Our mayor has missed yet another opportunity to reform local politics by refusing to sign campaign-finance reform legislation that would help move the city forward ("Mayor Vetoes Cap on Campaign Donations," June 10).

City Council President Doug Shields was right when he said there is no campaign money for those who wish to challenge the incumbent because large donors go unchecked to preserve their interests in government. Without this campaign-finance reform legislation, well-qualified candidates will decline to run against the mayor and his financial war chest.

To me, this veto was about job security and is not in the best interests of the city.

CHRISTOPHER SEYMOUR
South Side

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I, for one, am glad that Mayor Luke Ravenstahl was forced to pay his own way to Detroit for the Penguins game. Amy Lewis ("Give Mayor a Break," June 11 letters) writes, "We all know being a politician gets you certain perks." This is exactly the type of attitude that has provided our city with a government that remains unchanged, unproductive and corrupt.

Maybe Ms. Lewis would love to pay for Mr. Ravenstahl's trips, but seeing that she doesn't live in city limits, doesn't pay city taxes and can't even vote for mayor, she should keep her opinion about this to herself or fork over some money to Mr. Ravenstahl from her own pocket. I invite Ms. Lewis to move to the city, then her defense of Mr. Ravenstahl would be appropriate.

By the way, it has nothing to do with age, Ms. Lewis, and everything to do with immaturity and inexperience.

ALEX STEINBERG
South Side

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I have been following your stories about the response times of Pittsburgh Paramedic Rescue ("Audit Says City EMS Overextended," June 6). As an EMS professional myself, I think that the mark has been missed as far as where blame should lie. The assessment is not correct that the paramedics are responding to too many nonemergency calls.

Emergency medical services, whether it should be that way or not, are sometimes needed in nonemergency situations. The person on the street does not know that his chest pains aren't cardiac-related, or that the abdominal pain will go away on its own in a few hours. The problem isn't nonemergency calls.

The problem is that before arriving on scene, the ambulance crew does not know that it isn't an emergency. The person in the EMS hierarchy with the best scene knowledge is the dispatcher. Pittsburgh Paramedic Rescue dispatch protocols are such that the paramedics are dispatched with lights and sirens for someone having an earache on the one-in-a-million chance that it is a head bleed. The first thing needed is better dispatch protocols. Right now, nonemergencies are responded to quickly and emergencies get thrown to the wayside.

The second thing to be changed is the idea that paramedics must be used exclusively. Paramedics are definitely needed when it comes to emergency calls since they can provide advanced life support. But there is a whole other level of care provided by emergency medical technicians who could do wonders to relieve the nonemergency work load for the paramedics.

E. SCHMIDT
Point Breeze

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OK, the audit came out and the editorial "Alarming" was in the PG on June 9. Now what? Are the paramedics going to be yesterday's news or is the city going to take the necessary steps to remedy the problem or wait until it becomes a health-care crisis?

The editorial had some very good points. But it also missed several. First, you can't educate the public. The people who abuse the system will continue to abuse the system because there are no consequences and will exaggerate their symptoms to get a ride to the hospital (anyone ever ask how these patients get home?). Another group that doesn't want to be a burden on the system won't call when they should until it's almost too late.

The editorial stated we need six to 12 more paramedics, but we can't find people who want to work as city paramedics anymore. It requires two years of school, a two-part state certification test, bi-yearly recertification, continuing education credits, a six-day work week and forced shifts, plus the suburbs are paying more to start without the city work load or residency requirement.

And finally, the real alarm will sound by the end of the paramedic contract in December 2010, when about 20 to 30 paramedics will be eligible to retire with no one to replace them. That's when the real crisis begins.

IAN R. FRANKEL
Overbrook

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I find it quite interesting that Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bob Casey, Rep. Jason Altmire and numerous Democratic lawmakers are blaming the high gas prices on the current administration when it is the Democratic Congress that continues to restrict domestic offshore energy production as well as production in Alaska and in the western United States. The United States is the only nation in the world that has placed a substantial amount of its oil and natural gas potential off-limits.

A recent excuse given by Mr. Altmire is that it would take 10 years to get oil out of Alaska. However, if Congress had ended the restriction 10 years ago, gas prices might not be where they are today.

We cannot continue to be dependent on foreign oil. While drilling in Alaska apparently will not produce a huge amount, according to a study done by the Department of Interior in 2006, the restricted offshore areas contain an estimated 19 billion barrels of oil and 84 trillion cubic feet of gas. This would be several years worth of total U.S. consumption and could be extracted safely.

It is time that the Democratic Congress end these restrictions before it is too late. We can't expect OPEC and Saudi Arabia to increase their production when we have these restrictions in place in the United States. They are giving environmental concerns precedence over future economic considerations. Sen. John McCain unfortunately agrees with maintaining these restrictions, as well. It is time that all citizens contact their elected U.S. officials and insist on ending these restrictions.

ANTHONY J. BIONDI
McDonald

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I have a question about gas prices. It seems oil has now hit $135 a barrel. A barrel of oil equals 42 gallons. So each gallon costs $3.21. The federal government, state governments and local governments add taxes of about 49 cents, which brings the cost of a gallon of oil to about $3.70. The average price of gas is now about $4.10. So, that leaves about 40 cents a gallon to be shared by the oil companies and the local gas station.

The oil companies have to pay to transport and refine the oil into gas and all of their other expenses, such as wages and exploration costs, and the local gas station has to pay its expenses out of that 40 cents a gallon. That doesn't seem to leave very much for profits, which the oil companies say equal about 5 percent, although there is certainly a lot of volume and there are other factors.

So my question is: Why is Congress holding more hearings on price gouging by the oil companies, instead of creating an energy policy that includes allowing for drilling and refining in the United States so we are not at the mercy of foreign suppliers?

BILL YORK
Upper St. Clair

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I agree with the conclusion of the PG's June 11 editorial "Ominous Notes: The Reckless Drumbeats of War Sound on Iran" that "the idea of the United States attacking Iran, or agreeing to an Israeli attack on Iran, is foolish and irresponsible to the point of near-insanity."

However, I am puzzled that the PG would taint this widely held opinion (CNN Opinion Research Corp: 63 percent Americans are against a war with Iran) by extrapolating that "paranoid liberals" see this as a Republican ploy to strengthen their presidential election campaign. I think many people deserve to be skeptical and, yes, even a bit paranoid about the Republican administration and the party's candidates given their record of misleading the American public on the Iraq war.

Myself, as a center-of-the-road person, commend my liberal friends for raising my awareness on how this administration's aggressive, go-it-alone foreign policy led us into unnecessary war. In the end, a little paranoia can be healing to the body politic and can go a long way, maybe even to peace.

JOHN BURKE
Squirrel Hill

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