Letters to the Editor - March 19, 2026

Save our National Lands

We have seen the government gutted of personnel, but we can rebuild it.

The universities have been attacked and public money for research withheld, butwe will be able to restore health research.

Law firms who defended the law against government corruption have been attacked, but those firms can be restored to favor.

Money to the states for SNAP, which gives food help to the needy, has been cut, but we can restore that.

They have started a war in the Middle East, but hopefully we can soon withdraw from that.

Attacks to the environment and our public lands, however, can never be restored. Selling off public lands, which belong to the American people, can never be repurchased.Permitting oil companies to drill in our National Parks in the Arctic creates terrible pollution which cannot be cleaned up. Creating miles of roads at our expense through our National Forests opens the wilderness to exploitation, such as removing timber, but it will take a lifetime to restore those forests.Letting mining companies drill in our National Parks leaves huge open pits in the ground, which can never be restored. Compromising the Endangered Species Act could eliminate the existence of many species of animals, birds and plants forever.

We must stop the destruction.We must stop the attacks on our public lands.Our National Forests and our National Parks belong to us -the people -and we want it left to our children and for all the generations to come.

Lizbeth Piel

Sharon

Harlem Valley Rail Trail accident is horrifying

I was horrified to read about the bicycle accident on the Rail Trail, resulting in a fractured vertebra and a long healing process for someone who was enjoying a ride on a path specifically built for that purpose.

I am an active cyclist who rides 150+ miles per week in warm weather. I occasionally ride parts of the Rail Trail, almost always during the week when there is little activity, and only to connect to a road.

The Rail Trail is NOT for serious cyclists. Whenever I approach walkers I call out well in advance and coast my bike past them at a slow speed. If they don’t turn around, I stop. I would never pass another cyclist, especially a casual rider, on any of the elevated wooden walkways. It is infuriating that an accident like this is completely foreseeable, yet happened anyway.

I don’t walk the Rail Trail but if I did I would be very vocal (but friendly) in telling cyclists to slow down and, if on a walkway, to dismount. It is for their safety as well. The woman who was injured could have just as easily turned into the cyclist, which could have put them both in the hospital.

I was strongly tempted to suggest litigation here, but I am sure friends long ago offered that advice. As warm weather approaches you might consider an article about local bike safety, perhaps focused on the Rail Trail. The tiny silver lining here is that the article is not about a small child being hit by cyclist.

Terry Vance

Sharon

‘Able-bodied’ does not mean ‘able-minded’

I am writing in response to Ruth Epstein’s article about the League of Women Voters’ breakfast with six local CT representatives. Representative John Piscopo (R-76) made an unfortunate statement about wanting “able-bodied” people to go to work.

He thereby embodied an all-too-common misperception about the poor/folks receiving state assistance who appear to be “able-bodied”. He has apparently never noticed the distinction between “able-bodied” and “able-minded”.

He has undoubtedly never spoken to a person who is receiving welfare benefits. I spoke to many during my decades as a Family Physician in both rural and inner city Medicaid clinics. They include the people who are still illiterate because their dyslexia was never discovered during their school years, people who fall well below the average IQ on the classic normal distribution curve of such things, people with mental health disorders of multiple types, many inheritable and others caused by stress.

There are people whose childhoods were so marred by physical, psychological and sexual abuse that they will never be able-minded, and far too many of them are substance abusers as a result.

They all belong to our society, we have failed to prevent what happened to them, and, in my opinion, we owe them at least a square meal on their tables.

Representative Piscopo needs to rediscover his potential for empathy, something all humans possess but some never bother to use.

Anna Timell, MD

Cornwall