Think twice before building another roundabout

Dear Editor, Unless mandated by the state, let us please reconsider this proposed traffic circle at the juncture of Broadway, Albany Avenue and Colonel Chandler Drive.

There are so many options that should be weighed before opening up the area for two years in order to update the infrastructure, which the chair of our Water Department declared not a priority compared with other known areas of ailing infrastructure around the city which are in greater need. (This is not even to mention the ongoing sinkhole fiasco on Washington Avenue. )

A recent editorial asked if we have performed a complete study of the flow of traffic at every one of our city corners. Case in point is the corner of Albany, Pearl, and Clinton in the front of the Governor Clinton Apartments. I have sat, waiting to turn right, watching cars come off Clinton onto Albany Avenue as they have the left turn arrow. Without any obstruction, cars could have made the right turn onto Clinton. Certainly, that will be the next debacle once the proposed project is complete.

Have we fully considered the many ways traffic coming up Broadway from the south may be directed onto Albany and Ulster Avenue? With thoughtout signage, and, if necessary, perhaps creating a little wider, more flowing turn-off onto a connecting side street most of the traffic heading out Albany Avenue could be removed from the proposed junction.

Kingston is enjoying a surge of new life and interest. We all feel it. Let us not throw a monkey wrench into our ability to move about our city for the next two years. Gail Bernard Kingston, N.Y.

Conversion therapy ban hurts sex abuse victims

Dear Editor, Would a good society seek to deny children treatment for a condition that has been statistically proven to shorten one’s lifespan? Well, Ulster County can now be added to the list of suspects.

On July 20, totally unaware of any local complaints and with no public outcry, the Ulster County Legislature added a new four-letter word to its penal code: SOCE.

SOCE is the acronym for Sexual Orientation Change Effort, an umbrella term for talk therapy counseling tools used by licensed therapists to assist those who seek treatment for unwanted same-sex attraction.

Ulster County has banned such (voluntary) treatment for minors — even minors whose same-sex attraction presumably results from abuse. Even despite the fact that the “Q” in LGBTQ stands for “Questioning.”

The parental right to direct the upbringing of one’s own children is undermined along with the free speech rights of mental health counselors. Exgays who have been helped by such treatment are being marginalized as well. Just businessas-usual for the purveyors of Big Sodomy. I wish they would acknowledge that all people have as much right to pursue a heterosexual lifestyle as they do to pursue their disordered mindset. People have a right to talk to a therapist about anything they choose. Conversely, anyone who does not want therapy isn’t required to get it.

It seems the only ones who will benefit from this unjust law are pedophiles, hebephiles and ephebophiles. Remember Jerry Sandusky? How many of his victims were left confused and frustrated over their sexual persona because of the likes of him? Well, according to Ulster County Executive Michael Hein, the answer is “Who cares?” After all, children are not a monied special interest group. Linda Cebrian Rhinebeck, N.Y.

GOP health plans are no bargain

Dear Editor,

After the GOP’s failure to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act with something magically better, Trump has systematically tried to sabotage the law with administrative actions. Most recently, he announced a change in rules that permits insurance companies to sell cheaper “short term” plans that do not provide coverage that regular Affordable Care Act policies must offer, such as coverage for pre-existing conditions and maternity care.

In an Aug. 16 op-ed piece in the Washington Post, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azaroutlined the administration’s arguments for extending short-term policies to up to three years. His argument contains a single sentence that hints consumers might be buying a short-term product with dubious benefits: “In fact, we require more robust warnings about the limits of these plans than did ... Obama’s administration.”

He doesn’t specifically elaborate on why customers should be warned.

Here’s why: These “cheaper” plans are cheap in the double sense — they cost less and they are shoddy, unreliable, products that will not deliver the promised value. Like the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have lost their homes in increasingly common flooding disasters and found that their home insurance didn’t cover their losses, buyers of shortterm plans will learn what was behind Azar’s proclaimed “robust warnings.”

We now know all-too-well what our president and Republican politicians meant when they promised “universal access to quality health care” access, in this sense: You have the opportunity to enroll in Trump University. Oops, it no longer exists. Sorry. No money-back guarantee.

When the Democratic Party advocates universal coverage and care, it promises that your quality health care is your right. Tom Denton Highland, N.Y.

It was Franklin’s brilliant musicianship that allowed her to shape her talent and her ideas into an epochal body of work.