I appreciate The Voice's continued coverage of the killing of Walt Penney on Sligo Creek Parkway on 10 January 2002. Walt Penney was an extraordinary man. He was devoted to his family and his friends, and he was a community servant par excellence. I think Walt must have coached half the kids in Takoma Park in one sport or another. He was a true mentor. My son was on his soccer team for five years, and he and many other boys asked to be on his team year after year. He was magic. And his loss has been devastating.

The man who ran Walt down was convicted in November of manslaughter and a slew of traffic violations. He will be sentenced on March 19 at 9:30 a.m., Courtroom 2 on the Ninth floor of the Montgomery County District Court in Rockville. Fanen Chiahemen's article (4 December 2002, "Driver found guilty in Cyclist Death"), just after the trial, pointed out that Scott Davis faces a possible sentence of 10 years. Don't hold your breath!

My conversations with law enforcement officers and attorneys indicate that Mr. Davis is likely to serve only 12-18 months at the very most. Light sentences have been handed down in other recent cases where a pedestrian or a cyclist was killed by a reckless driver. The man who killed Judith Flannery in 1997 had to pay a fine, do community service and write an essay! The drunk driver who killed a pedestrian in Silver Spring a few years ago in a hit-and-run served only 18 months. These guys are already back behind the wheels of their cars in our community. Yikes!

I hope the judicial system will show a little more backbone when Scott Davis is sentenced on March 19. I was there for the entire Scott Davis trial. Forensic evidence and eyewitnesses showed that Scott Davis was travelling at more than 60 mph when he lost control of his vehicle on a curve. One witness saw him pass another vehicle in a no-pass zone just before striking Walt. Mr. Davis' former employer testified that he was driving a vehicle that he knew had defective steering.

And Dino Flores, one of Mr. Davis' high-powered private lawyers, was quoted in the Voice (4 December 2003) that he is stunned by the verdict. Why? It only took that jury four hours to find Davis guilty on all six traffic counts against him in addition to vehicular manslaughter. The evidence against Scott Davis was overwhelming. His defense team argued that their client had merely engaged in 'foolish' rather than criminal behavior, that this was merely a tragic accident.

Of course, Mr. Davis did not set out to kill Walt Penney on that day, but he made a series of bad decisions, that even a fool knows could hurt or kill someone. If he had killed Walt on purpose, he'd have been charged with murder, not manslaughter. However, Mr. Davis made a series of very bad decisions, and there were consequences to those decisionsbig ones.

As a result of Scott Davis' outrageous and willfully negligent behavior, Walt Penney will never see his two wonderful children graduate from high school or college. He won't see them get married. His grandchildren will never know him, and his wife will have to go on without her soulmate of nearly 20 years. Justice demands that the Penney family should not be the only ones to experience the consequences of Mr. Davis' bad decisions. Mr. Davis should go to jail for a long time.

Dino Flores was quoted in the Voice article as saying that the Davis family had wanted to express their sympathy to the Penney family but he advised them not to. I am really touched. Scott Davis ran over Walt Penney and then got out of his car and smoked a cigarette while frantic witnesses called 911 and attempted to aid Walt. More than one year later, he hasn't even apologized because his lawyer told him not to. Oh, please!

Mr. Davis has done everything possible to avoid incurring any consequences for his outrageous behavior. Everyone has the constitutional right to a jury trial. But, there are rights, and then there is the right thing. If he had a shred of decency he would have taken responsibility for his actions and plead guilty, sparing Walt's family a week long trial describing the grim details of their loved one's death.

Instead, he and his team of lawyers sunk to new legal lows. Away from the jury's ears, but in front of Walt's family and friends, his defense lawyers had the autopsy report thrown out as evidence on a technicality. Then they attempted to get their client acquitted by arguing that the cause of death had not been established. Perhaps Walt Penney had a heart attack and died seconds before their client ran him down. They also argued that chain of custody of the body was not adequate and that perhaps the body that Walt's family had identified from scars was not the same one that their client had killed. How repugnant!

I hope Scott Davis gets 10 years in prison. I want him off the streets. I never want to come around a curve on Sligo Creek Parkway and have that man coming the other way, whether I'm on my bike, in my car, or walking my dog along the path beside the road. Perhaps it will also make anyone else who dares to take to our streets and neighborhood parks and drive like a maniac think twice about it. I also hope that the courtroom is packed on March 19. I hope that when Walt's wife and mother and brother and sister walk into that room, that it is filled with friends and parents of all of those kids who benefited from Walt's generosity of spirit and his kindness.

Ann Riley, Takoma Park, Md.

Keep up the fight for our ladder truck

Your story about the county's attempt to cut the ladder truck and staff from our fire station overlooked an important piece of information. The county has only agreed to keep the truck and staff through June 30.

Yes, our phone calls and e-mails helped win this round, but we will have to keep the pressure on during the budget process now underway for the next fiscal year (which starts on July 1). With federal, state and county budget cutting, we are going to have to stay organized to keep our ladder truck and other essential services.

