Dear Editor:

Within the past month a very well known celebrity in our state lost his job. "GUS." Now with the unemployment rate in double digit numbers, you would wonder why this concerns me. It shows lack of effort on the part of legislators to save jobs.You might wonder why the lost of one (1) job in our state is troublesome and who is Gus? Well, he was well known for his commercials for his scratching, no he did not have fleas. Gus was and is the second most famous groundhog (woodchuck) in our state.Yes! He lost his job due to budget cuts in Harrisburg. It was too costly to have Gus tell us nightly to buy the scratch off lottery tickets. So he lost his job along with all the employees that produced this commercial. Look out Phil your next!Now you might wonder where I'm going with this. In a recent opinion the TIMES NEWS fired the first shot across the bow of our state legislators challenging them to impose a park entrance fee for Beltzville Lake. Once again all the logic was used to why an entrance fee should be charged to use the park. But as we all realize that this seems to fall on deaf ears. Our legislators seem to think the folks from out of state put them in office and need not to focus on this revenue stream to help with the budget short fall. They would rather put Gus and his fellow workers out of work than charge a modest park entrance fee. So once again as the Memorial Day weekend and summer approaches, the trash will pile up on our local road ways, diapers will be floating in the lake, trash bins will be over flowing and the list goes on. And Gus will be out of a job.From the pen ofK. Treger,Lehighton, Pa.