Letter: Courthouse air conditioning is way too cool

Tuesday, June 19, 2001 | 8:42 a.m.

I had the good fortune to sit through jury selection in the Lloyd George Federal Courthouse last week. The marble floors were lovely, but I was more awed by the temperature throughout the building. It had to be 68 degrees in those cavernous rooms!

I was extremely chilled for the whole 3 1/2 hours I was there. I was also angered to think that, while I kept my home thermostat at 85, these great, empty halls were refrigerated like meat lockers. I keep my house uncomfortably hot because of the $362 power bill I had for February, which I had difficulty paying. Yet my tax dollars are being spent frivolously to keep government buildings at sweater-temperature!

Do not give me the old ya-ya about some people who might have heart attacks or strokes if the temperature were 80. I grew up where no one had air conditioning, and people lived and worked just fine all summer long.

If "we are all in this together," why don't we all sweat together? There is no excuse for wasting our tax dollars and our electricity. Why should not / have not the federal, state, and local governments mandated that public buildings all have the thermostat set at 80 degrees?

KITTY SMITH