Category: Franceen Shaughnessy
First Responders a Focus of Lame Duck Session for Tierney
WASHINGTON, Nov. 13, 2002–As the new Congress gets ready to move in, Rep. John Tierney, D-Salem, is set for a party leadership change and looks forward to resolving issues like distributing money to emergency “first responders,” ensuring that people have adequate health insurance and increasing funds for higher-education Pell Grants-subjects he says are important not only to him but to his constituents along the North Shore.
“I have supported Nancy Pelosi from the beginning,” Tierney said. Rep. Pelosi, of California’s 8th District, was expected this week to win an election to become the new Democratic Leader in the House, succeeding Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri.
Pelosi is an effective new face who will help straighten out the party, he said.
“She’s a strong leader…. She understands what needs to be done.”
Tierney, a member on the House Committee on Government Reform, said that for years he has stressed the importance of first responders-the people working at the local level who are the first to respond to emergencies.
“We have repeatedly stressed the importance of getting the money out to them,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s important to the communities.”
In a July statement on the issue, Tierney said: “Whether the targets are ports, nuclear power plants, office buildings or landmarks, our local first responders need to know how they will receive intelligence communications and what resources they will have to help them act on this information in order to protect the American people.”
Tierney said in Wednesday’s interview that the money for the first responders has been appropriated but has not been “spent in any significant amounts.”
Some other issues on Tierney’s agenda include healthcare and education.
Pell Grant funds for college aid must be increased, said Tierney, who sits on the Education and the Workforce Committee. Families must have the opportunity to be able to afford a higher education, he said.
Tierney also plans to focus on retraining and educating people in the workforce. “We have to take care of people displaced by new technology or the economy,” he said.
He added that health care will be another topic of concern for him in the new Congress. “We have to find a way to make sure people have adequate and affordable coverage,” he said. The money is there, he said, but is not being managed and allocated very well.
Even though he is moving up in seniority, Tierney, who will begin his fourth term in January, said that he plans on staying with his committee assignments.
“We’ll have to see what develops,” he said. But being on these committees is “a good place to be” for his North Shore constituency.
Published in The Salem News, in Massachusetts.
Local Colleges See Tuition Increases
WASHINGTON, Oct. 24, 2002--Colleges nationwide saw increases in tuition and fees this year, a new study says-and Endicott College and Salem State College are part of that trend.
In a study by the College Board, a nonprofit association that offers students information about higher education, four-year private institutions' tuition and fees increased by an average of 5.8 percent and four-year public institutions' costs spiked 9.6 percent from the 2001-2002 academic year to the current year.
Endicott College in Beverly, a private four-year school, increased tuition and fees 5 percent during that period. Its tuition and fees now total about $24,000, but 60 percent of the roughly 2,800 students receive some form of financial aid.
Salem State College in Salem, a four-year public institution, tacked on $900 to its fees this year for the student body of about 7,400, sending the combined total of tuition and fees to about $4,000 for in-state students. That's an increase of about 30 percent, well above the national average for public colleges.
Because of the state's budget crisis, Salem State College's funding was cut back this year, said Jim Glynn, staff associate in the college relations office. "In order to provide the services for the students, we were forced to increase the fees."
The increase is a consequence of the slow economy, said Karen Cady, director of college relations for Salem State College. But Salem State did not raise tuition this year, only fees. "Basically, the tuition money goes back to the state, and we get appropriations. We do keep the fees."
According to Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, a shrinking tax revenue base has affected the increase in tuition and fees at public universities. "As tax revenues decline, public colleges have searched for other sources of funding, and for many, that has led to tuition increases," he said in a statement.
In the academic year 2001-2002, a record $90 billion in student financial aid was available, the College Board said. This is encouraging, Caperton said, but he added that students are relying more on loans than on grants to help pay for their college educations.
According to a College Board news release, in 1991-1992, loans accounted for 47 percent of student aid, compared to 54 percent in 2001-2002. Grants declined from 50 percent to 39 percent of total aid over this period.
Since students at all income levels can obtain unsubsidized loans, financial aid professionals fear that low-income students are having a more difficult time in getting a college education because of the competition.
Pell Grants, federally subsidized loans for low-income students, are available, but at most they cover only 42 percent of the average cost of attending a public four-year institution compared to 84 percent 20 years ago, Caperton said.
For a four-year private institution like Endicott College, with higher costs than public institutions, that puts an added economic strain on students and their families.
"The burden has fallen on institutions and it has fallen on families" to cover the costs of a higher education, said Thomas Redman, vice president of admissions and financial aid at Endicott College.
