DaytonDailyNews.com

Don't take away Dave Hall Plaza

Building a hockey arena in downtown Dayton is a great idea; building it on the green Dave Hall Plaza is a bad idea.

Build a two- or three-story building across from Main Street, from the Dayton Convention Center to the former Stomps Chevrolet Garage and parking lot. The parking lot gets very little use. There are plenty of parking possibilities to the west.

An overhead footbridge that connects the convention center to the new multi-use sports arena would give the convention center the area it needs to regain conventions that outgrew the current space.

The recent multimillion-dollar convention center facelift added no additional convention space. Rehab about 15 years ago added no additional convention space.

Saving the Dave Hall "Green" Plaza means saving the many outdoor music and arts festivals that attract thousands during the spring, summer and fall. It is the largest green space downtown has.

If the Crowne Plaza needed to expand, part of the Dave Hall Plaza is its only choice.

Jerry Hauer

Kettering

Millions spent for child protection

A letter to the editor headlined "Schnurr's praise seems misplaced," Feb. 7, seems to be based on a misunderstanding of the facts.

The writer questions Coadjutor Archbishop Dennis Schnurr's praise of the Catholic Church's efforts to prevent and detect child abuse. How can the archbishop say this, the writer wonders, when the archdiocese has spent more than $11 million on expenses related to child abuse over the past six years?

That money figure includes $2.4 million for child protection activities such as background checks and fingerprinting for those who work with children. Our financial commitment to child protection activities is not a contradiction of Archbishop Schnurr's praise, but a validation of it.

The archdiocese has had policies, procedures and recommendations to protect children — now collectively known as the Decree on Child Protection — since 1993. More than 85,000 clergy, employees and volunteers have been trained in the provisions of that decree.

The great majority of the allegations of child abuse by priests that we have received since 2003 are reports of incidents that happened before those policies were adopted — in many cases, decades earlier.

One reason that victims still come forward is that we continue to ask them to do so. I urge anyone who was abused as a child by a priest or any other representative of the archdiocese to report the abuse immediately to the secular legal authorities and to the Archdiocese's Victim Assistance Coordinator, Sister Mary Garke, at (513) 421-3131 or 1 (800) 686-2724.

Dan Andriacco

Cincinnati

Mr. Andriacco is communications director, Archdiocese of Cincinnati.