As an aside, I find it ironic and deeply troubling that Doug Duncan is cutting essential services at the same time that he is proposing new/raised taxes as part of his Go Montgomery initiative to build more roads that will fuel the growth that drives the need for the essential services that are being cut.

Bill Kules, Takoma Park, Md.

Lawmakers need to support hiker/biker trail

Hon. Ida Ruben, Peter Franchot, Sheila Hixson, and Gareth Murray:

As you may know, the City of Takoma Park has been working to do its part to complete the Metropolitan Branch Trail, a hiker-biker trail that is envisioned to connect the end of Georgetown Branch Trail in Silver Spring to Union Station in the District.

The city has made a great effort to involve all stakeholders in the decisionmaking process, including potential trail users, environmental advocates, historic district commission members, local residents (such as myself), other city residents, and anyone else who wished to be heard. The city also assuredly took into account the safety concerns of their law enforcement and fire prevention officials.

The result, after literally years of input and deliberations, was a carefully crafted compromise plan that was designed to maximize the benefits for, and minimize the potential adverse impacts on the interests of, each of the disparate groups that had provided input. The plan includes a beautiful trail bordered by attractive fencing in one section and a tree-lined barrier in another, with new tree plantings to offset the loss of older trees occasioned by the construction of the trail. It will be a great asset to the community.

The proposed trail will run alongside an adjacent road (Takoma Avenue, a small section of which is owned by the state) on which speeding is a long-standing and notorious problem. Because the CSX and Metro train tracks abut the other side of the path, the road will need to be narrowed to make space for the trail. This means that the trail will be in very close proximity to speeding traffic. The trail plan addresses this significant potential safety hazard through a combination of crosswalks, curb extensions, and speed tables, all of which are designed to reduce the hazard by calming traffic on the road.

There was overwhelming local support for the final plan discussed above, which was approved by the Takoma Park City Council. Construction is set to begin later this year.

However, at the last minute it was learned that the State Highway Administration is unwilling to allow a speed table on the section of the road that it owns, which is right in the middle of the planned route and includes the only logical placement for a speed table (at the corner of Takoma Avenue and Buffalo Avenue). It appears that the SHA gave no consideration to the years of planning, debate, and reflection that went into the final plan, nor to the merits of the arguments in favor of a speed table at this location. Instead, as I understand it, the proposal was rejected out of hand based purely on SHA's generalized distaste for speed tables.

In my opinion, this sort of heavy-handed approach is not how state agencies should interact with local government. I implore you to do what you can to, at a minimum, require the SHA to give due consideration to the substance of this issue instead of reacting with knee-jerk inflexibility. Now that large numbers of walkers, joggers, bikers, skaters, baby carriages, and other trail users will be just a few feet away from speeding traffic, it would be unconscionable to do nothing to slow traffic down. New speed tables have found their way onto Sligo Creek Parkway only after our next-door neighbor was killed by a speeding car; it would be a refreshing change if for once action could be taken in advance of tragedy instead of in response to it.

I voted for each of you in last fall's election, and I am hoping that I can count on you now to protect the interests of my community and my city. Please let me know how you intend to proceed.

Pierre Donahue, Takoma Park, Md.

Choosing death

Here in this paper, I keep reading again and again how a diet including animal flesh is a matter of personal choice. This is revealing of a great moral blind spot and the self centered view of our relationship with the rest of nature that has delivered us well down the path of environmental destruction. It's the idea of me first, others don't matter.

By what right can we claim choice freedom when the effect on a third party is so horrible? Throat slashing is horrible no matter how respectful and organically minded the throat slasher is. If we are going to grant this act the ethical immunity of choice freedom, then how does it differ from granting the rapist freedom to choose to rape or not? Or the child molester freedome to have sex with a pre-schooler?

You are probably going to say that is an inappropriate comparison. And you are right, because the rape victim or the molested child usually gets to stagger home when the act is done the slaughtered animal does not. So is the act of rape a man's personal choice? Should it be?

The reason why slaughter is acceptable and these other aforementioned things are not is because animals are simply beneath our concern and do not matter in the "me first" environment of human selfishness.

From here we go forward fashionably claiming to embody and embrace peace, when our actions three times a day contradict this. We would be more consistent if the peacefulness that comes out of our mouths were better matched by peacefulness going into our mouths. Or we can just look the other way.

Maybe that's why the sign says: only people have a right to exist. Animals don't! You make it so with your diet.

Walt Rave, Takoma Park , Md.

Too many car thefts

Takoma Park's residents should be concerned by Police Chief Cindy Creamer's recent comments about auto theft and the absence of police department accreditation (Takoma Park Newsletter, Feb. 2003). Anybody who reads regularly the published police reports on auto theft in the city is aware that auto thieves are having a field day, to the tune of about 200 thefts annually. While conceding that our stolen auto numbers are too high, the chief opines that the city is too small to warrant special attention to auto theft. She goes on to say that Montgomery County has a special police squad assembled to address auto theft in the county. However, since Montgomery County does not provide police service to the city, the county's auto theft unit does not operate in the city.

