Letters: Mourning a NVS family member; Thank EMS workers who rise to the challenge

Mourning a NVS family member

I want to thank Keely Doll for the fine article she authored in the April 22, 2022 issue of the CDT. It is both an accurate and heartwarming tribute to Michael Jinbo. Those of us who have played for him and served on the boards of NVS are stunned and saddened by our loss. We are not just musicians who have lost our leader. We are a family and will mourn this loss as we would a member of our own families.

Thank EMS workers who rise to the challenge

May 15-21 is National EMS Week — a recognition established in 1974 by President Gerald Ford. This year’s theme — “This is EMS: Rising to the Challenge” — recognize EMS practitioners and the important work they do — 24/7/365. EMS is the public health “safety net” …. prepared and equipped to provide the best care available under some of the most strenuous conditions imaginable. EMS practitioners also take an active role in training our fellow citizens on appropriate “self” help/care and how to best survive crisis situations when encountered.

In 2020 (the latest official statistics available) the PA EMS System responded to a little over 2.2 million requests — with close to 76% of those being for “emergency” assistance. That is a little over 4 requests per minute, every minute of the year. More than 41,700 of our neighbors — volunteer, others career, all professional — responded to those requests after receiving comprehensive training on how to appropriately handle those situations.

EMS practitioners are our family, friends and neighbors who make sure they are prepared every day to help you get through that day. Please join me in thanking the EMS agencies and practitioners who are your front-line health care providers. Tell them how much you appreciate their commitment and find out how you can best assist them in providing this service.

Voters guide layout should be improved

The League of Women Voters of Centre County has provided a distinguished service to the community by providing the voters with non-partisan information about the candidates’ positions and policies; published in the Voters Guide. However, the presentation of these data to their readership has less than lucid readability.

The layout of the Voters Guide could be vastly improved. Each open office should be displayed in its own row with the candidates running for that position in vis-à-vis columns. Some columns would be longer than others, resulting in white space, that’s OK; it aids readability. Continuations on to distant pages should not occur. Also, to increase findability for the primary elections, the guide should be dichotomized into entirely separate documents.

On Nov. 13, 2015, I had a letter published in this column in which I made several suggestions for ways in which this information could be displayed in a more comprehensible layout. Sadly, there has been little change in the guide’s nebulous format since then.

Voters need to be provided straightforward, easy to find information about the candidates. Data about the candidates should be easily located and compared. These facts need to be shown in a format that is much easier to follow. The current display makes comprehension cumbersome at best.

With the amount of voter apathy in this country, we should be doing everything possible to enable our citizens to efficiently glean factual knowledge about the candidates and of the offices that they are running to fill.