Letters: November 9

Posted 11/9/16

Recalling Louise Stevens

I was sorry to learn that longtime Chestnut Hill Local employee Louise Stevens died last week. Louise worked for the Local for 25 years in various capacities, mostly as …

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Letters: November 9

Posted

Recalling Louise Stevens

I was sorry to learn that longtime Chestnut Hill Local employee Louise Stevens died last week. Louise worked for the Local for 25 years in various capacities, mostly as circulation manager, but also as a receptionist and classified advertising department assistant.

She picked up the Local's mail at the post office each day and mailed outgoing mail at the end of the day, kept track of subscribers, ordered papers each week, oversaw the mailing of the newspapers at the post office near 30th Street Station, and worked with others to deliver them to the locations that sold them.

Louise was a kind woman who played a large role in making the Local and Chestnut Hill Community Association employees and visitors to Town Hall a strong and cohesive group, and, in turn, making the Local and the CHCA the strong newspaper and organization they are today.

Katie Worrall

Past editor, Local staffer 1978-2004

Outraged

I am outraged you chose to give major space to a piece slamming Hillary Clinton, filled with the same thoroughly debunked slanders we’ve come to expect from the Trump crowd, with no balancing pieces presenting other viewpoints and actual facts. [“Why I won’t vote for Hillary; And I won’t vote for Donald either,” Nov. 3] This has the same “gotcha!” feel as James Comey’s strange maneuvers, especially as this is the last issue we’ll see before voting.

I can only hope your highlighting of the unsupported distortions from Rosemary McDonough will influence no one, other than to increase motivation for electing Hillary. Many of us are fully aware that Hillary’s biggest crime is being female. Everything from missing emails to deaths at embassies which brought no upset in the Bush years is treated as outrageous for one reason only. The double standard has never been more blatant.

I expected far more integrity from you.

Janet Mather

Chestnut Hill

Voting rights should not be taken for granted

The United States is a nation of liberties, and Ms. McDonough has expressed that she is choosing to not exercise her right to vote. I, as an African American, cannot conscientiously make that choice, as people have actually been killed, jailed, and otherwise been subjected to violence and abuse in order to secure my right to vote.

Both candidates are very flawed, but when one candidate openly expresses biases against Latinos and paints African Americans broadly as living in poverty and despair, but without revealing any sort of plan for improved education and healthcare, the choice is not that difficult for me.

Ms. McDonough comfortably wrote thinking that her vote does not matter because at the time of publication it seemed to her that Hillary Clinton was definitely going to win. Even in the 21st Century we have attempts to suppress voting by minorities (for example Mike Turzai and his comment on why Pennsylvania should enact a voter ID law) choosing not to vote is a liberty that I do not believe I could or would ever exercise.

Damali Dixon

Bala Cynwyd

A tale of two Bottom Dollars

In "A Tale of Two Bottom Dollars" will it be told that the Weavers Way Cooperative Association opted for the vacant Bottom Dollar store in Ambler and not the vacant Bottom Dollar store in Germantown or somewhere else in Philly and closer to our stores in Mount Airy and Chestnut Hill because selling $18 a pound cheese and prepared foods to working professionals was better for the bottom line?

My hope is that it be told that the financial success of the Ambler operation and lessons learned from Weavers Way's unsuccessful Ogontz store led to the opening and success of a Weavers Way store in a more economically disadvantaged Philly neighborhood.

For a "community owned" store, it is critical to define who constitutes our community.

Brian Rudnick

Northwest Philadelphia

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