Former Governor Mike Leavitt of Utah

10/20/2015

Governor Michael O. Leavitt

c/o Leavitt Partners LLC

299 South Main Street, Suite 2300

Salt Lake City, Utah  84111-2278
USA

Dear Governor Leavitt,

My name is Matthew Winick from Ann Arbor, Michigan with a strong interest in studying history and learning on how people’s ideas or work help make a great difference for society. The main reason I have a strong interest in learning these subjects is to learn the need to advance on Civil Rights to protect people who are different from being discriminated, have healthcare reform to help people with pre-existing conditions or who need to get the care they need, protect the environment from pollution by supporting renewable alternative energy including implementing environmental protection and many others. Governor Leavitt, I find your work as a moderate Republican 14^th Governor of Utah and later as EPA Administrator to be very inspiring to me.

When you served as 14^th Governor of Utah, I liked on your commitment to making Civil Rights stronger by being a supporter of protecting women., minorities, and people with disabilities from being discriminated in public, jobs, and education.  Another thing on Civil Rights that I liked was on how you express the need for an Equal Rights Amendment to help protect women from being discriminated based on gender even though it didn’t pass the state legislatures.   On healthcare, I was amazed on how you were able to work with the state legislatures on passing “Healthprint”, a health care reform bill to help children get covered on getting the medical care they need, help people who live in rural areas get coverage, and adding other people in Utah with pre-existing conditions to it so they can get the treatment they need. Your advocacy on the need for technology like educational software for education use to help students with illiteracy problems or who have a disability improve on comprehension with getting the resources they need to learn efficiently and being bipartisan with different governors from both parties like Democratic Governor Roy Romer of Colorado on creating Western Governors University where it was a non-profit school and  having technology with online classes to help students learn better in an educational environment is common sense and a great approach to make education a better learning environment.   To protect the environment, I liked on how you pushed for a ban on nuclear waste dumping in your state to help protect people from being harmed including to improve public safety from the dangers of nuclear and supporting renewable energy including alternative energy like solar, wind, biofuel, and energy efficient products to reduce carbon emissions.  Under your role as EPA Administrator, I was very proud of you for developing a plan to help clean up the Great Lakes from toxic chemicals including other pollutants to help conserve natural resources, improve the economy with tourism, and to make public safety a priority.  Another thing I liked was on how you worked with school buses on promoting with implementing them to run on clean biofuel to reduce air pollution and signing “Clean Air Diesel Rule” to put high standards on diesel fuel including other air pollutants to protect the ozone layer including the air.

I live in Michigan and I was very grateful of you for leading the EPA to clean up the Great Lakes in your role as EPA Administrator because I enjoy visiting the Great Lakes and learning the origin with the history of the Great Lakes. When I visit the Great Lakes, I remind myself on why it is important to protect the environment from pollution and the need for conservation with restoring national parks including historical sites to help teach generations about the way of life and to improve public health.  Governor Leavitt, I have Autism with a learning disability and having it is hard for me because I have trouble comprehending on learning different subjects and sometimes I have trouble communicating with people. The Americans With Disabilities Act helped protected me from being discriminated in education and improve Civil Rights. Even though I still struggle with a disability, your work as Governor of Utah on helping protect people with disabilities including advocating for their rights and supporting educational technology to help improve learning really inspires me to work hard on Autism and to continue using educational technology like a recorder to help improve on note-taking, subtitles when watching documentaries or watching tv, to help me process information with improving on vocabulary, and reading programs including audio programs to help me improve on comprehending.  

Governor Leavitt, I strongly believe that you made a great difference as Governor of Utah and as EPA Administrator on supporting Civil Rights to reduce discrimination, protecting the environment from pollution, having healthcare reform to help people get the medical care they need.  Also I’m proud of you for being a moderate Republican on supporting these issues. You have inspired me to work hard on Autism and to be interested in history with learning the need to protect national parks including public lands in order to learn history and how they play a big part in society. Thanks for taking the time to read my letter, making a great difference for society with your work, inspiring me to continue learning, and cleaning up the Great Lakes to make society better including making Michigan a better place. Please continue advocating for these good ideas including protecting the environment from pollution to help continue making society better.

