This letter to the editor by Stefania Czech appeared in The Toledo Blade, February 17th, 2019.
In response to the letter “Toledo City Council had no choice on ballot issue,” Feb. 8, Democracy is not a public opinion poll. Democracy is voting for the changes you wish to see in the world. Matt Cherry, president of Toledo City Council, who is also a board member with Sheet Metal Workers Local 33, is urging voters to vote no on the Lake Erie Bill Of Rights (LEBOR) on Feb. 26 to put industry profits over citizens’ health and livelihood.
For too long the environment has been neglected for the sake of corporate profit. Lake Erie and its watershed is a refuge for various endangered and threatened species like the Monarch and Karner Blue butterflies, the Lake Erie Water Snake, Lakeside Daisy, Eastern Prairie Fringed Orchid, and numerous water fowl, such as the Piping Plover.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has given the world 12 years to avert the worst of climate disaster and biosphere collapse. Now is the time to focus on saving our life support. By enacting rights for nature legislation for Lake Erie, we can do our part in healing our ecosystem. Lake Erie has already been declared dead once in the 1970s. Let’s not let that happen again MORE…