Highmark pays millions each year in property taxes

As one of the more than 90 nonprofit organizations that are participating in the Pittsburgh Public Service Fund, Highmark is committed to helping the city emerge from its financial distress. However, some segments of the community instinctively lump Highmark with other nonprofit organizations that own a significant amount of tax-exempt property, as reflected in a Nov. 2 letter to the editor ("Nonprofits Should Be Made to Pay Their Fair Share").

The reality is that Highmark does pay taxes on all the real estate it owns. We pay more than $3.2 million a year in county, city and school taxes on properties such as Fifth Avenue Place. We also pay many millions of dollars annually in federal and state taxes. While many in the community still think of Highmark in a narrow sense as a charitable organization, it is important to view our corporate mission through a broad and flexible lens.

Often overlooked is the fact that we serve as an economic catalyst for Pittsburgh and many Pennsylvania communities -- purchasing local goods and services, paying a variety of local and state taxes, and generating multiple business opportunities in goods and services related to health care.

One of the biggest challenges facing Highmark today is the company's ability to continue to fulfill its long-standing corporate mission while remaining financially stable to meet customer demands in today's increasingly competitive health insurance marketplace.

TYRONE ALEXANDER
Executive Vice President
Highmark Inc.
Downtown

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VA bureaucracy

It was a very frustrating experience to try to penetrate the bureaucracy of the Department of Veterans Affairs behavioral health complex at Highland Drive to get help for a veteran who had fallen through the cracks (as many do).

In a sincere attempt to help this veteran, it was virtually impossible for me to hurdle the gobbledegook jargon of many whose only function seemed to be to refer me to someone else. In trying to contact some individuals, I found that their phone lines, if not busy, were immediately switched to answering machines.

A psychiatrist, a Dr. Ahn, provided the only ray of hope for me. His time, compassion and sincere desire to steer me in my pursuit made an everlasting impression on me.

While at this VA center, I was sad to learn of the many veterans with psychosomatic scars caused by the effect of their military experiences. My prayers go out for these and the thousands more returning from our stupid continued presence in Iraq and for their loved ones who will accompany them through the ordeal that I have experienced firsthand.

As I passed through a maze of buildings, looking over the many desolate veterans with a blank look on their faces, it choked me up to see a smile from ear to ear as I clicked my heels and greeted each with my snappiest Marine Corps salute.

ALLEN FALENSKI
Harrison

Editor's note: The writer was a Marine Corps officer during the Korean War.

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A tool for parents

In "The Morning File" (Nov. 2) Peter Leo quotes approvingly the assessment reached by Ivor Tossell of the Globe and Mail that our Web site, kids-in-mind.com, as well as similar sites that analyze movies by describing scenes that are potentially objectionable, "... do double duty as cut-rate resellers of prurience."

Mr. Leo and Mr. Tossell seem to have profoundly misunderstood why kids-in-mind.com exists: The purpose of kids-in-mind.com is to provide parents and other adults with objective and complete information about a movie's content so that they can decide, based on their own value system or perspective, whether a movie is appropriate for their own kids. It's like a food labeling system, which tells you what a food item contains. That's it. We neither condemn nor recommend movies. The only thing we advocate is responsible, engaged parenting.

Our descriptions of movie content in terms of sex and nudity, violence and gore, and profanity are indeed so detailed that they seem absurd. But they are also in language that is exceedingly dry and clinical. Kids-in-mind.com reviews are merely a tool that can be used in any way any reader sees fit.

Our reviews have also provided data to at least three recent academic studies, by the Harvard School of Public Health, by the University of California at Berkeley and by Ruhr-Universitat-Bochum of Germany.

There is nothing nefarious or hypocritical in providing an informational resource that empowers filmgoers to make their own decisions about their own entertainment.

ARIS T. CHRISTOFIDES
Editor, Critics Inc.
Dublin, Ohio

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Infested with bars

I see that the South Side is going to have another bar open in the neighborhood. The old Mellon Bank on 14th Street has been sold, and the owners have applied for an alcohol license.

How odd that we have no King's or Bob Evans, or Denny's or Eat'n Park restaurants. Nothing for the family or senior citizens.

I have friends from out of town who make fun of the South Side. They tell people that the only way to live there is to be an alcoholic. I find this to be true, as this is how a lot of people view us.

How sad that to have a nice family-setting meal that can be afforded we must leave the area and go to the places where these restaurants were welcomed. As I have said for years, the South Side is the bar heaven of Pittsburgh. What a sad title to be known for.

CAROL SCHMIDT
South Side

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The needy need us

Molly Rush's Oct. 31 letter ("A Viable Cure for Health-Care Costs Is Here") certainly hit the nail on the head. It is time that all thoughtful, decent, caring and truly compassionate human beings realize and speak out on behalf of the most vulnerable members of our society.

The administration budget proposal would cut as much as $50 billion from critical services, including Medicaid, food stamps and student loans for the poor and middle class. It is doing this by working to quietly cut vital services under the table, committee by committee, leaving the final budget package stripped. This will strand millions of Americans of much-needed service and cause a devastating impact on the budget of local communities.

Our "family values" representatives in Washington should consider cutting the $70 billion tax breaks they are giving the very wealthy, which would result in a more fair and equitable solution. This would allow the Americans who rely on health-care, nutrition and educational programs the opportunity to provide for their families and build a future. The unemployed and underemployed are depending on us.

We who mourn the unborn should be morally obligated to accept the responsibility to care for those who are living.

MARIE C. MALAGRECA
O'Hara

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The panhandling law should withstand legal challenge

In response to your Nov. 7 editorial "Beg Your Pardon: City Council's Panhandling Bill Won't Last in Court," we would like to clarify some misconceptions about the language of the proposed legislation and to share some specifics of case law that support our assertion that the ordinance will withstand legal challenge.

After much public discussion, careful consideration and several versions of the proposed ordinance, Pittsburgh City Council unanimously voted in favor of an ordinance that regulates panhandling based on time, place and manner. Some specific points of clarification:

You stated that "the measure forbids begging at night." The ordinance prohibits verbal requests for money after sunset, but allows for nonverbal panhandling at all times.

Your editorial states that "the bill that council passed calls for social service intervention on first arrest for begging at night. But it's not necessary to criminalize people in order to deliver social services." Actually, the bill allows voluntary participation in the Community Outreach program for nonaggressive offenders for their first, second, third and subsequent offenses, not just the first violation. For the first violation, no summons is issued.

As to whether the sunrise/sunset restriction may be upheld by the courts, in Gresham v. Peterson, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Indianapolis' panhandling ordinance against constitutional vagueness and overbreadth challenges and enforced time restrictions that did not allow panhandling after sunset or before sunrise. The Indianapolis ordinance, like ours, does not ban nighttime solicitors who use signs to request donations. In addition, ordinances in Denver; Laredo, Texas; and St. Petersburg, Fla., forbid all panhandling between sunset and sunrise.

The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership welcomed community discussion and public process of this legislation. We believe the resulting ordinance has been crafted to protect the First Amendment rights of panhandlers, while balancing the rights of all individuals who use Downtown and other business districts throughout the city.

MICHAEL M. EDWARDS
President and CEO
Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership
Downtown