DUQUESNE LIGHT LAUGHABLE

Your column, "Deal clearing way for Duquesne Light to put customers first could become model" (July 16), both amazed and amused me.

Coincidentally, just two days before, National City had informed me that my application for a line of credit on the equity in my home had been turned down .

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When I asked why, as I have very good credit, I was told that Duquesne Light has given a negative report to the credit reporting agencies. This was surprising, as all my Duquesne Light bills have been paid promptly for the nearly 15 years I have been living in Pittsburgh. This includes the time span since June 2002, when I enrolled in its Customer Assistance Program (CAP). One qualifies for CAP based on income guidelines, and many participants besides myself have never been delinquent in payments .

Although I am also in CAP with Columbia Gas as well as the Lifeline Program with Verizon, neither of those utilities have harmed my credit rating.

When I contacted Duquesne Light's customer service department, I was told that Duquesne Light reports the portion of my bill covered by CAP to the credit reporting agencies. When I asked why they do this, as my account is current, and has been, etc., I was told that it's just as if I owed someone $500 and was angry, so I only paid $1/month . I said that that was not the case here. This CAP was mandated by the state Legislature; besides which, my account is current. The customer service agent mentioned the line about the $500 twice.

When I asked why Duquesne Light does this while Columbia Gas and Verizon do not, he stated that this is just the way Duquesne Light does it. The total amount of CAP funds involved with Duquesne Light over a period of 48 months is $38l.34, which averages about $7.94/month assistance from this billion-dollar company.

So much for Mr. O'Brien's "to improve the community, including assisting with economic development and helping improve the plight of the working poor." Give me a break! While Duquesne Light may have complied with the letter of the state law, it surely has not considered the spirit nor the intent of the law .

Thank you for your humorous and timely article.

KATHLEEN M. FULFER
McKees Rocks

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT

I was disappointed in the Post-Gazette's coverage of the union drive at the East End Food Co-op in "Union idea splits workers at food co-op" (July 12).

As the general manager, I feel responsible to our members to clear up inaccuracies in the article.

The current starting wage at East End Food Co-op is $7.25 per hour, and not $6.50 per hour as reported. This new wage increase, effective July 4, was decided on months before the East End Workers Committee, affiliated with the IWW, officially announced its existence in early May.

Also, the management of East End Food Co-op was unaware of the July 6 Workers Committee card check by the Thomas Merton Center until the results were made public. While we respect the Merton Center for their fine work in social justice, we were not engaged in the process. Because another union has identified itself as wishing to represent the staff, we could not recognize this card check. We had previously committed to holding a neutral, third party election by secret ballot.

East End Food Co-op management is neutral on the unionization of the staff, believing that it is entirely the decision of employees on whether or not they will have union representation.

We are working with both the East End Workers Committee and the United Co-operative Workers to create an election process that is agreeable to all parties, and we hope that this election can occur within the next month.

ROB BARAN
General Manager
East End Food Co-op
Point Breeze

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RECRUITING WORKERS

"Aging industries share need for workers" (June 13) highlighted a half dozen regional industries profiled in a series of reports from the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board and the Carnegie Mellon Center for Economic Development -- ground transportation; air transportation; utilities; mining; petroleum and coal products manufacturing, and primary metals manufacturing -- all of which are experiencing difficulty recruiting and training a younger work force to replace the generation now retiring.

Omitted from the list was a vital sector of the region's economy and a crucial part of all of our lives: health care.

Health care accounts for 14 percent of employment in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, a larger share than any other single category. Already, regional health-care employers are facing difficulty in attracting qualified applicants, with hospital staff vacancy rates topping 5 percent for 22 out of 25 frontline positions, including registered nurses and nurse practitioners whose vacancy rates are respectively 8 percent and 13 percent.

Without continuing and concerted efforts to recruit and retain health professionals, the situation only can grow worse as health care faces the perfect storm of an aging work force and an aging population seeking its services.

Work force shortages threaten the quality of care and can increase costs, particularly for recruitment. They also strain and destabilize the working environment for those who enter or stay in these professions.

Moreover, replacing trained and experienced workers with younger ones is not simple; it takes years of training and experience to shape the kind of caregiver any of us would want for ourselves or our families.

The Jewish Healthcare Foundation helped sound an early warning about these challenges five years ago with the 2001 Healthcare Workforce Summit; one of the foundation's supporting organizations, Health Careers Futures (www.hcfutures.org) has since worked with stakeholders -- employees, employers and educators -- on innovative programs to enhance retention and recruitment.

On the bright side, this trend should begin creating employment opportunities that could stem the exodus of the region's young people. Let's all make sure they know about the professional and economic rewards they might find by choosing careers in health care.

NANCY ZIONTS
Point Breeze

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WHAT PRICE CARE?

"Fast Food Pay an Unhealthy Sign" (July 16) states that rising wages for fast-food workers is creating a potential problem of luring unskilled labor away from home health care jobs to the counters of Wendy's and McDonald's.

It states that in the period 1989-2004, home health care workers' wages rose only 55 percent. Yet during that period, the Consumer Price Index rose 60 percent. Paychecks for these workers simply aren't keeping up with inflation.

The astounding news is that work of such importance is so undervalued. Regardless of what the fast-food joints are paying, people who provide essential care for the elderly, the sick, and the disabled ought to be paid more than $9 an hour.

WILL ZAVALA
Friendship

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Chuck Burton, Associated Press Bank of America's corporate center is a prominent part of the skyline in downtown Charlotte, N.C. Click photo for larger image.

