Celebrating a Green Leader
I can't think of a more qualified person to serve as sustainability chief than Jenita McGowan ["Buying the Farm: Cleveland Wants Us Eating Local by 2019. But Is It Doing Enough to Make That Happen?" March 21]. Jenita embraced sustainability as a way of life way before the rest of us had even heard the word.
A gracious, wicked-smart, inclusive, and well-educated person, Jenita spent years honing her skills in the nonprofit, government, and education sectors before becoming Cleveland's sustainability manager. To focus on the large bump in her salary and her dancing career is painting the wrong picture. You should focus on how she is finally making the salary she is worth and how her background has well prepared her to lead the rest of us toward a more sustainable future.
Gwen Forte
The Garbage Truck of Life
The fact that "Occupy" citizens are irresponsible cannot possibly be unexpected ["Occupy Some &%*#@ Manners: A Rift Among Volunteers Plagues the Movement," March 14]. Visit any public housing project, and you will find identical behavior.
When people are given things (money, food, shelter, health care), their perceived value of what was given to them is zero. And since the value is zero and they do not own it, they do not take care of it as they would if it were something they had worked for.
Communism was an outstanding theory, socialism a close relative. But they both fall apart in practice because somebody has to take out the trash. And in the theoretical world, taking out the trash is everybody's and nobody's job.
Steve G
Cows Can Hurt Us
The beautiful, luscious land of Ohio is very fertile; a milk cow does not need five acres on such rich, pleasantly watered land ["Cows to Come Home: Council's Latest Plans Confirm That Settlers Had It Right," March 7].
Cleveland's visual charm is in its architecture from a more elegant era. Destroying this heritage in the name of "urban agriculture" could turn into another real estate developer's ploy. Farms near people is an obviously good idea — and the norm in Germany — but please be careful on the implementation of it here in the land of blockbusters and redliners.
Ann Malone