But students should not feel that a college education is financially unattainable, Caperton said: "No matter what the numbers say, there are still very affordable options for students with a dream for college."
To try to ease the financial pressure, colleges like Endicott and Salem State offer students options such as scholarships and work-study programs.
But university professionals agree that a higher education is still worth the financial sacrifice.
College graduates can still expect $1 million more over their working lives than their high-school counterparts, Caperton said.
Redman and Cady agreed that the long-term benefits outweigh the high costs.
"It should be deemed a college investment," Redman said. "It's simply going to open up doors of opportunity."
The tuition at Endicott College is used for new residence halls, athletic facilities and upgraded technologies, he said.
"As we increase the value, families better understand where they want their sons and daughters to go to college based on what they want and what they're willing to spend," Caperton said.
For Salem State College, a public institution, the lower tuition and costs do not mean less effort on upgrading facilities and creating new ones.
"We're academically on par with the finest colleges in the state," Cady said. "An education is really kindergarten through college."
Published in The Salem News, in Massachusetts.
Nursing Shortages Hits North Shore Hospitals
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2002--With the baby boomer generation coming of age and fewer younger people choosing careers in nursing, the nation faces a shortage in the industry that could spell trouble for patients seeking hospital care.
"The nation is facing an unprecedented shortage," and it's having a direct impact on patients' care, said Barbara Blakeney, president of the American Nurses Association.
Blakeney was one of four panelists who spoke at a briefing Thursday by the Alliance for Health Reform. The briefing addressed the nation's nursing shortage problem, the seriousness of the situation and some possible solutions.
According to the 1990 census, there were 77 million American boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, compared with the 11-year bust of 44 million Generation Xers who followed, meaning that a significant decrease will occur in entry-level workers.
In the nursing industry, this means an aging workforce with more demands and fewer workers, said Edward O'Neil, professor of family and community medicine and dental public health at the University of California, San Francisco. "There will never be enough nurses to take care of the baby boomer generation as it ages."
Shortages cause ambulance diversions, canceled elective surgeries and overworked nurses, Blakeney said. "There is an increase in stress for nurses and there's low job satisfaction."
"You need to know that when nurses are overworked, when there are not enough nurses on the floor, bad things happen," she said. "An exhausted, tired nurse will miss subtle symptoms."
Nursing shortages cause 25 percent of all hospital deaths and other serious conditions, she said. If the patient is on a ventilator, that number spikes to 50 percent.
Declining enrollments in nursing programs that lead to baccalaureate degrees, which are needed to work at a hospital, are also a factor in the shortage.
Because women have to overcome fewer barriers in other professions, they are opting for higher paying, more satisfying jobs than those y the nursing industry offers, O'Neil said.
Many hospitals are working to combat this problem.
"The new generation is looking for a more balanced workplace," said Janice Bishop, vice president of patient services at Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester. The hospital focuses on "turning the environment around. Our philosophy is of being very nurturing to our young."
The hospital offers mentoring programs, continuing education and internships with area colleges and universities.
"We try to encourage nurses within our system to stay within our system," Bishop said.
The hospital's "proactive" attitude has helped it maintain a stable workforce, she said, noting that every floor, except for critical care, is staffed to full capacity. "Critical nurses are difficult to recruit," she said. It's a "high-intensity level of work," the stress level is high and it's a specialty field, she said. She added that nurses are retiring, which also makes it more difficult to fill the spots.
But the hospital is currently recruiting for critical care, Bishop said. It offers a critical training program for Addison nurses at Beverly Hospital.
Saints Memorial Medical Center in Lowell offers four scholarships for students but says that it's feeling the crunch, said Thom Clark, the hospital's president.
Three months ago the hospital employed 10 to 12 travel or agency nurses, or nurses not permanently hired by the hospital, and now it's seven, he said.
"We admit the number of patients that our staff can take care of," he said. The hospital determines that number during every shift change, which happens three times a day.
Nurses in the North Shore area make about $21 to $33 an hour, Clark said. "The salary structure and cost of living is just not up to par."
The economics and the working conditions need to change, he said. Nurses are under a lot of stress, such as possible medication errors and documentation. "Nurses step onto the floor and work very, very hard for eight hours."
Published in The Salem News, in Massachusetts.
Topfield Native Takes a Stand for Human Rights
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2002--Facing her fourth trial in less than two years, Topsfield native and political activist Jackie Downing said she's not worried about her scheduled Oct. 29 appearance in a District of Columbia courtroom.
Downing is on trial after staging a sit-in near the U.S. Capitol to protest U.S. government involvement in Colombia and make people aware of the human rights situation in the South American country.
