It is becoming a burden for me to read the Sunday newspaper to read how some people who have been elected to lead us feel how our system should work.

In the story “Uniting the thin blue line: Center analyzes data to combat crime, terror” (July 25), it was reported that state Sen. Tom Wyss, R-Fort Wayne, supports the Fusion Center, which might be more aptly named the Fuhrer Center. Asking that citizens report legal activities like automatic gunfire is frightening, especially when it comes from a man who has proven he is incapable of owning a firearm after his sidearm was stolen from his car while he was fueling it in Fort Wayne.

Next I read in “Political Notebook” (July 25) about the Fort Wayne begging law. City Councilman and Deputy Police Chief Marty Bender stated that the actions of our firefighters begging on street corners is unlawful (this practice has to come to an end if for no other reason than that it is unsafe to stand in traffic). Then, City Councilwoman Liz Brown withdrew her proposed anti-begging bill because she said she wasn’t willing to conduct the research to ensure that the bill is constitutional. Does such a statement not constitute dereliction of duty on the part of an elected official, or is she just so ignorant of what her job is as city councilwoman that she didn’t realize how foolish that statement might look?

While some members of the citizenry clearly are not holding their elected representatives to the task to which they were elected, I for one am disgusted by the state of local governance as reported by The Journal Gazette.

PAUL T. SCHRAM Churubusco