Letters: On panhandling bans, polluted waterways and disappointment in Miller-Meeks – Iowa City Press-Citizen

A plea for common sense regarding 'panhandling'

I wish to respond to the article in the April 6 Press-Citizen paper regarding bans on panhandling.It seems to me that a little common sense and compassion are in order.

I understand not allowing it along busy streets and highways where it creates a traffic hazard.

But to criminalize it in a pedestrian setting is, to me, a whole other matter, which violates not only the rights of the solicitor, but also those of the person who wants to help.

-Nancy Smith, Iowa City

We cant count on Miller-Meeks

U.S. Rep.MariannetteMiller-Meeks sent out her latest fund-raising letter telling constituents she ran for Congress because I want to protect the American Dream.

As a voter, I dont see Miller-Meeks protecting the American Dream or her constituents.

For instance, she said she voted for fiscal restraint and limited government.Her votes keep constituents living below the poverty line.She voted against the American Rescue Plan, Build Back Better and raising the minimum wage.Americans were food-insecure during the pandemic and many still are.She had an opportunity to help us, but she chose not to.

Miller-Meeks said she voted for more individual freedom.How is she giving us more individual freedom by voting againstFor the People Act, legislation created to expand voting rights?She claimed a shortened early voting period and shaving an hour off of Election Day voting is updated and modernized election laws.Thats voter suppression.

Miller- Meeks said she supports law-and-order.She also supports twice-impeached former President Donald Trump, whose flaunting of our legal system includes the attempt to illegally overturn the 2020 election.

Christina Bohannan will be a representative that Iowans in the 1stdistrict can rely on to reflect their views in Congress, unlike our current representative, who votes her party line.

-Dave Bradley,West Liberty

Iowa needs to stop exporting its pollution

Since Iowa has been turning our rivers and streams into sewers, we should thank those people who live next to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico for providing the toilet for our sewage.Without their cooperation, indulgenceand permission, we would not be able to send our human feces, cow and hog poop to them, turning the Gulf of Mexico into a dead zone devoid of all living things.

Thank them for providing this giant toilet for big agriculture in Iowa, who are the only ones that benefit from the septic tank Iowans live in.If you want to see toilet paper float by or swim and ingest pathogens;experienceflesh-eating bacteria, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomachacheand fever;cometo Iowa.

Republican legislators have been bought and sold to big agriculture and do not want to tell farmers not to pollute.They dont want to tell pollutersnot to plant stream to streamon land that becomes flooded, or to not put hog and cattle poop on frozen ground.They do not provide adequate retention ponds used in small towns and cities that overflow with human feces whenever it rains heavily.Everyone in Iowa that finds polluting our water disgusting should write to anyone they know in a state that borders the Gulf of Mexico or the Mississippi River.Ask them to tell their state legislatures to stop accepting Iowas poop.

Iowans need to enlist their help as we have not been able to do it by ourselves.

-Joel E. Wells, Iowa City

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Letters: On panhandling bans, polluted waterways and disappointment in Miller-Meeks - Iowa City Press-Citizen