Sincerely,

Matthew B. Winick

Dick Van Dyke

10/14/2015

Mr. Dick Van Dyke

23215 Mariposa DeOro St.

Malibu, CA 90265
USA

Dear Mr. Van Dyke,

My name is Matt Winick and I am a huge fan of your acting along with your music talent. When I was in elementary school my favorite movies were Mary Poppins  nd Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. These movies were my favorite because you did an excellent job acting and singing with your dance moves which made these movies fun to watch. In Marry Poppins my favorite songs that you sang was “Step in Time”, “Jolly Holiday”, and “I Love To Laugh”.  Some of Mary Poppins songs are very funny and clever. Mr. Van Dyke, I am very grateful for your teamwork with Ms. Julie Andrews on Marry Poppins by making the songs clever and making the plot of the movie fun with humor and symbolism about the need for friendship, having a different social class develop a friendship. I consider Marry Poppins to be one of my favorite movies of all time. I really enjoy watching The Dick Van Dyke Show because I really like your clever jokes and humor. My most favorite tv show of your acting was Diagnosis Murder. I really enjoy watching Diagnosis Murder and liked your character Dr. Mark Sloan. Also what I liked about the show was how a doctor is interested in solving murders along with having some humor.  Diagnosis Murder was a great show because I really liked on how you including your son Barry Van Dyke and the rest of the cast made each episode great, clever, humorous and have a great balance between drama, comedy, and crime.

Mr. Van Dyke, I have Autism with a learning disability and having a disability is hard for me because I have trouble comprehending on learning different subjects and sometimes other people tease me bout having it. Your movie Marry Poppins helped me become interested in learning music, understand the need for friendship, and to find enjoyment of life when life is difficult. I use Marry Poppins to help me work hard at overcoming struggles. Your work on making songs in Marry Poppins helps me get interested in playing the Bb Clarinet where I work on improvising songs including Jazz and making them unique.   

I strongly believe that you made a great difference in Disney, music, T.V., and movies through your acting and music talent. Also you have truly inspired me to work hard on Autism, become interested in music, and to be a fan of your work in acting.  Mr. Van Dyke, I have a story about my life where I dedicated you for being a true inspiration to me and I hope you get a chance to read it. Also I’m sending you a card thanking you for inspiring me with $5 gift to help you for the future. I was wondering if you could please give me advice about how to be an actor, explain what it like to act, and your advice about friendship. Thanks for taking the time to read my letter, my story, and taking the time to respond to me.

Sincerely,

Matt Winick  

Fmr California State Senator Martha M. Escutia of 30th District of California

10/19/2015

Ms. Martha M. Escutia

Vice President of Government Relations

c/o University of Southern California

Suite 260

3551 Trousdale Parkway

Los Angeles, CA  90089
USA

Dear Ms. Escutia,

My name is Matthew Winick from Ann Arbor, Michigan and I have a huge interest in studying history including public policy.  The main reason I have a strong interest in these areas to learn the need to advance on Civil Rights to reduce discrimination,  need to help victims of crime get the care they need,  have healthcare reform to help people including children get the medical care they need, and many others.  Ms. Martha M. Escutia, I find your work as California State Senate to be very inspiring to me on different issues.

When you served in the California State Senate in 1998-2006, I liked on how you pushed for legislation to allow schools to promote with implementing healthy foods for school lunches including nutrition programs to help children get the nutrition that they need and to reduce health risks.  On dealing with the criminal justice system, I was amazed on your role as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee on making the court system be access to help the poor including victims get the help they need when dealing with an issues and helping victim’s rights by creating a Self Help Center to help assist with represent the victims of negligence, abuse, and fraud get the assistance they need when going through court or recovering from a trauma.  Also I liked on how you helped children on getting their own court-appointed advocates for child custody cases to help protect a child’s well being or to recommend on how to help a child during a custody hearing. I liked your approach on improving education by creating remedial education programs to help students that struggle learning or have a disability get assistance on learning different subjects and funding special education to help students with disabilities on getting accommodations with assistance on learning education.  To help improve the environment, I liked on how you created Children’s Environmental Health Protection Act to help protect children from unhealthy levels of air pollution caused by air contaminants, and supporting AB 289 Detecting Commercial Chemicals to allow state agencies to require manufacturers to identify which chemicals are being used, limit on how much chemicals can be used, and have manufacturers work with the state to find ways to detect the chemicals in the environment to help reduce health risk from toxic chemicals  and to help make manufactures work on finding ways to make products in a safe way without endangering other people.

Ms. Escutia, your work on reforming the criminal justice system got me to be very inspired to take a Intro To Criminal Justice course at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  I enjoyed taking the class because I got to learn about how the court system works, Miranda rights, law enforcements, and different Supreme Court cases. Also in the class my instructor emphasized about the need to make the criminal justice system better by providing better care and assistance to help the victims of crime including children.  My instructor also worked with me on creating ideas for reforming the criminal justice system like treatment programs to help rehabilitate drug users to reduce them from being addicted to drugs, have community services for non-violent offenders including juveniles to help them from re-offending, more counseling programs to help victims of crime recover from trauma, have DNA testing for cases to reduce sending innocent people to a jail for a crime they didn’t commit, and many others.  I have Autism with a learning disability and having a disability is hard for me because I have trouble comprehending on learning different subjects and I struggle with speech when communicating with other people.  Even though special education and accommodations helped me get an education, I still struggle with it. Your work on helping people with disabilities get an education they need with helping them get accommodations really inspires me to work hard on Autism with a learning disability and to continue learning different subjects.

