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LETTERS

By D Magazine |

LAWMAKER’S LAMENT

MANY INACCURACIES cast doubt on your May article, “The Last of the Old-Time Legislatures.” Specific errors concerning me include:

My officeholder account (more correctly, campaign account) is nowhere near the $10,000 you reported, and has never been placed in a Certificate of Deposit. The only CD I have ever owned is one in the amount of $10,000 which my wife and I personally bought out of our earnings from our business. This is so recorded in our annual officeholders’ statement filed with the state.

I did not use funds from my campaign account to purchase a subscription to the Orthodox Observer, which all members of the Orthodox Church receive free. I did purchase a small ad in one issue of the newspaper, and this is so stated in my campaign report.

I have never, not this year nor ever, paid dues or any other money to the Texas Restaurant Association out of my campaign account. Since I am in the restaurant business I have always felt it would be improper to use campaign funds for such expenses. Your article was totally wrong.

I was chosen a member of the Texas Sesquicentennial Commission by virtue of my membership in the Texas Legislature. The commission is made up of three House members, three senators, and nine other Texas citizens. By right, my expenses as chairman of the commission could be charged to the state, but whenever possible I try to pay for these expenses from private donations to save taxpayer money. The commission is not “ceremonial” as your report read, but one that will be directly responsible for pumping millions of new dollars into the Texas economy in a year-long celebration of Texas’ 150th anniversary of independence in 1986.

Your article is suspect because of these errors, not only with reference to me, but also to other members of the legislature. The readers of a magazine that champions excellence certainly deserve accuracy.

Chris Victor Semos

State Representative

STEVE KENNY replies: The information concerning Rep. Semos’ officeholder account was culled from documents filed in the Texas Secretary of State’s office. Semos’ 1980 campaign surplus alone was more than $4000. A Texas Restaurant Association official and two of Semos’ colleagues told me how Semos paid his dues, although this information was not reflected in the officeholder account documents. The article did not deny that Semos was chosen for the Sesquicenten-nial Commission by virtue of his office. It mainly pointed out that Semos spends far too much time on commission business, a criticism repeatedly voiced by Semos’ colleagues in the House and Senate.



A TOOTHACHE

I WOULD LIKE to bring to your attention a major omission from the July “Newcomer’s Guide.” A person needing a dentist can call the Dallas County Dental Society (386-5741) and be referred to three dentists in his zip code area. Our member dentists do not pay to be on our referral list, nor is there a charge to the public for this service.

This service is without the commercial involvement found in other referral services including the North Dallas Dental Referral Service mentioned in the article. It is ironic that there was a quarter-page ad for the North Dallas Dental Referral Service preceding the guide. To me this reflects a lack of in-depth consumer reporting.

Linda Hill Cullum

Executive Director

Dallas County Dental Society



BACK TALK

IN REFERENCE to William Pulte’s letter to the editor in the July issue of D: I am a student in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD, and I have nothing against Spanish-speaking students attending our schools and speaking their own language. I do wonder if so many bilingual and basic courses are necessary, though, as each of them has a student-teacher ratio of five or 10 to one, while the courses I am enrolled in often have as many as 30 students per teacher. I know I am lucky to have the opportunities that I have, but I feel sorry for students who try to enroll in an honors course only to find it canceled because they need more teachers for basic or bilingual courses. This is happening, and my favorite biology teacher will not return to teach only basic courses when he has been accustomed to teaching the above-average student. 1 am very fortunate in that I will be in Brazil as an exchange student this school year, but what will happen to the other advanced students who will be forced to take regular classes? I know that this can be very depressing as well as boring, and I can only wish them luck as they go through the year. If the enlarging bilingual program continues to grow at the expense of the honors program, students like myself will be forced to enroll in expensive private schools that may stress our family’s already too tight budgets. A reminder to school officials: Please don’t forget the above average student, we are just as important as the handicapped and bilingual students!

Darciann Post

Dallas

PAYING FOR THE BEST

DAVID LEGGE’S ringing “Insights” article (July) is a call to action for those who still believe that an educated electorate is better than a dumb mobocracy. We get the latter through poor standards and salaries for our teachers. I have taught for many years, finding that students will do what’s demanded of them; so will teachers. I’m chary of standardized tests for teachers, but such tests at least focus upon the brains and knowledge one must have before entering a classroom. Let us demand a respectable minimum from our teachers, and support their reasonable- all too reasonable -salary requirements.

Legare Van Ness

Director, Planning and Development

University of Dallas at Irving



THE INVISIBLE MAN

AFTER READING your magazine’s feeble attempt to cover the Dallas black community (“The Invisible Man,” June), I am positive now why I never read your glossed-over replica of a magazine.

At least the comments in the “Editor’s Page” forewarned the reader of what to expect from a team of “all-white” reporters and a token black. Evidently you don’t have a black working on your staff.

Perhaps your magazine would do better by continuing to write about more familiar topics (fashion and fine restaurants) for your ultra-elite, affluent, white readership. Your knowledge of any other aspect of the Dallas community is very limited and warped.

Jean Morrow

Dallas

I AM once again impressed with your high quality of journalism combined with your utter ignorance of what the city of Dallas really is.

I resent D Magazine’s repeated characterization of any section of the city south of downtown as “South Dallas” or a “black ghetto.” As one of the many whites who live in Southwest Dallas, I find these labels both irritating and infuriating.

It is time for the D staff to lose some of its arrogance and start reporting the truth, not what the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce wants to hear.

G ay la L. Kading

Dallas

THANKS FOR your article (and Mr. Stiteler’s “Editor’s Page”) concerning “The Invisible Man.”

In view of our move to the right both in politics and religion, plus your predominance in the North Dallas market, I was quite frankly surprised to see such an article in your magazine.

L. Nesbitt

Richardson

IT IS NOT LIKELY that I will become a subscriber in the future unless the powers that be at your periodical come to understand that this magazine and others in our fair city should make a regular effort to include articles for and about blacks, apart from occasional feature articles like the one in your June issue.

It is my fervent hope that these articles were not offered as a placebo to further subdue an already awakening sleeping giant -I dare wager an attitude of this nature could prove financially devastating.

Mary Catherine Loving

Dallas

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