LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
From the bottom to the top, make all employees get the shot
Let’s have fully vaccinated employees, please.
It’s no longer acceptable for salespeople, technicians or executives of any business whose job involves entering a client’s home or office to be unvaccinated.
That’s the height of poor customer service, not to mention an unvaccinated employee is a poor business asset.
Robert Cox, Phoenix
Welcome the investigation of Phoenix Police? Heck yeah!
I retired from the Phoenix Police Dept. seven years ago. I spent 27-plus years as an officer with this tremendous organization.
I welcome the United States Department of Justice investigation. I’m convinced after their exhaustive probe is completed they will be coming up with the following three conclusions:
1) An overwhelmingly majority of the officers are very dedicated in their service to safely protect the citizens of Phoenix.
2) That Phoenix officers face inherent dangers on a daily basis in part because Arizona is a border state.
And the most important:
3) The department is underfunded and needs a budget increase to adequately staff both the patrol and investigative bureaus.
So again, thanks to DOJ for being able to highlight this great department on the national stage.
Dan Adair, Phoenix
Come on sports teams, we need hard copies for keepsakes
Do you enjoy spending thousands of dollars on Suns playoff games and having nothing to take home from the event?
No physical ticket, no game program, no team roster, nothing to mark the special occasion?
Well, the Cardinals are following suit! They gleefully confirmed today: “The Kickoff Magazine has gone digital!” in 2021.
The tradition of issuing a game program is now more important than ever to fans, as game tickets are now 100% digital.
The Cardinals are ending this tradition that began in the 1920s. In 2019, the Cardinals even included a souvenir ticket inside the magazine because physical tickets were gone and fans (especially opposing teams visiting Arizona on a “bucket list”) loved it.
They all wanted something to take home.
At State Farm Stadium, it is all gone in 2021. As more and more Cardinals traditions (for almost 100 years) disappear, so do the die-hard fans and our loyalty.
Today I wrote team owner Michael Bidwill about this and told him I will be watching from home at the sidelines in 2021.
Jim Winkowski, Scottsdale
Cartoonist takes a cheap shot at US Olympic gymnast Biles
I was taken back by the sheer meanness in the Ramirez cartoon on Friday’s Opinions page.
What an unnecessary swipe at the brave athletes in the Olympics, especially gymnast Simone Biles.
I will no longer take a minute of my time to even read this man’s cartoons. Where are the cartoonists of the past that made us smile?
Barbara Thelander, Mesa
We can no longer ignore nation’s deteriorating infrastructure
The debate over the infrastructure bill is pure political insanity.
What is even more insane are the senators who will only pass this bill if their amendments are approved, commonly known as “pork” spending or scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours!
This needed spending is essential in halting the structural deterioration that has been allowed to rust away, rot away and collapse much of America’s bridges, roads, airports and buildings due to Congress’s continual political game playing.
For this body of elected officials to even have second thoughts of kicking this expenditure down the road is itself further failure of our national security.
The years of infrastructure neglect, even with this spending, will require far more to address the decay in this nation.
The wounds in our country’s deteriorating infrastructure need more than congressional Band-Aids to stop the bleeding.
Robert Lake, Gilbert
We can address the eviction crisis with solutions at the local level
Thank you for your piece on the struggles of those facing eviction. It is disheartening to hear available aid is not getting to them.
Rental prices have risen to ridiculous levels and state leaders have allowed no-boundaries apartment/condo building that not only harms our Arizona environment, but passes on the profits to those who need it least at the expense of those most harmed.
Meanwhile taxpayers have to provide resources and mange the fallout. There can be win-win solutions, but we need to implement policy and safeguards at the local level.
Sophia Tsikalas, Scottsdale
Ducey isn’t protecting our kids, he’s only complicating our lives
I am a father of two young children, ages 5 and 3. They aren’t eligible to get the vaccine.
We as parents are trying to navigate this crisis and protect our kids, and it seems like Gov. Doug Ducey is making that harder with his view that people have the right to choose and his executive order that gives parents the right to choose mask or no mask.
The problem is that parents who don’t get vaccinated and don’t want kids wearing masks take away my ability to protect my kids regardless of my choice to get vaccinated and to have my kids wear masks.
It makes it really hard to parent and to feel like we are doing the right thing. Doug Ducey has no power to tell schools what to do.
His executive order does not protect our kids; it only makes things more complicated.
Christopher Lopez, Scottsdale