"When you've traveled to Colombia and seen the kinds of environmental destruction and the tearing apart of families from the war there that the U.S. is fueling, you really don't think about the fear," Downing, 23, said. "When you take a stand there's always consequences, but you still have to take a stand."
For the past several decades, a civil war between has been underway in Colombia. According to the U.S. State Department, kidnapping for ransom happens more often in Colombia than in any other parts of the world. In the last two years, 18 Americans were reported kidnapped. Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world, with more than 27,800 murders last year. Its 1999 per capita murder rate of 77.5 murders per 100,000 inhabitants was more than 13 times higher than that of the United States.
Downing visited the country twice, both times in 2001.On both trips, she said, she witnessed human rights abuses by guerrilla groups and the effects of U.S. aid for the fumigation and destruction of coca crops, the primary source of cocaine.
"[We saw] the impacts of U.S. military aid, and we were able to document the impact of fumigation, which is basically the killing of legal food crops in addition to coca plants," she said. "We met all kinds of people who have lost family members because of the [guerrilla groups]."
"My experience in Colombia had been really powerful for me both times and motivated me a lot to take a stand."
After her first trip, Downing organized a rally in Washington in the spring of 2001.
"We snuck into a conference of the Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.--they sell Black Hawk helicopters to Colombia--and we locked ourselves to a pillar in the main conference room so they weren't able to meet for the first day," Downing said.
Downing spent 23 hours in jail. The case went to trial, and she was fined $75.
After her second visit to Colombia, then an undergraduate at Oberlin College in Ohio, Downing organized two other actions.
First, she and a group of students went to the office of Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, to try to discuss the situation in Colombia with him.
"We had been asking for a meeting with him for over two years, and he refused to meet with constituents or anyone who disagreed with him about Plan Colombia," she said, referring to the U.S. government effort to assist Colombia in its fight against drug trafficking. "We went to the office and asked for a meeting and kept trying to negotiate with them to give us one. Eventually, they just called the police and we spent 30 hours in jail," she said.
As a result of the media attention, Downing said, the charges were dropped and DeWine scheduled a meeting.
The most recent rally that Downing helped organize resulted in her forthcoming trial. She organized three groups of activists for a sit-in at three working entrances tothe Capitol. The police were called and Downing and her fellow activists were charged with obstructing passageways on U.S. Capitol grounds. They were held for seven hours in the headquarters of the Capitol Police.
This past summer, Downing went on trial for the Capitol grounds rallyDowning defended herself--as she had in her earlier trials--and it resulted in a hung jury. However, the prosecutors decided to retry the case.
"The goal is to raise awareness, and after going to Colombia and seeing the kinds of human rights abuses that I've seen, the idea of getting arrested is not that scary because I know the consequences for not speaking up," Downing said.
Currently, Downing works for Greenpeace, and intends to continue her fight for Colombia in her spare time.
She serves on the board of directors of the School of the Americas Watch, an organization that works to close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas, a U.S. Defense Department training school for Latin American military and law enforcement leaders.
Published in The Salem News, in Massachusetts.
Beverly Residents Voice Cancer Concerns in D.C.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 19, 2002--A contagious mixture of excitement and enthusiasm flowed through the 50 state tents set up for a gathering of cancer survivors and activists at the Capitol Thursday.
Among the thousands attending the event, called Celebration on the Hill, were three-time cancer survivor Robert Mehrman and volunteer Jessica Slate, both of Beverly.
"It's a great way to demonstrate how much we care and how much our communities care," Slate, 31, said of the event, sponsored by the American Cancer Society (ACS).
Mehrman and Slate are relay community ambassadors, acting as grassroots volunteers and spokespersons for the group's advocacy efforts.
"We're representing our congressional districts and all of the people there that have developed cancer and have been affected by cancer," Slate said.
At the new two-day event Wednesday and Thursday, cancer survivors, caregivers and volunteers celebrated their battle against the disease while urging Congress to promote more research, education and prevention and calling for expanded access to early detection and treatment to help people fight cancer.
"We're concerned over the fact that we know that cancer causes death, we know that cancer causes disability and we know that cancer causes a great deal of expense. … It's so much simpler to prevent cancer from happening," Mehrman, 75, said. "The National Cancer Institute is doing a fantastic job in doing cancer research, but we would like members of Congress to support bills that would free up money to the National Cancer Institute. They need to put more money in where it does the most good."
First diagnosed in 1989 with cancer of the larynx, Mehrman, the former executive director of the Massachusetts Broadcasters Association, went to see his doctor with what he believed to be laryngitis.
"I stopped smoking two years before the cancer showed up," he said.
