Best plan for APS is to cease operation

Susan Armstrong, APS president and former interim executive director, has made inaccurate and misleading statements regarding the report of financial mismanagement at APS.

She says, "We've been spending our reserves to build a fantastic new adoption center ... This was always the plan" ("Let's not forget APS's good works," letter to the editor, March 2). Actually, the original plan in 2000 was a halfway house with a kennel to support its operation. APS then restricted $396,000 from cash on hand to begin construction; $72,188 was wasted when construction was abandoned.

APS's new shelter is deficient in design and was completely mortgaged with $608,680 owed in 2005. APS's liquid assets of $610,625 in 2001 became a deficit of $174,834 20 months ago.

Armstrong says, "We are a struggling nonprofit organization. We operate on a limited budget with mostly part-time staff." The News says board president Suzy Cooke "denied that APS was struggling" ("APS on a tight leash," Feb. 24). Salaries and benefits were $397,580 in 2005-6, rather large for this supposed part-time staff. Surprisingly Cooke "did not know what APS's assets are" and the interim executive director "didn't have any specific numbers or budget information." APS built a shelter for more than $600,000 without having had a budget since 2002 and with no idea where operating costs would come from. This certainly is mismanagement.

A CPA consulted by The News said, "You're losing money, what do you plan to do to turn it around? Do you just plan on running into the dirt?" This is precisely what the APS board has been doing since 2002, losing about $250,000 a year. The county will have a new and larger shelter in early 2009. There will then be little need for APS's animal adoption facilities.

The best plan for APS is to cease operations and turn its assets over to another nonprofit such as the Piedmont Wildlife Center where the original vision of APS benefactor Felicite Latane can be realized. -- Elliot M. Cramer, Chapel Hill

Life as we know it being put at risk

The chairman of the International Panel on Climate Change was in Raleigh last month to speak at the Emerging Issues Forum and to receive a six-figure award for his distinguished service.

My good fortune was to join the panel chairman, Rajendra K. Pachauri, and others for a reception-luncheon in his honor on Feb. 11 at N.C. State University. Here is what I learned from this great man.

The family of humanity appears not to have much time in which to make necessary changes in its conspicuous over-consumption lifestyles, in the unsustainable overproduction practices of its big-business enterprises, and its overpopulation activities. Humankind may not be able to protect life as we know it and preserve the integrity of Earth much longer.

If we project the anticipated growth of unbridled per-capita consumption, rampantly expanding economic globalization, and 70 million to 75 million newborns annually, then human civilization and life as we know could be put at risk soon.

According to my admittedly simple estimations, if humankind keeps doing just as it is doing now, without doing whatsoever is necessary to begin modifying the business-as-usual course of our gigantic global political economy, Earth could sustain life as we know it for a relatively short period of time.

Unfortunately, top rank scientists have not found adequate ways of communicating to humanity what people somehow need to hear, see and understand: the dissipation of Earth's limited resources, the degradation of Earth's frangible environment, and the destruction of Earth's body as a fit place for human habitation by the human species, appear to be proceeding toward the precipitation of a catastrophic ecological wreckage of some sort unless, of course, the world's colossal, ever expanding, artificially designed, manmade global economy continues to speed headlong toward the monolithic 'wall' called "unsustainability" at which point the runaway economy crashes before Earth's ecology is collapsed. -- Steven Earl Salmony, Chapel Hill

Reader expresses anger at killer

Dear Shooter,

Does your bullet -- your senseless cowardly bullet -- empower you? I can try to guess at what could have possibly motivated you; however, nothing will justify or even soften the blow you've dealt.

Do you realize that packed into every one of your bullets is a somber candlelight vigil, heartbreaking quotes and speeches, poignant photographs and devastated family and friends? Of course you don't, because if you did you may think twice before pulling the trigger. You are weak, the weakest kind of human I can imagine.

I despise you and I feel nothing for you because all my feelings are reserved for your victims and those close to them who will never completely heal. What you have done is deplorable, though many will still say that they feel sorry for you or they forgive you. I am not one of them. I love the beauty that human beings can bring to our planet and I do not want to be angry.

But, I am angry now. Grandmothers, brothers, step-fathers, athletes, scholars, musicians, and countless others are taken from the planet every day by people like you, who fail to realize that beauty, and selfishly steal it away in an instant. You are a taker in a world that needs more givers.

I am disappointed that I am allowing myself to become so resentful and disturbed, but not at all as disappointed as I am that people like you walk among us. -- Mike Harris, Carrboro

Road safety delays are unacceptable

I read with great interest and equally great frustration the article "Town to upgrade street safety" dated March 19. Three deaths have occurred on Fordham Boulevard, two years have gone by and the Chapel Hill Town Council is being "updated" on possible safety changes to the highway between Manning Drive and Old Mason Farm Road.

These safety changes should have been in the plans years ago when U.S. 15-501 was built.

I find it very difficult to believe that Chapel Hill with the University of North Carolina and all its parents and distinguished alumni, and the president of UNC Hospitals would not have enough interest and political clout to demand all the safety measures on this highway NOW for their students and visitors.

Did they ever watch a UNC jogger try to cross this highway on Old Mason Farm Road? Why did Southern Village and N.C. 54 at Meadowmont have the safety measures before a more highly traveled area around UNC?

Where are the priorities? Natives have told me it took 15 years just to complete U.S. 15-501 toward Pittsboro. I believe it! I believe it!

Did you ever travel the bridge over Interstate 440 connecting the North Carolina Museum of Art and Meredith College? It's wonderful and it opened a whole new outdoor world to joggers and strollers alike. Likewise, a bridge across Fordham Boulevard would open up the UNC campus to a wonderful outdoor area. Why do we have to wait until 2015, "if at all." -- Betty Zelouf, Fearrington Village

Home births also an option for some

Thank you so much for your story concerning women's choices in birthing babies ("The midwife option," March 16). I appreciate the coverage concerning birth options that include the use of midwives in the hospital as well as the Birth Center in Chapel Hill.

However, your article neglected to mention another option: giving birth at home with a midwife in attendance. Our daughter was born in our home under the supervision of a nurse-midwife and doula, and it was a fantastic and empowering experience for my family. When I went into labor, our friends came over bringing food, our birth attendants took over my moment-to-moment care and support, my husband played soft music long into the night, and when morning came, I delivered our baby peacefully in our bedroom.

Our daughter never left my side; we made our first trip in the car to see our pediatrician two days later.

We are so fortunate to live in a place where there are so many alternatives to safely have a baby, including the luxury of having your birth attendants make a house call! -- Amy Elinoff, Chapel Hill