essex Junction to retain its identity by not merging. In plain language, merging the village of Essex Junction with the Town of Essex will cost those in the village a fortune.

Read the facts as I have and you will open your eyes and be as shocked as I am. Above all, vote! Essex Junction, Vt. RUTH M. BICKMORE Use of Funds Poorly Planned The recent hearing (Dec. 4, City Hall) on Community Development Funds has resulted in one prime conclusion: The planning process in our city is inadequate, often corrosive, and at times appears unprofessional.

The lack of a clear procedural process at this meeting resulted in a long, unprepared, and often wasteful exhibition of how not to plan the use of these funds. The laborious work performed by many, particularly UCS, was virtually ignored due to the fractured process. Item: The members of the Advisory Committee did not have time to review the many proposals it was reviewing prior to the meeting. Many of these proposals were quite long and involved; created at organization and citizen expense. Some were clearly inappropriate according to the Act itself.

Guidelines to the community on application procedures were clearly inadequate. It was clearly evident that a superhuman task was expected of the Advisory Committee to give an honest judgment on the proposals presented to it. Item: The verbalized task of the Advisory Committee, according to the Free Press of Dec. 4, is to perform a portion of the "multilevel evaluation process by reviewing applications and eligibility for the money." This task does not include a panel review of the efficacy of the organizations-citizens submitting the application. Only the application submitted should have been the topic of discussion within the ephemeral merit priority system agreed to by the Committee.

The treatment allotted to the People's Free Clinic was a clear violation of procedural ethics and the mandate of the Committee. This is an example of corrosive process; corrosive in the sense of fostering disorganization rather than constructive debate and cooperation. Item: A number of persons sitting on the V.i Ford Angers ST. LOUIS Unfairly or not, the thimbleful of Republican governors and governors-elect who survived the Democratic landslide of Nov. 5 were outraged that President Ford could not make a brief appearance at their midwinter conference here this week after his long journey to the Far East two weeks ago.

Indeed, intensive negotiations had started in mid-November with low-level White House aides to arrange a visit by Ford that would lend Presidential endorsement to party-rebuilding efforts. Yet, despite repeated telephone calls to the White House by host Gov. Christopher Bond of Missouri, Presidential aides insisted Ford could not spare a couple of hours. Contact was never made with Dean Burch, Ford's political adviser until his resignation this week, who took no interest in the governors' appeal. This non-appearance by a President who was sharply criticized for traveling to real estate conventions in Las Vegas added to the funereal gloom at the governors' conference.

Even before they learned he would not appear, the governors were grumbling over Ford's performance as both party chief and national leader. Their aggravation did not peak until the close of the morning session on Monday when word spread that even William Seidman, the highest White House aide scheduled to meet the governors, was going to back out of his appearance Tuesday morning. With tempers rising among the governors, White House aide James Falk, Ford's chief liaison with the governors, rushed to a pay phone here with an SOS to the White House. That firmed up Seidman's appearance and also brought Falk's boss, Domestic Council chief Ken Cole, to the Tuesday session. BUT IT SCARCELY mitigated disappointment with Ford.

One governor, reelected last month by a huge majority while other Republican candidates in his state were losing, told us: "This would have been the perfect place for Jerry Ford to come and show his interest, with the few of us who won, in trying to revive his party." The governors' unhappiness with Ford goes beyond reviving the Republican party. They believe he is spending far too much time on foreign travel at a time of deepening recession and general economic crisis at home. The WASHINGTON People with sweet teeth (or is it people with sweet toothes?) anyway, people who prefer not having any ivory in their mouths to giving up soda pop and candy bars are furious over the price of their favorite commodity. Hearings have been held in Washington on the subject and. if Henry Kissinger hasn't told us that the high price of sugar will decay Western Civilization as we know it, there are others willing to declare that the American consumer is entitled, by right of birth and citizenship, to pour the stuff down his mouth or his gas tank at a reasonable price.

Nevertheless the price climbs, but there is hope in sight. Of late the television news programs have been quoting various private and public experts to the effect that no leveling off is in prospect. Such announcements almost always mean that the reverse will happen. Hence it is safe to assume that the sugar buying panic, both by the bag at the supermarket and by futures contract in the commodity market, is about to top off and that the price will soon crash. Let's hope it takes down with it a lot of the piggy wutzes who've hogged it up these past few months, and then let's forget the subject.

While we've been mesmerized by the high cost of pastries, matters have been going badly in the 110-story, $150 million-plus black tower in Chicago where Sears, Roebuck Co. domiciles itself. Last week there must have been much gloom in upper reaches of that phallic symbol of corporate pride. The New York Stock Exchange temporarily suspended trading in Sears stock, when our nation's largest retailer announced a 29 per cent drop in its earnings. The company is still a very, very long way from being in trouble, but, because of its size and dominant position, a look at its difficulties tells us something about our own and the economy's in general.

SEARS IS AN unwilling participant in the nationally shared sense of foreboding. The conviction is around that times are going to get harder, so that even people who still have some money aren't spending it and, when they do, they reveal the kind of future they anticipate. That's why companies like Sears and Montgomery Ward (for more of this see the December are doing a huge business in food canning supplies, freezers, home gardening equipment and Franklin stoves. Whether those buying these items do so because they're trying to save money, or because they i foresee such awtui social disruptions they re reaching for a degree of isolated independence, is limpossible to say. Either way, though, it's obvious fiffly 're afraid.

Another sign of people's assessment of their.