2016 election Generals Highway chaos City Dock flooding Obamacare repeal

2016 election

I am replying to John Terplay's letter (The Capital, Jan. 3) to give a different perspective to his thoughts on the opinions of Democrats - or liberals, as he states - after the election.

I consider myself a moderate Democrat. I stayed very informed during the whole election process. I read, listened and researched many things that were said by all candidates before and after the primary voting day. I have voted Republican when I felt that particular candidate was a better fit for the highest office in the land.

So, please don't tell me I am in denial. I know very well Donald Trump won the election. I know also that our U.S. intelligence agencies deserve our praise for keeping our president informed and keeping all American citizens safe. I don't consider them liberal or conservative.

Most all Americans were either shocked or surprised by the results of our election.

Countries around the world were very surprised by the results. After all, Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote by a very large margin, 2.8 million or more. She won with 54 percent of the vote. So, yes, we have to wonder how our democratic process of voting ended with these numbers showing Secretary Clinton as the winner.

The FBI and the CIA say the have proof that Russia hacked into our democratic process. Many Republican senators and congressmen have stated that they believe the intelligence and are frightened by what this means to our country and to our democracy.

MARY HEBBLE

Crofton

Generals Highway chaos

On Dec. 20 a fatal head-on collision on Generals Highway (Route 178) caused the road to be closed for three hours during evening rush hour. Traffic, always heavy at this time of day, was diverted onto narrow winding roads like Honeysuckle Lane and Crownsville Road, creating monumental gridlock.

A trip from Crownsville to downtown Annapolis, normally 25 minutes, became a one-and-a-half-hour ordeal. One can only imagine the tragedy that could have happened if a medical emergency requiring a trip to the hospital had occurred.

For residents of neighborhoods such as Sherwood Forest, Arden on the Severn and Herald Harbor, Generals Highway is the only direct way to get to and from Annapolis, unless you make a major northerly detour to Benfield Road in Millersville to use Interstate 97. There are ramps to only northbound I-97 and from only southbound I-97 at Crownsville, so Baltimore trips are relatively easy - but it's not so for travel between Crownsville and Annapolis.

There is a straightforward way to greatly improve this situation: add the required ramps to I-97 in Crownsville. At the present intersection of Generals Highway and the northbound I-97 ramp, a ground-level exit ramp could be added from northbound I-97. With one overpass, an entrance ramp to southbound I-97 could be added from the same intersection.

A look at Google Earth shows that the land required to do this is undeveloped. If needed, its acquisition would be a valid use of the state's power of eminent domain.

This situation urgently needs addressing by the state and the county. How many more traffic nightmares will we have? How many more people will die?

ROBERT ARIAS

Crownsville

City Dock flooding

The front-page article on flooding of the City Dock area (The Capital, Jan. 2) indicated there has been an average of 39 yearly flooding days.

The Capital could do a better job of keeping citizens informed if it provided a running total of the flooding days by publishing a tally as part of the weather section each day. It could also provide a warning of an expected flooding day in each day's newspaper so that residents would be warned ahead of time of possible traffic detours in the dock area.

This seems like something that would be useful to those residents of the city who live outside of that flood zone, as well as inside. It should be easy to predict, since we have "experts" who can tell us, according to that article, that the tide will rise 6.6 feet by 2100.

If this sounds sarcastic, then you are correct. I am tired of these predictors of doom who give us bogus information about what will happen to our climate 80 years from now but can't accurately predict our weather a week in advance.

As I mentioned in a previous letter, the city redid the entire dock bulkhead last year but provided no allowance or options for dealing with current or increased numbers of flooding days as part of that work. I will be anxious to see what the new round of discussions in 2017 will lead to, based on the seemingly poor planning that was executed on the City Dock modifications last year.

Or maybe we will be subject to another excruciatingly bad master plan for the dock area, like that introduced three or four years ago and found wanting by many.

WAYNE ADAMSON

Annapolis

Obamacare repeal

When I was in junior high, our gym coach, aware that we were not playing football by the rules, sat the class down, saying that he could see that we needed to go back to fundamentals. The jocks in the class groaned very loudly, so coach did not review the fundamentals. As a result, the game of football was largely a mystery to me until later in life.

The Republicans, like those jocks, want to repeal the Affordable Cart Act without understanding the constitutional fundamentals. I shouldn't have to take them back to Constitution 101, but here we go:

The preamble of the Constitution states that one of the purposes of the document is to "promote the general welfare." Webster's defines welfare as "the state of being healthy, happy and free from want."

So why the Republicans are so dead set against the ACA as "socialized medicine" is beyond me. The fundamental issue of health care is that it is within the scope and definition of "welfare," and thus should be one of the basic and constitutional functions of our government. It shouldn't be a mystery.

A single-payer system is the only real constitutional resolution to affordable care. The risk pool would be the whole country, including the legislature - no exceptions. All would contribute, and all may benefit. It could be administered by third-party existing insurance companies under legislative guidelines, so disruption to private enterprise would be minimal.

It seems "fundamental" to me.

JOHN FOUNTAIN

North Beach