Letters: Bellefonte headed in wrong direction, Less funding for PSU is not the answer

Bellefonte headed in wrong direction

Bellefonte seems to be drifting in an unfortunate direction. Last Saturday marked the first time in years that the Bellefonte Farmers Market could not be found at the Gamble Mill. Meanwhile, the Saturday market at the courthouse has dwindled to a single vendor. Two of our former downtown pharmacies are being replaced by a Minute Mart and a vape shop. Downtown Bellefonte, Inc. has just announced that one of the town’s biggest civic events, Bellefonte Under the Lights, has been canceled this year because of a lack of volunteers. And late last month, our borough council expressed its hostility to the very process of considering our future environment. The texture of this small historic urban island, the quality of the pleasure one can find along its streets, is eroding. Of course, things can change. But one wonders if it will be for the better or the worse.

Joseph Griffin, Bellefonte

Interview revisited

While he was still employed by Fox News, Tucker Carlson interviewed Steven Sund, former Chief of the U.S. Capitol Police, about his experiences prior to, during and following the riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The video of Carlson’s interview with Sund was never telecast by Fox News. Because it is the property of the network and Carlson has no access to it after his association with the network ended, Carlson invited Sund to repeat the interview. Sund agreed. Sund provided detailed accounts (documents, names, dates, times) of failures of security intelligence and denials and delays on his frantic requests for additional security personnel when the threats to people and public property became obvious. He emphasized that he had never before encountered such failures, denials and delays during his 27 years as an officer in the D.C Metropolitan Police and U.S. Capitol Police.

The 55-minute video of Carlson’s interview with Sund is accessible here: twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1689783814594174976.

Phil Edmunds, Bolasburg

Less funding for PSU is not the answer

I appreciate Jonathan McGee’s generous hyperlink to an op-ed I published in the Inquirer this summer which called for Pennsylvania legislators to subject Penn State to the state’s open records laws. But his conclusion — that Penn State should receive less funding from the state — is horribly wrong. He argues “since state appropriations are such a small percentage of these schools’ budgets, it’s obvious a lack of state funding is not the primary cause of increased tuition.” This should seem plainly fallacious: today’s minimal state funding for our universities, relative to their budgets, means tuition has to take up a larger share. More state funding means our universities can rely less on tuition revenue, reducing the burden on students and families.

But, worse, the Koch-backed lobbying firm cleverly omitted another basic reality: Pennsylvania is 45th in the nation for higher education appropriations per-student. More funding would put us on par with institutions across the country. And more state funding will keep our public universities delivering key public goods: accessible education, path-breaking research, quality medical care, and support for culture and innovation across the commonwealth.

We shouldn’t redirect necessary funds from public universities to a trumped-up, experimental higher education school vouchers program on the behest of Koch-backed, pro-privatization, and anti-teacher think tanks. There’s another basic strategy that’s long been tried-and-tested (but avoided by PA Republicans): fully fund our state universities and subject them to open records, so they can be affordable, available and transparent.

Taran Samarth, State College