I vote for the future with our Chevy Volt. Rick Martinez argues in his column (N&O, Sept. 19) that the present doesn’t welcome the future as electric cars (the Volt, Leaf, etc.) are expensive and limited in range. Both points are valid.

I argue that new technologies need our support. Martinez never writes a word about the cost to country and environment of gasoline. Our Volt gets 40 to 43 miles per full charge, enough to get Martinez to work, where he could charge up during the workday. Plus, when I switch to gasoline, I get well over 40 miles to the gallon. I get about 4 miles per kilowatt hour, and we also took the plunge and bought photovoltaics for the roof.

Solar power and electric cars are investments for a better future.

Henry Walker

Durham

The Art of Cool Project (AOCP), in its quest to bring a live music festival to downtown Durham, is pleased to announce a series of focus-group sessions to be held in the large classroom at American Tobacco Underground, from 7 to 8 p.m. These one-hour sessions have been scheduled to learn what the community hopes to see in a music festival in Durham. The American Tobacco Underground is located at the corner of Blackwell and Pettigrew streets in downtown Durham.

The first focus group session will take place Monday, Oct. 15, and will address festival format and footprint considerations. Anyone who is interested in helping AOCP lock down a date, format and footprint are welcome. Specifically topics covered will be:

1. Picking the right date

2. Essential festival highlights

3. How large the footprint should be

4. Free versus ticketed events

This initial session will be co-moderated by Greg Lowenhagen, director of Hopscotch, and Marc Lee, Blues Festival, Hayti Heritage, and WNCU radio announcer/emcee.

The full schedule of topics and the dates they will be discussed are as follows:

• Oct. 15: Date/Format/Footprint

• Oct. 22: Venues/Ticketing

• Oct. 29: Musical and Artistic Programming

• Nov. 5: Fundraising/Sponsorships

• Nov. 12: Food Trucks/Restaurants

• Nov. 19: Traffic/Parking/Transportation

• Nov. 26: Kids & Educational Activities

• Dec. 3: Volunteer Coordination/Sustainability

• Dec. 10: Marketing/PR

The Art of Cool Project Focus Group Sessions are open to the public. Anyone desiring to help bring a top-notch music festival to the Triangle and also to foster a world class jazz and live music culture is encouraged to attend one or all of the sessions. Come and give your “two cents.” Get in on the ground floor planning of a dynamic culture-changing event.

For more information and to RSVP for these focus groups, please visit theartofcoolproject.com/festival-news.

Dedicated to increasing the visibility of the local vibrant, varied and surprisingly under-appreciated jazz and live music scene, The Art of Cool Project is a unique collaboration between the jazz and art communities to bring both creative mediums to supporters in an intimate concert setting. The Project also has additional goals of solidifying the Triangle as a metropolitan area with a world-class defined jazz culture by bring a Jazz Festival to Durham, as well as recognizing the need to keep jazz as part of America’s fabric by cultivating the genre in future generations. Bringing this festival to Durham is a step towards these goals. With its second year in existence, expect many exciting things to come from The Art of Cool Project.

Sharon Mullen

The Art of Cool Project

Don’t fear advisory board

A letter of gratitude from a woman happy that her cataract surgery will be paid for by Medicare also raised the alarm that in the future this might not be possible (N&O, Sept. 30). She warned that under the Affordable Health Care Act, the Independent Payment Advisory Board would have the power to decide whether to pay for such surgery for a 73-year-old retired woman.

This perpetuates false information. First, as the term “advisory” indicates, the IPAB will have no such authority. Its responsibility will be limited to making recommendations, and the recommendations are limited to ways of slowing “the growth in national health expenditures ... while preserving or enhancing quality of care.” Implementation of any recommendation lies entirely with the U.S. Congress.

Second, the IPAB replaces a board that already exists under Medicare: the Independent Medicare Advisory Board.

If the writer is grateful for the current arrangements under Medicare, she ought to be grateful also that the only changes are that the rate of growth in costs could be less and the quality of care improved.

Robert L. Brawley

Durham