City voters should oppose public land giveaways

The Baltimore Sun reported last year that Carroll Park Golf Course, owned by the city of Baltimore, was considered “the most feasible option” for the site of a soccer stadium. Sounded then and now like another proposed theft of public park land. Today, The Sun details the severe neglect of that golf course (“Inspector general report shows dilapidated working conditions at Baltimore golf course building,” Oct. 27).

To the folks in charge: We see what you are doing — and not doing — on behalf of this precious resource. Baltimore voters need to know there is no law preventing development in a public park. It is therefore critical to vote “No” on Question F to stop the city from giving away any part of the Inner Harbor to any developer and to send a larger message that our parks are not gifts to be bestowed by city and state officials.

— Donna Beth Joy Shapiro,

Baltimore

Blame the governor for woke woes at DJS

There are a lot of talking heads telling us that the head of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services needs to quit or to have Gov. Wes Moore fire him. I disagree with that approach. It solves nothing in my opinion (“Sack Schiraldi? That’s not the answer to juvenile crime (or even the right question),” Oct. 25).

Recently, we have heard that DJS has not been honest with the numbers or success of ankle monitors. Surprise! They have told us that the goal was to rehabilitate these teen criminals. Most would agree that that should be the goal. But keeping them in homes where parents either have failed to raise them with a moral rule or are so dysfunctional that they have no moral code to share is not the path to save these kids.

Allowing these children to be free to run the streets of Baltimore where they can get $50 guns, drugs and the advice of the drug gangs is not the road to leave crime behind. It is obvious that the goal of DJS is to keep these criminals out of jail. But their alternative is to keep them on the streets and law-abiding citizens locked inside their homes. That is their idea of what is just!

Everyone seems to think that this will all change if the agency’s head is removed. Wrong! Gov. Moore agrees with all the woke ideas of his good friend, Vincent Schiraldi. He would just replace him with another who wants criminals on the streets. The governor needs to be removed also!

— Rev. Michael T. Buttner, Bel Air

A vote for Trump is a vote for opportunity

To understand how the United States will progress if Vice President Kamala Harris is elected visit Athens. My wife and I were in Greece for a dozen days, four in Athens. Athens has little or no middle class. The wealthy have been wealthy for generations. The poor have little opportunity for upward mobility. As workers in Russia often say, “The government pretends to pay us and we pretend to work.” That phrase sums up the attitude of many in Athens.

Vice President Harris believes in equality as in equal outcomes, not equal opportunities. As an economics and business journalist for more than 40 years, I interviewed many successful entrepreneurs including those of Greek heritage. All failed at least twice before they succeeded. All were willing to take risk. Generally, educators and academic economists, in particular, are risk averse. Educators stay in education generally because the real world is full of failure. They tend to teach their students risk can be a terrible thing.

Whatever you think about former President Donald Trump, he is not risk averse (“Trump shamefully aligns himself with Hitler,” Oct. 26). This country’s economy is the best in the world for allowing poor people like me the opportunity to fail and achieve. I’ve been poor. I am not afraid of being poor again so long as I have the opportunity to better myself. A vote for Vice President Harris is a vote for the government promising to take care of you, but not as well as it takes care of her.

A vote for Trump is a vote for the opportunity to be who and what you want to be so long as you are willing to work hard at it all your life.

— Stanford Erickson, Baltimore