To the editor:

In a recent letter to the editor (“Legislators let us down with vote for truck tolls,” March 1), Tiverton Councilman Joe Sousa took an awful lot of shots at Rep. John Edwards and, to a lesser degree, Sen. Walter Felag.

Sousa’s bone of contention here is the recent vote in the General Assembly regarding the RhodeWorks project which will repair or replace the state’s crumbling roads and bridges. Part of the cost will be paid for by tolling large commercial trucks.

Sousa blasted Representative Edwards for voting in favor of this legislation, claiming that it will lead to the eventual tolling of private automobiles. This despite the fact that the law would require the approval of Rhode Island voters before extending tolling beyond large commercial trucks.

The writer even went as far as to call Representative Edwards a liar by writing, “They lied to you when they said it won’t happen.”

When an attack like that is made, it simply cannot go unanswered.

I, along with the rest of the area, have known Jay Edwards to be a fine statesman who is more than admirably concerned with his constituents. How could we forget the fact that he angrily led the charge to get tolls removed from the Sakonnet Bridge? At that time, he did everything to stop those tolls, short of chaining himself to the bridge. Now a charge is going to be made that Representative Edwards is trying to sneak car tolls on the people of Rhode Island? I find that a little hard to swallow.

To suggest that Representative Edwards would support legislation that would lead to eventual car tolling is not only a lie, it’s an absurdity.

The fact is that the tolling will, indeed, only affect large commercial trucks. The fact is that none of these toll gantries are anywhere near the East Bay.

I tell you now that if there were a possibility of tolling private automobiles, Jay Edwards would be yelling so loudly that you wouldn’t have to turn on your TV to hear him, you could just open your window.

The state of our roads and bridges is an issue of such paramount importance to Representative Edwards that he wrote an angry letter to Transportation Director Peter Alviti in December regarding the delay of several road projects. In the letter, he demanded that certain road projects in Portsmouth and Tiverton be addressed immediately, and he even demanded a dollar-for- dollar accounting of the money that had been spent versus the money that had been allocated.

As for the attack on the plan itself, Sousa suggests the Republican “plan” of cutting “wasteful spending” in the state budget. If the Republicans are truly able to identify wasteful spending, then please explain to me why the entire Republican House delegation — unanimously — chose to vote in favor of the state budget last year?

That’s right. It’s a little curious that not a single Republican in the House of Representatives cast a nay vote on the budget, but now the Republicans are going to claim there’s wasteful spending. Do you think the people of Rhode Island are so foolish that they’re going to believe nonsense like that?

I know that personal attacks on people you disagree with seem to be the fashion these days, but the plain truth is that Rep. John Edwards and Sen. Walter Felag voted in favor of this legislation because they felt it was right for their constituents, it was right for the East Bay, and it was right for the people of Rhode Island. Now let’s put some people to work and get those roads and bridges fixed.

Mike Burk

Chairman, Tiverton Democratic Town Committee