THE BRIGHT SIDE

The recent series about Charlotte, N.C., (June 25-28) has reminded me of being in Station Square and overhearing a family say they were tourists from Michigan. The older couple sitting next to them said, "You are wasting your time here, there is nothing here for anybody to see, Pittsburgh is a joke." Then they erupted into laughter, as the tourists couldn't believe what they heard. I couldn't believe it either.

I moved to Pittsburgh from Cleveland five years ago, went to Pitt, easily found a job, an affordable house and made great friends. One thing I notice about many native Pittsburghers is the incredible amount of hyper-negativism that they display for their hometown. This defeatist mindset amazes me in that compared to many places, what the native Pittsburghers complain about is not a big deal.

Though Pittsburgh has its issues, like every other city in the country, many wonderful things are happening that go virtually unnoticed or are carefully ignored and rationalized by the hyper-negativist native.

If Pittsburgh is doing so poorly, as many natives that are in extreme denial like to "brag" about, then why is there so much redevelopment going on, most of which is heavily funded by private investment? Projects in the East End, Downtown, the South Side, The Strip and the North Side, not to mention many neighborhoods in which young professionals are moving in and reinventing what it means to live the urban lifestyle.

An expanding population looks nice on paper but what about a smaller refined population? The saying "quality not quantity" comes to mind. The population we are losing is mostly the elderly and the manufacturing and manual labor jobs that were once the main source of employment in the Steel City. Yes there is the typical ebb and flow of professional jobs that happens everywhere but overall the high paying medical, technology, banking, educational, and research jobs are actually increasing.

Pittsburgh was rated one of the best places to retire, the third best medium city for art, a top ten "smartest place to live," and a world class center for universities, which are consistently rated in the top ten in many fields.

Maybe what the natives fear is that Pittsburgh is becoming more culturally refined and worldly than ever before, leaving its gritty image in the past, and the past is exactly what the natives cannot seem to let go for a brighter more prosperous future.

Take off your old mill glasses for a second, look around, you may be surprised that Pittsburgh is truly "someplace special."

WILLIAM DAVIES
Friendship

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NO PLACE LIKE HOME

Dan Fitzpatrick's article on Pittsburgher's migration to Charlotte, "Pittsburgh expatriates miss their city but say they can make a better living in Charlotte" (June 28) was dead-on accurate.

My husband and I moved to Charlotte from Pittsburgh four years ago. Like many of the people interviewed, my husband struggled to find employment in the financial industry in Pittsburgh . We were drawn to Charlotte with promises of big paychecks and small-town living. What we found was a banking city with an inferiority complex, always wishing it could be more like Wall Street.

My husband worked for Wachovia, often logging 80- and 90-hour work weeks. The posting for a similar position at Bank of America included a "day in the life" segment on their company Web site that began with "breakfast at your desk at 7:30 a.m. while checking e-mails" and ended with "dinner with the team at 7:30 p.m. and final wrap of day's projects at 11 p.m."

Shortly after the birth of our first child, my husband left the bank and the paycheck to open a family owned and operated neighborhood bagel shop and deli. It is a gathering spot for many Pittsburgh natives longing for their hometown.

Young yuppies of Pittsburgh take heed, Charlotte has many things to offer, but it all comes at a price.

MISSY OWEN
Charlotte, N.C.

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REWIND

The future of video stories is not as bleak as "Video stores' struggles not entirely surprising" (July 18) could lead you to believe. . My store, Heads Together, has been in Squirrel Hill for almost 20 years. I took over in 2002 and built upon the collection that the previous owner had started. In the last year, the two other video stores in Squirrell Hill -- West Coast Video and now Blockbuster -- have closed.

I would like people to know that my store does very well -- considering the bills I have to pay -- and the reason is that I carry what other stores do not, what Netflix cannot provide, what is not available on cable and what Blockbuster refused to carry.

I have an extremely loyal customer base of individuals looking for independent, foreign, cult and gay movies. I believe we succeed where others do not because we are knowledgeable and passionate about movies, familiar with our customers and love to talk about and recommend movies.

I hope that other people do not give up their dreams of starting a small business, thinking that they can't succeed in the face of impassionate corporations or changing times and technology. Heads Together is the proof, and I would love for people to know that!

DEE SIAS
Squirrel Hill

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HEINZ BENEFITS US ALL

I am writing this letter to the thousands of investors in the H.J. Heinz Co. Many PG readers from the Pittsburgh region have not only invested in good product production through their investment in Heinz stock, but also in an organization that continues to support many charities that provide needed services to people in our community.

Even before the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank began operations in late 1980, Heinz through its foundation provided the initial start up grant to the food bank. Before government, before outreach to individuals, before seeking food donations, Heinz believed in us and understood the need.

Through the years, Heinz has continued its support. Food donations, equipment, warehouse and safe-food handling training, board leadership and sponsorships for fund-raisers have marked the character of their partnership in our shared mission to make nutritious food available to people in need.

Most recently, they have supported our hunger awareness campaign. One in eight people in our region lives in poverty. Many of them, and thousands of others who hover close to poverty, rely on food assistance to make ends meet each month.

We ask Pittsburgh region investors to remember this when they vote on some proposed changes at Heinz that may bring an end to the corporate presence of Heinz in our area, especially its corporate citizenship expressed in its philanthropy.

JOYCE ROTHERMEL
Wilkins
CEO, Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank