Thank you for an opportunity to correct a misimpression deriving from a quotation attributed to me in the Post-Gazette ("Tax Revolt May Be Sobering for Onorato," May 19).

Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato and his political allies are using that quotation -- "If we win, this county will be in a terrible financial situation and [Mr. Onorato] will have to break his pledge [on property taxes] or this county will be in a mess that Dan Onorato created and deserves" -- to argue that Friends Against Counterproductive Taxation, a hospitality industry group I represent, advocates a property tax increase. They are wrong. To the contrary, I believe a property tax increase to be unnecessary, inadvisable and unlikely.

Neither FACT nor I support a property tax increase; I did not advocate a property tax increase when speaking with your reporter. On May 12, I submitted a written statement to the Post-Gazette that not only rejected a property tax increase but also identified more than a half-dozen prospective solutions that would not involve a property tax increase, from properly administering the current assessment system and reducing certain expenditures to reforming financial relationships with county authorities and addressing the treatment of many ostensibly tax-exempt properties.

After nearly a year without progress or leadership (despite repeated private and public assurances from Mr. Onorato and his council allies), I ask Mr. Onorato to use the next six months to arrange a better funding source for Allegheny County rather than to defend the drink tax. If, as I expect, voters end Mr. Onorato's overtaxation scheme by referendum in November, Mr. Onorato will need a plan to generate replacement revenues. My clients and I hope he uses the available time to develop one-- and one that does not involve a property tax increase.

CRISTOPHER C. HOEL
General Counsel, FACT
Franklin Park

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I cannot understand why the only way to deter a small, troubled man is to shoot to kill ("Police Kill Man Holding Meat Cleaver," May 24; "Victim Allegedly Disturbed Neighbors," May 25). As much as I would like to understand, I cannot.

Is there no gray area here? Was the killing of Nang Nguyen by a police officer simply kill or be killed? Black or white?

What about shoot to wound? Wouldn't a bullet to the knee or leg or arm have stopped this man sufficiently for an officer to detain him from harming anyone? Please help me to understand. Why is it necessary for people to die in this way in our society? Isn't there a better way?

LINDA L. SMITH
Mars

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Societies should be judged by how they care for those who cannot care for themselves. In America we fail to provide adequate care, particularly for adults with mental illnesses. Shame on the PG for both demonstrating and perpetuating this failure in the May 25 article "Victim Allegedly Disturbed Neighbors." How about "Victim May Have Suffered Debilitating Mental Illness"?

Was the police officer, forced to serve as first responder for a possibly mentally ill individual in crisis, trained to recognize mental illness? Did he not have nondeadly means of suppression, such as pepper spray? This man had a history of crisis in which the police intervened; was this officer not aware as he responded that this individual might have been ill?

For family members of individuals with mental illness, one of the gravest concerns is what will happen if our loved one suffers a crisis when we are not there to intervene or protect them. People with mental illness are four times more likely to be killed by police officers, and though sometimes it is unavoidable, in many other instances, better training and understanding would better protect everyone's safety, including the officers. Continued stigmatization and misunderstanding of mentally ill individuals is dangerous to the public and to police, as well as the individuals themselves.

We as a society treated this man as garbage, something to hide away and ignore until he "disturbed" us. The PG has compounded this tragedy by characterizing him, in the words of his landlord, as crazy, and by not once pointing out that this story represents a wide and growing problem of how we care for those who cannot care for themselves.

JENNIFER ENGLAND
Greenfield

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After reading letters about President Bush supposedly giving up golf as a sacrifice during a time of war, I decided to look up the original quote from the president. It's from a May 13 interview with politico.com, and here it is:

Politico: "Mr. President, you haven't been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?"

President Bush: "Yes, it really is. I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

Note that it was the Politico, not the president, who brought up golf. Note that the president never called it a "sacrifice." Note that the president did not equate giving up golf with the sacrifice of our troops.

You have to admit that it's a pretty sad state of affairs when our "news"-papers are full of politically motivated innuendo, and the electorate is forced to hunt down original quotes and their context to find out what our politicians truly believe.

JOHN LEWANDOWSKI
Bethel Park

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Regarding Katie Casella's May 21 letter ("Tasteless Cartoon") stating that George W. Bush is a "good man": He is a good man, but a horrible president.

He insisted on starting a needless war, which is resulting in the deaths of thousands of our men and women. Our economy is in trouble. Other countries no longer look at us with favor, and our jobs are going overseas.

Mr. Bush should play more golf and leave the business of running our country to people who know what they are doing.

NORMA GIOVENGO
Avalon

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Rob Rogers' May 20 cartoon was another great one. I always look forward to seeing his work.

Letter writer Ellie Woods (May 24) thinks he disrespects our president ("It Was Disrespectful"). Respect has to be earned. This president never had the respect of many of us. In my case he loses more of my respect every day. There is a long list of things he doesn't respect. One of them is veterans.

I am a veteran and glad George W. Bush wasn't my commander in chief making bad decisions that lose lives. Most of us now realize "the emperor has no clothes."

DAVID L. SMITH
South Side

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Residents of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania: Hold on to your wallets. Highmark Inc. is coming for them again. On May 24, Highmark applied for rate hikes for four different products, affecting 65,000 Pennsylvania residents and raising $25 million more income annually.

I find these rate hike applications curious for the following reasons: First with the proposed merger with Independence Blue Cross in the works, Highmark keeps saying that it will save untold millions of dollars of administrative costs and will be able to pass those savings on. Obviously not to its subscriber base.

Second, in late 2007 and early this year, Highmark entered into a settlement of a class-action lawsuit and has to pay out between $10 million and $14 million. Are these rate hikes just Highmark's way of recovering this money?

Finally, if anyone reviews the Highmark 2007 annual report, the following numbers are revealed: Net income for 2006 and 2007 was $398 million and $375 million, respectively. Reserves still grew from $3.6 billion to almost $4 billion, respectively, and premium income vs. claims paid still exceed $1 billion for 2007.

We, the subscriber base, need to contact the Pennsylvania Insurance Department as soon as possible to make public comments and protest these rate hikes. We have only 30 days from May 24 to do so. Go to the Web site of www.pabulletin.com, find that issue and those rate hikes and follow the instructions. If these four applications are successful, many more will follow. Also, write to your state legislators to support HB 1121 for a consumer advocate for insurance. This bill will give Pennsylvania residents much more protection from rate hikes than we currently have.

LARRY GRUMET
Squirrel Hill

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We receive more letters than we can fit into the limited space on the editorial page, so we'd like to share some additional letters with our Post-Gazette Web site readers.

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Your May 28 editorial "The Road Ahead," calling the turnpike lease the "unacceptable" end of a Hobson's choice, while Act 44 "sensible," is riddled with missing facts and illogical turns.

You deride the proposed increase in turnpike tolls under a lease, yet fail to mention that tolls would be limited to equal to, or less than, what has already been planned by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, which has pledged to increase tolls 25 percent in 2009 and 3 percent every year thereafter -- at a minimum. In other words, your editorial argues for higher tolls on turnpike drivers, as long as drivers on other roads pay more.

You also claim that I-80 drivers, particularly cross-state truckers, "get a free ride." But this conveniently forgets that the state and federal gasoline taxes -- which I-80 motorists have paid and will continue to pay -- are what built and repaired I-80. It is for this reason that the federal government will be unlikely to allow tolling of I-80, at least as planned under Act 44 (i.e., with most of the revenue going to other roads and to mass transit, rather than back into I-80).

If the federal government should approve tolling of I-80, and state lawmakers want to pursue that, tolls should be offset by a reduction in fuel taxes and motorist fees. Furthermore, if I-80 or other roads are converted to toll roads, they also should be subject to competitive bidding, rather than turned over to the inefficient and corrupt turnpike commission, to ensure the best deal for motorists and taxpayers.

NATHAN A. BENEFIELD
Director of Policy Research
Commonwealth Foundation
Harrisburg

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In a May 22 Web letter, John Lipchik bemoans the fact that, in his opinion, the Post-Gazette has unfairly given more coverage to the police dog that was slain in the line of duty than the man who was shot and killed ("Dogs Do Not Come Before Humans"). I am not convinced that the paper is guilty of this perceived slight.

In any event, I found it ironic that Mr. Lipchik spoke "of our sick society and its twisted values." That is one statement that we can agree on emphatically. We have certainly lost our way when individuals can roam the streets, sometimes in broad daylight, waving weapons and putting police in untenable situations. And that is not to mention placing innocent people in grave danger -- now that is sick and twisted.

I have been the victim of street crime and, believe me, I was more than deeply insulted.

MARI TOTIN
Bloomfield

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I will leave it to minds more trained in the law than my own to decide whether the police shooting of Justin Jackson was justified. But if I hear that police dog referred to as a "police officer" one more time, I will scream.

Human police officers receive special protections under the law and can require special respect from ordinary citizens. To apply these protections to an animal, however well-trained, is a ridiculous insult to us all. A dog cannot understand the law or human rights, nor can it understand and take an oath of service to the community.

To compel human citizens to respect a dog as a police officer is absurd. To value a dog's life over a human's, even if that dog happens to be owned by the police department, is a moral obscenity.

MICHAEL DAVID PLITTMAN
Greenfield

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Thank you, PG staff writer Cristina Rouvalis, for the article about blind people's money problems ("For the Blind, Money Is a Currency of Independence," May 22). I wish to further the discussion by speaking out about our country's money blindness. Anyone who has traveled abroad knows how most countries differentiate with size and color among denominations of paper money.

It is time we followed their lead. Perhaps we could also produce dollar coinage that doesn't look and feel so much like a quarter as our previous attempts have. The U.S. Mint even milled the edges so we'd be sure to mistake them for quarters!

It would be nice for our country to advance into the 19th century when it comes to the production of money.

EDWIN J. BORREBACH
Bradford Woods

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Brian O'Neill, thank you for taking up the matter of responsible gun ownership, and exposing the National Rifle Association's anti-social side ("NRA Firing Blanks in Stolen Gun Debate," May 29).

It is astounding to me that this organization can promote an extreme position in opposition to the public welfare and also manage to avoid the censure its leadership and much of its membership deserve.

Gun violence is clearly among the greatest threats to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that we face as a nation of free people -- whether it be on a city street, on a university campus or in an Amish schoolhouse in Lititz, Pa.

Let's hope that Rep. David Levdansky continues to get noticed by serious journalists, and that the NRA continues to get noticed, too.

FRED LANNI
Squirrel Hill

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West Virginia University does not have a monopoly on the great diploma giveaway. Colleges and universities across the country granted degrees during May ceremonies, in some cases for little more effort than writing tuition checks.

Courses are watered down at times by teachers whose jobs depend on popularity, measured by student responses to multiple choice questions in "evaluations" completed toward the end of the term. Surveyed professors have admitted dropping requirements, and thereby lowering the quality of their courses, to be popular -- and reappointed.

Grades may be inflated for the same reasons, creating misleading transcripts. Studies reporting the high percentage of A's and B's being awarded have confirmed the problem.

Students are capable of more. Administrators and faculty who go along with reduced course requirements and inflated grades are just as guilty of shortchanging students academically, and perhaps conning the public, as those at WVU are who cooked up the phony M.B.A. transcript.

JANICE C. SHIELDS
Marshall

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We welcome your letters. Please include your name, address and phone number, and send to Letters to the Editor, 34 Blvd. of the Allies, Pittsburgh 15222. E-mail letters to letters@post-gazette.com or fax to 412-263-2014. Letters should be 250 words or less, original and exclusive to the Post-Gazette. All letters are subject to editing for length, clarity and accuracy and will be verified before being published.