I strongly believe that you made a great difference in your role as California State Senator on improving nutrition for children in schools, helping students with illiteracy problems including students with a disabilities get assistance on learning different subjects, protect the environment from pollution, and reform the criminal justice system to help victims of crime get care that they need. Your work really inspired me to be interested in studying history, learning about the criminal justice with the need for reform to make the system better, and to work hard on Autism.  Thanks for taking the time to read my letter, making great achievements to make society better, and inspiring me.

Sincerely,

Matthew B. Winick

Former Governor Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey

10/29/2015

Governor Christie Todd Whitman

Founder of The Whitman Group

P.O. Box 146

Oldwick, NJ  08858
USA

Dear Governor Whitman,

My name is Matthew Winick from Ann Arbor, Michigan with a strong interest in learning history and studying public policy. The main reasons I have a strong interest in these subjects to learn the need to advance on Civil Rights to reduce discrimination in order to protect people who are different, protect the environment from pollution, have health care reform to help people with pre-existing conditions or who can’t afford insurance get the care they need, and many others. Governor Whitman, I find your work as a moderate Republican 50^th Governor of New Jersey on different issues to be very inspiring to me.

When you served as 50^th Governor of New Jersey, I was very proud of you for your commitment to support including advance on Civil Rights to help protect women, minorities, people with disabilities, and people with different sexual orientation from being discriminated. Also on Civil Rights, I liked on how you supported affirmative action to help minorities, women, and people with disabilities on getting assistance with funding for education to reduce discrimination in education and fund businesses owned by them to help them compete in the business environment and being a supporter of gay’s rights. Your record in education including improving child safety like funding educational program to teach youth about the need to reduce hate crime to make learning environment including society better and funding special education to assist students with disabilities on getting educational accommodations including educational software to help improve their literacy, and pushing for a law to require school buses to have a crossing control arm, a device to help protect students from being hit by a bus including assisting bus drives to any pedestrians walking in front of them is common sense.  I like your work on reforming the criminal justice system by creating a juvenile court system including community service programs to work on finding ways to help non-violent youth offenders on rehabilitating instead of strict sentencing and expanding state’s bias crimes laws to help protect people who are harassed by law enforcement based on sex, minorities, people with a disability to reduce tension between community and police and end discrimination.  On the environment, I was amazed by your commitment to protect the environment by implementing Green Acres Bond Act to preserve state parks including clean watershed areas from pollution, supporting renewable energy as an energy source to reduce air pollution, and worked with governments including sewers authorities to improve wastewater treatment program to prevent pollution from contaminating watershed including drinking water. Also to improve healthcare, I was very proud of you for breaking your own party to push for legislation to require insurance companies to pay 48 hour maternity hospital stays for mothers who had babies including women who are pregnant to help reduce women from paying a high fees for a hospital stay, funding health care assistance to help families who have members with HIV or people with HIV get treatment to assist them, and increase funding research on reducing HIV or other transmitted diseases.

I have Autism with a learning disability and having a disability is hard because I have trouble comprehending on learning different subjects, sometimes I struggle with communication when speaking with other people, and other people tease me about having it.  Special education programs including the ADA helped me be protected from being discriminated in education including public places and help created accommodations like extra time on exams, having educational software to help me improve on comprehension, and have a T.A. or a tutor work with me on assignments in schools including Washtenaw Community College.  Even though these things helped me with my disability, I still struggle with it. Governor Whitman, your work on supporting Civil rights to reduce discrimination including protecting people with disabilities’ rights really inspires me to work hard on Autism and it helps me have the courage to work hard at learning different subjects.  I enjoyed reading your book It’s My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America because it does a great job emphasizing the need for moderate GOPs to help protect women’s rights, support Civil Rights, and protect the environment from pollution instead of going too far right. Also I learn from your book about you being a moderate GOP Governor in New Jersey and what it was like distancing from extreme views.

Governor Whitman, I strongly believe that you made a great difference as Governor of New Jersey on improving public safety making education stronger, advancing on Civil Rights to reduce discrimination, funding healthcare to reduce diseases, and protecting the environment from pollution.  Your work inspires me to work hard on Autism and have an interest in learning history including public policy. Also your book makes a great example of the need for moderates to help stop people with extreme views from hurting our country and it helped me learn more about your work.  Thanks for taking the time to read my letter, working hard to make a difference, writing a book, and inspiring me. Please continue advocating for the need for more moderates, a strong need for renewable energy, and the need to protect the environment.

Sincerely,

Matthew B. Winick