My compliments to you on your inspiring article about the new cafe Uncommon Grounds in Aliquippa. However, you neglected to mention how good the coffee is!

Uncommon Grounds grinds its coffee to order and makes a superb cafe mocha, using chocolate milk from the local Brunton's Dairy. My children come along with me to enjoy the delicious chocolate milk and hot chocolate, as well as the assortment of toys.

Uncommon Grounds may offer important and desperately needed services to some of the most desperate of Aliquippa's residents. But it is also a beautiful space with excellent food and drink.

Along with the cozy Silk House Cafe here in Ambridge, this business is bringing a new energy to lower Beaver County that is helping to revitalize this area.

RABBI SHOSHANA KAMINSKY

Beth Samuel Jewish Center

Town is example of national decline

"From the Ground Up" in last week's West was, on its face, an uplifting story about a small oasis of bright colors, caring and hope in otherwise blighted downtown Aliquippa. But for this particular reader, the article's description of what Aliquippa has become provided one more point on an increasingly troubling chart of our national decline.

I used to work with a woman who had been raised in an Italian-American family in Aliquippa's not-so-distant steel-making heyday. I remember her describing how, in the town's happier days, shift changes at the giant Jones & Laughlin steel mill took place against the background of a town alive with life, even at midnight. Growing up in that Aliquippa was, obviously, a happy memory for her.

Now we are told in the story's opening paragraph that, in today's Aliquippa, "Rusted cars, blighted buildings and vacant storefronts lend a foreboding air. The lure of narcotics and prostitution beckon in open air and in broad daylight."

Aliquippa's sad fate is only one more sign of the unconscionable cost of our government's misguided pursuit of free trade agreements around the world, underscored by the loss of nearly 3 million American manufacturing jobs in recent years.

On top of these incredible (and continuing) costs of our broken trade policies, the tax revenues which used to flow into our cities from our former healthy manufacturing base have dried up, too. Bridges are crumbling, police forces are being slashed and fire houses are being closed. We're even turning to legalized casino gambling to fund our schools.

How long are we as a nation going to continue to elect those who allow this downward spiral to continue and accelerate, while trying to convince us (and themselves) that everything is fine and as it should be?

THOMAS DAVIS

Rosslyn Farms

Business plan fits other communities

"From the Ground Up" was superb coverage of a superb work. I've seen it, and covet the same for my hometown.

Thanks for a good news story. "Spark" indeed.

DAVE GUSTAFSON

Langley, B.C.

Note: The author oversees thc Face-to-Face program operated by Fraser Region Community Justice Initiatives in Langley, B.C.