Ticket fee foes offered to assist local arts council

On behalf of Mike Gonidakis and myself, I respond to the July 14 Dispatch editorial "Charter amendment to repeal ticket fees should be rejected," which was critical of our efforts to let the voters of Columbus decide if two ticket taxes are warranted. First, let’s be clear that the ticket taxes are indeed a tax, not a user fee masked to sell the legislation promulgated by lobbyists employed by the Greater Columbus Arts Council and Nationwide Insurance.

Contrary to the editorial's claim that we have not provided any alternatives to the tax, we specifically proposed to Columbus City Council that we would not object to the Nationwide tax if all of the monies would go directly to the arena. That proposal, as with every one of our alternatives, was rejected by GCAC and Columbus City Council. A “user fee” is certainly preferable to another arena bailout.

An additional critical alternative we proposed was to have us and members of our coalition assist GCAC in raising private dollars. GCAC already receives more than $7 million in public money that it redistributes under its own formula without any oversight. GCAC has failed in raising private dollars and the taxpayers should not provide further subsidies when virtually every city's arts community receives far more private dollars to operate than public dollars.

Bret Adams, Dublin

Declawing cats cruel, should be illegal

Congratulations to New York State for its recent ban on the deeply cruel practice of cat declawing (Associated Press article, Tuesday's Dispatch). This procedure is surgically equivalent to cutting the fingers off a toddler to preserve the knickknacks. It often leads to behavior issues, including fearfulness or aggressive biting. Scratching posts, often wrapped with sisal, are readily available and not expensive. A kitten can be easily trained to use a scratching pad or post, and also to letting you trim its claws with an ordinary nail clipper.

We recently invited an adult feral cat into our home and he soon realized that scratching the upholstered furniture earned scoldings, using the conveniently placed posts lots of praise. Now he never scratches the furniture and loves his scratching post.

Sadly, veterinarians too often consider their own financial interest rather than leading the fight against declawing. They could sell scratching posts just as easily as they do pet food in their offices, but choose not to.

Since the Ohio legislature can't manage to regulate puppy factories, I doubt that Ohio will follow the lead of New York, but I hope very much that eventually the U.S. will ban this unnecessary and painful procedure. Rayna Patton, Delaware

Restricting refugees to US is bad policy

Trump administration officials want to shut down the United States refugee admissions program by not allowing any refugees to enter the country starting Oct. 1. Because probably 95% of refugees are nonwhite, this is not just racist rhetoric, but racist policy. We cannot let this happen.

Since the U.S. refugee program was established in 1980, an average of more than 80,000 of the most vulnerable people in the world have been welcomed in this country each year. This year, President Trump limited that number to a historically low 30,000.

The U.S. refugee program has always had strong bipartisan support and has been the world leader in giving refugees a safer place for their families. Readers should call their representatives and senators and tell them that refugees are welcome here.

Steve Walker, Columbus

Democrats don't know how to run a business

After watching the recent debates, it occurred to me that the Democrats have no concept of how the private sector operates. When faced with mandatory health care or minimum wage requirements they will simply cut staff, reduce hours, raise the price of services and products or send the jobs overseas.

While this might work for public service employees where politicians view tax dollars as an unlimited supply of money, the private sector operates on profit and loss and they do not plan to lose.

Jeffery Sampson, Reynoldsburg

Vaccinations thwart a measles outbreak

I respond to the Canton Repository article "Stark County reports first Ohio measles" in the July 13 Dispatch.

As a medical student, I have seen time and time again children suffering due to lack of vaccination. I have seen unvaccinated parents pass the flu on to infants, leading to hospitalizations and lung infections. I have seen severely dehydrated kids who had forgone the rotavirus vaccine.

Now, with the first confirmed case of measles in Ohio this year, I am afraid that I might see the downstream consequences of measles as well, which can include hospitalization, brain injury and death. The measles outbreak in 2014 affected a largely unvaccinated Amish community.

These unimmunized populations, as well as babies under 1 year old who are too young to get the vaccine, are especially at risk. It would break my heart to see children suffering from a largely preventable illness.

Parents should not let me see my first case of measles: Get the MMR vaccine. Parents should protect themselves, their children and their communities. Valerie Burstein, fourth-year medical student, Columbus

Governing through chaos keeps things confusing

We must recognize President Donald Trump's behavior for what it is. Recent events where an unAmerican value is expressed (e.g., "send her back") and then walked back, are reported by news commentators and media as "Well, he changed his mind." When we accept this we have fallen victim to the scam, for the ill will expressed in the first action remains even though it is "rejected" by the second position.

This is the effect of rule by chaos. The poison remains. Chaotic and divisive behavior takes advantage of the fact that we as a people operate to presume innocence until ill intent is established. We are being conned and the values of our country are being destroyed. This

is because there is no principled mind to change.

Susan Zeier, Sandusky