The chief's decision to withdraw from the accreditation process suggests that the police department is not currently meeting generally accepted standards for a law enforcement agency of its size and scope. This is a disturbing revelation which calls into question the capability of the department to deliver basic public safety services.

As justification for the significantly higher tax rate borne by city residents (who pay full county taxes in addition to city taxes) the city argues that our higher taxes buy us improved services over what the county offers. Law enforcement frequently is mentioned by our elected officials as an example of an enhanced service. However, the treatment of auto thefts by the city in comparison to the county reveals a circumstance in which having the city take over a county function has resulted in a reduced service to the city's residents. And certainly, the failure of the police department to sustain accreditation stands in stark contrast to any claims that the city's taxpayers are receiving superior value for their public safety tax dollars.

Law enforcement is the most important service provided by the city and represents the best possible use of our local tax dollars. Our city police force affords us the opportunity to experience greater security than found in county communities lacking a local police presence. However, as evidenced by the loss of accreditation and the city's approach to auto thefts, our city police services are not necessarily superior to county police services in all respects, despite our significantly higher taxes.

Clearly, as the public debate continues to develop over the costs and benefits of city services versus county services, police services should be included in the discussion and analyses. We must ensure that our public safety dollars buy us services of the highest possible quality. Our lives and our property are at stake.

Jack Carson, Takoma Park

Save the Historic Tax Credit

There are 918 homeowners of historic houses in the historic district of Takoma Park, which is the largest historic district in Montgomery County, encompassing one-third of the historic properties in our county. Most of them don't know about a wonderful program that can help them. The Heritage Rehabilitation Tax Credit provides a 20 percent tax credit for the costs of repairing and renovating designated historic properties in our state.

It's been around since 1997, and bit by bit, people are discovering it and deciding to commit to extensive improvements to their properties because the tax credit makes it affordable to them. When neighbors see what is happening on their street or around the corner, they too get the idea that now is the time to improve their historic home or business. It has transformed neighborhoods in Easton and Frederick and Baltimore, and is beginning to transform neighborhoods in Rockville and Gaithersburg and Takoma Park.

At least it could, if the politicians don't cripple or kill it. Our elected officials are forever generating a blizzard of programs with feel-good titles that rarely do what they are supposed to do. However, the Heritage Rehabilitation Tax Credit is doing exactly what it was planned to do. It helps to protect green space and the Chesapeake Bay by channelling development away from our natural areas and into our existing towns and cities. It reduces air pollution as people choose to live and work in the same place and greatly reduce their driving.

Believe it or not, some of our politicians see this tax credit as too successful because it is taking away more tax revenue that they thought it would. Last year, they attacked it, studied it, then decided to lower the tax credit from 25 percent to 20 percent, limiting the maximum amount of tax credits that a commercial project could get and also had the tax credit sunset in 2004, meaning they would attack and study it in two years. However, less than a year later, they've now proposed to kill it outright or to burden it with so many limitations as to make it useless.

It is expensive to fix up historic homes, but the tax credit could be limited to $20,000 per house, meaning after you've spent $100,000, you're out of luck. They want to limit the yearly total for houses to $2.5 million, meaning as few as 112 houses out of thousands throughout the state could claim the maximum. This means that as more and more of the owners of the 918 houses learn about the program and want to participate in it, they either will desperately try to win this lottery that awards so few prizes each year, or they will give up in disgust.

The politicians will tell you that Maryland can't afford the recent average of $40 million a year in tax credits given to the private sector to rejuvenate all of our older cities and towns. A recent study shows that, when the credit was at 25 percent, for every $1 claimed as tax credits, Maryland economic output increased by $6.70, state tax revenue increased by 35 cents and local tax revenue by 10 cents. That does not include sales tax revenue from construction activities nor the increase in property values and taxes. Most of these taxes continue until the lost tax revenue is replaced and then go on to provide even more tax revenue for years to come.

Those 918 historic property owners in the largest historic district in Montgomery County are in District 20. They may be shocked to learn that Delegate Sheila Hixson is one of the sponsors of House Bill (HB) 341 that would end the tax credit on June 30 of this year. They may also be puzzled by what Senator Ida Ruben wrote to an owner of an historic home in Takoma Park about its counterpart, Senate Bill (SB) 203, in a letter dated Feb. 20, 2003: "I can understand the value and benefits this program provides; however, there is an annual cost to the State of approximately $25 to $30 million. When the Legislature is considering devastating budget cuts to important social programs such as child care, health care and education, tax credit programs such as this are certainly going to be discussed."

I hope that the 918 historic homeowners as well as their many neighbors who appreciate how these homes help to make Takoma Park a special place will tell Del. Hixson to oppose HB 341 and will tell Sen. Ruben to oppose SB 203. If this successful program is not allowed to thrive and continue to work so well, Smart Growth will fail and it will be that much harder to restore and keep up our historic neighborhoods in Takoma Park and the rest of the state.

Wayne Goldstein, Silver Spring, Md.

Wayne Goldstein is President of Montgomery Preservation, Inc., a countywide historic preservation advocacy group that also owns the National Register-listed B & O Train Station in downtown Silver Spring.