Orest Hrynewych, executive director of the Ukrainian National Museum, used a lot of words in his Feb. 10 letter to the editor to say that the half-million-dollar grant from Illinois to the museum was not pork. All of that was beside the point.
The point is that I and the people who represent me in the legislature had exactly no say in the spending of that money.
My ancestors are Dutch, German and Irish, and their contributions are just as deserving of celebration as anyone’s. But I don’t think I’d like to spend public money on that if that means, as Tribune reports suggest, that the handicapped have to be put out into the street for lack of money.
Somehow I think that Ukrainian-Americans might feel the same way.
But I don’t want to force my point of view on anyone. All that I require is that it get a hearing and that members of the duly constituted legislature decide collectively what is best to do.
If we looked at all the spending of the $1.5 billion grant fund, I’m sure we’d find many things worth spending money on. The only real problem is in how it was spent. I don’t like it being spent without my permission.