The doctors removed Mehrman's larynx in 1990, but eight years later he developed cancer of the bladder and had the cancer removed. In 2000, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent radiation for six or seven weeks. Three months ago, Mehrman's cancer troubles returned with cancer of the bladder. The doctors operated, and he is undergoing treatment.
"We want a promise from the congressional delegation that they are going to vote for legislation" that would help the fight against cancer, Mehrman said. "The ACS provides a lot of useful information. It's only a small part of the equation, and they can't do everything. We want to see cancer eliminated. I'd like to see it done in my lifetime."
Slate said participants in the event are asking Congress to pass the Kennedy-Helms Eliminate Colorectal Cancer bill, to double the National Institutes of Health budget and to continue to invest and expand the budget for overall cancer research and treatment.
Mehrman said the bill, sponsored by Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Jesse Helms, R-N.C., would provide privately insured people with the coverage they need for a cancer screening. "Screenings are very important because if caught early than they can be [treated successfully]," he said. "It depends on the stage."
During the morning, Mehrman and Slate met with Rep. John Tierney, D-Salem, to discuss their concerns about the fight against cancer.
"He knew pretty much all about what we were here for and he feels that there's got to be some changes in the way the U.S. government is spending its money," Mehrman said. "The entire congressional delegation feels the same way. It [the meeting] didn't have any arm bending or twisting or frowning. They are going to try to free up some funds. I was very positive about the whole thing."
Slate agreed that the meeting was successful, adding that Tierney "has a history of being supportive."
Slate, experienced the effects of cancer when her grandfather was diagnosed with the disease while she was in high school. He did survived the disease, but she had two aunts who died from cancer.
"It clearly knows no bounds and no discrimination," she said.
Published in The Salem News, in Massachusetts.
Tierney Remains ‘Skeptical’ About Iraq
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12, 2002--Responding to President Bush's speech before the United Nations General Assembly Thursday, Rep. John Tierney, D-Salem, agreed that the president should try to work with the United Nations on Iraq.
"It appears that at least the president is refocusing to look at international issues" through the United Nations, Tierney said in an interview Thursday.
Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and John Kerry, D-Mass., joined Tierney in his assessment of Bush's speech, which was delivered as the Bush administration considers an invasion of Iraq.
"I commend President Bush for expressing America's willingness to work with the United Nations," Kennedy said in a press release Thursday. "The world community has a clear responsibility to do all it can to prevent Iraq from threatening other nations with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons."
At a press conference Thursday, Kerry expressed his agreement with Bush's willingness to work with the United Nations.
"It's important to support the president and it's important to support the approach to the United Nations and it's important to support the definition of (Iraqi leader) Saddam Hussein as a problem. But I think it would be a mistake for us to declare … unilateral steps we will take, no matter what the United Nations does."
In an interview Wednesday, Tierney had said he was "skeptical" about a U.S. invasion of Iraq because he thought the president still needed to make a stronger case to Tierney and his fellow lawmakers. Bush's speech the following day did not change his mind, Tierney said Thursday.
In the Wednesday interview, Tierney said that he has received several hundred letters, e-mails and phone calls from his North Shore constituents, and even has had people stopping him on the street opposing an invasion of Iraq. He said he had heard from only three or four constituents who support the president. "People are dealing with the information that they have now," he said, adding that as more information is revealed, they will begin to reexamine the issue.
As for Tierney's fellow lawmakers, the president has not asked them to decide on an invasion of Iraq, Tierney said, adding that Bush has not produced enough evidence to convince him of the need for an immediate invasion: "[Bush] hasn't met the threshold."
Questions still must be answered for him to make the decision on invading Iraq, Tierney said, adding that Bush has to lay the groundwork for a possible invasion.
"Why we should change a long, long history of not taking preemptive actions?" Tierney asked. "[Bush] has to engage the international community, he has to engage Congress, he has to make his case to the American people. Has he been clear to the American people of the sacrifice from them - how many troops will be committed? Has he described the …nature of the invasion - who will replace Saddam Hussein, will the U.S. be involved in nation-building?"
Tierney, a member of the Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations, wrote a letter Tuesday to Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., chairman of the subcommittee, requesting that the panel "hold a hearing on the potentially wide-ranging dangers that U.S. troops and our regional allies could encounter if the United States decided to pursue an invasion of Iraq."
Saddam Hussein does pose a danger, Tierney said Wednesday. But the congressman questioned whether the danger was immediate: "Is he dangerous in the context of the area of Iraq? We are still gathering evidence on whether or not he has the capacity to endanger imminently the U.S."
"I think we've finally convinced the president that this is not the right thing to do without first making his case," Tierney said.
Published in The Salem News, in Massachusetts.
