Published: July 04, 2009 09:05 pm      

Our Readers Speak, Sunday, July 5, 2009

Verizon has been consistent winner



Verizon Communications announced, on May 13, its plans to divest itself of local wireline operations in 14 states, with most of its customers in West Virginia. This deal is affecting 11,000 employees, 4.8 million residential and small business phone lines and 1 million broadband connections.

As an employee of Verizon and a member of the Communication Workers of America, I’m very concerned about the proposed Verizon-Frontier deal. I’m worried about the jobs of 11,000 employees and the customers of Verizon. No matter what Verizon or Frontier may say, companies that are facing high debt and bad economic times often cut expenses by reducing jobs. In addition, I know that it is important to my community to have increased access to high speed Internet and good phone service. My fellow employees and I are proud to deliver quality services and skills that benefit the residents of our great state. We want to keep being able to do so, but if this tax-subsidized sale goes through, I am afraid that quality jobs and investment in high speed fiber needed throughout West Virginia may suffer.

One previous Verizon transaction similar to the Frontier proposal resulted in the sale of Verizon territories in the Northeastern United States to Fairpoint Communications, which has put Fairpoint on the verge of bankruptcy. Frontier insists they can handle the load, though that’s precisely what Fairpoint in New England said before their new customers entered customer support purgatory (months without e-mail and no one to deal with their issues). The winner has consistently been Verizon and the loser customers. Verizon lawyers use a sophisticated financial maneuver known as Reverse Morris Trust to dump a significant amount of debt on smaller telcos, while grabbing millions in tax write-offs, and purging themselves of pesky rural customers they had no interest in upgrading. So the already struggling telcos who acquire the booted customers then spend millions on integration and debt management, and have little to nothing left for next generation upgrades.

Legislation needs to be introduced that will change the Reverse Morris Trust because we should be encouraging investment in infrastructure, not speculative paper transactions that could put workers and taxpayers at risk. Please help support us by writing to your senators and House of Representatives of this great state. Together we can keep quality phone service, customer care and jobs in West Virginia.





Melissa Williams

Beckley



Environmentalists should practice what they preach



In regards to the recent and ongoing events with mountaintop removal and the tree-hugging environmentalists — actions truly speak louder than words so my advice is to go back to where you came from and start practicing what you preach before you try to make a statement.

First, I’m curious as to what kind of home you live in with you being so called environmentalists? I assume your home is not made out of our trees and that hot water which comes from your faucet, or that air conditioning that of course we all love and admire, is not in your homes. By the way, coal supplies some of those power plants. I’m going to assume you live in grass huts, but then you might want to watch that too. Grass environmentalists. I’m not sure how you arrived in my state — maybe by plane, train or automobile. My advice would be to prove a point on that issue. You might want to walk back home, because then you would really make a statement to our air environmentalists.

Truly, what I’m trying to say is everything we do has some impact on our lives and country. But you as environmentalists, are you ready to give up all of that to prove nothing? Because even if we did go to wind power (read your statistics) what do you think happens to the mountaintops? Have you ever noticed the trees missing where they put cell phone and Internet towers up? That takes away trees also but then I’m sure not one of you tree huggers has one of those either.

Let’s not forget the birds that it kills, but let’s not get the bird environmentalists into this picture too, we have enough going on with you so called tree huggers that so far I have yet to see you prove your point other than trying to take a hard working husband’s or father’s job.

You’re telling these hundreds of coal miners that have jobs, better pay and health insurance, that wind energy is the answer. Their pay could be cut more than half if not more and that’s just a rough estimate. Wonder how many workers it takes to watch a windmill turn? I’m sure you stepped on a few trees and discarded your waste into our water supplies just traveling to West Virginia and let’s not assume that you slept out under the stars because, of course, that hotel or fine resort you might have stayed in was made with trees or had power lines running to it.



Tammy McLaughlin

Jumping Branch





Glad to hear ice cream vendor robbers caught



I am glad to hear that the punks who beat up and robbed the ice cream vendor were caught.

I think that the law ought to be changed so that the punks’ names could be put in the paper so that maybe it would hopefully make them and their parents ashamed and that they would not commit a crime again.

Those punks need to think what if that had happened to someone they care about, how would they feel? Those kids also should be made to pay for the vendor’s medical bills and for the damages to his cart. If they have to get a job mowing yards or picking up trash, that would keep them busy and they would not have the time to commit a crime and they would be to tired also.

Do not tell me 14-year-olds cannot earn some money. There are many honest things they can do to earn some money to pay the vendor back. The parents should see to it their kids pay for the crime they committed.



Kathy Denny

Mabscott