YOUR OPINION

Support for the Senior Center

Dear Editor:

Do you know how many senior citizens depend on services from the Gallia County Resource Center?

Hundreds depend on hot “meals on wheels” four days a week and frozen meals on weekends, hot meals at the center, adult day care and senior center activities, personal care and homemaking in their homes, non-emergency transportation for doctor appointments, errands, shopping for groceries or personal shopping.

Please vote yes for the Gallia County Senior Center levy. The Gallia County Senior Resource Center must continue all the services to our senior citizens.

We cannot fail our seniors.

Gladys Grant

Gallipolis

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Don’t be fooled by Issue 2

Dear Editor:

All animals, including those raised for food, deserve humane treatment. I can’t imagine anyone thinking that hens crammed into cages so tightly they can’t even spread their wings, breeding pigs confined in tiny barren crates, or calves chained by their necks inside veal crates is humane.

In Ohio, millions of these animals exist in these conditions. Would you put your pets in filthy, cramped cages for their entire lives? I pray not. Farm animals should not be forced to live that way either.

The Issue 2 initiative does not call for a single agricultural reform. It’s not just a new law, it’s an amendment to the Ohio state constitution that would establish a “Livestock Care Standards Board” appointed by the governor and other state politicians. This Board would have the power to override any act by the Ohio Department of Agriculture or the state legislature. They would have the final say in how Ohio farm animals are treated.

No other state has this type of set-up. Michigan, California, Florida, Maine, Arizona, Colorado and Oregon have banned the use of inhumane confinement devices for farm animals. Issue 2 would drag Ohio backward, while other states are moving forward.

It’s no surprise that the Ohio Farmers Union, Ohio Ecological Food and Farming Association, League of Women Voters of Ohio, Center for Food Safety, Columbus Dispatch, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Dayton Daily News, the Humane Society of the United States, the Capital Area Humane Society, the Cleveland Animal Protective League and the Toledo Area Humane Society oppose Issue 2.

Keep the door open for future reform. Please vote No on Issue 2.

Christine Myers Cozza

Gallipolis