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We'll be there
Clallam County Fire District 3 wishes to thank the voters in eastern Clallam County and Gardiner for their support of the EMS levy during this recent election. The fire district is committed to providing timely service and response to emergency calls while maintaining a standard of excellence that has been established over many years of dedication to our community. Your support of this levy will provide us the resources to meet the expectations of our growing and diverse community, maintain staffing for our stations and help to ensure that when you need us most, we will be there to provide care and pre-hospital treatment to those in need. Thank you for your support and confidence in our dedicated firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics. Fire Chief Steve Vogel Lt. Bob Rhoads Fire District 3 Take a moment I would like to take this opportunity to thank Walt Schubert for his service to this community and encourage all of you to do the same. You may disagree with his politics but you can never overlook his great heart. I have seen him handle difficult circumstances with grace and wisdom and refuse to hold grudges toward those who have treated him unfairly. He and Sherry contribute countless volunteer hours in many organizations including the Boys & Girls Club, which they plan to continue. Please take a moment to thank Walt for his years of service on the Sequim City Council. Deborah Rambo Sinn Sequim Make a difference Just a short note to all the drivers from the Sequim area. I recently moved here and am really frustrated and afraid to drive in our little city. Whenever I go out, I am scared at what I will encounter on the roadway. Most of the drivers don't seem to know that when pulling out onto a main highway from a side street or private drive, the entering driver must stop and yield the right of way. Ask any policeman or check in the driver's manual. Please try to be kinder and more considerate when on the road. It will make a difference to someone, even if it's only me. Mary Elizabeth Marshall Sequim Feeding the working poor I really can't comment on the goings-on at the food bank but am always saddened when charity volunteers choose the most public way to broadcast their policy disagreements. This can't help with donations to those in need - which is all that should be important. I can comment that having the bank open during weekdays and only 9 a.m.-noon seems out-of-touch. After I moved here, I was shocked by the number of "working poor" families in this community. Stepping back from the fray, I'd observe that weekends and extended hours must be a godsend for these folks. Doug Jensen Sequim Successfully supporting education On Saturday, Oct. 31, five chapters of PEO united to present a bazaar, bake sale and book signing at Pioneer Park in Sequim. We'd like to thank the Sequim Gazette for its efforts in helping to make this event successful. Your Oct. 28 article not only helped to publicize the event but also did a fine job describing the educational projects that we support. Thanks also go to author Glynda Schaad for participating and donating a portion of her book sales to our projects, and to Don Batcheller of Rainbow Roasting Company for donating several blends of delicious coffee to serve at the event. And, of course, special thanks go to the great people of the community who came out to have a fun morning and support a worthy cause. Barbara Rymon President, Chapter JC Sequim Sequim elk talk Heard on Burnt Hill: One elk turns to his wife. "Gather the kids, Mable! The Fish and Wildlife rangers have decided they need to make the wolves a not so 'endangered' species. They're even going to pay the farmers for each lamb and calf the wolves dine on." "Well now Henry, you know those taxpayers won't mind another tax for the good of indigenousity; and that biologist, he says it's a "wise move" - whatever that means. You know, they've got to translocate those wolves so those poor Western Washington farmers can stop guarding their flocks at night."' "Yeah, but Mable, how about those young kids hiking in the mountains? They won't have 'Big Mo Ten-Point' to protect them like our kids. Instead of communing with nature, their parents will be looking up some side trail their kids took, worried, after hearing a howl in that direction. And those Sequimites: Are they going to stay up all night guarding their cats and dogs? Gonna have a lot of sleepy-eyed seniors roaming the streets looking for their pets." "Now Henry, at least the coyotes will have some competition for meat in the winter." "We're movin' to Florida, Mable. They only have alligators there ...." Travis Williams Sequim The issues remain I want to thank all the people that voted for me. I want to dispute what Sue Sorenson said about winning another four-year term: "Sorensen saw the vote for her and Macaulay as an endorsement of the existing board. I think the public is saying we trust you, we think you are doing the right thing, keep on doing what you are doing," Sorensen said Tuesday night. The SARC board does not at all know what they're doing. They are not trying to make SARC more competitive with the other gyms and reducing rates so that more people can afford to use SARC. The four board members (Annette KussErika Starks, Melinda Griffith and Bob McCauley) are just going along with director Jacobs and Sue Sorensen and they need to stop this! Most of the general public does not go to SARC and doesn't know what is going on at the board meetings. There is a lot of work that needs to be done there. 1. Getting a new director for SARC. 2. Getting a forensic auditing of the booking records to see where and how all the revenue is being spent. 3. Getting back the previous maintenance person that did an excellent job with keeping the SARC building clean and the towels/spray bottles filled. I have on many occasion went to the front desk and got these. 4. SARC needs to have reform to bring and retain the passholders they still have left and needs to stop the fleeing of any more passholders. 5. Reduce the daily and annual membership rates. Noelle Levesque Sequim
LETTERS POLICYYour opinions on issues of community interest and your reaction to stories and editorials contained in your Sequim Gazette are important to us and to your fellow readers. Thus our rules relating to letters submitted for publication are relatively simple.• Letters are welcome. Letters exceeding 400 words are returned to the writer for revision. We strive to publish all letters. • Letters are subject to editing for spelling and grammar; we contact the writer when substantial changes are required, sending the letter back to the writer for revisions. Personal attacks and unsubstantiated allegations are not printed. • All letters must have a valid signature, with a printed name, address and phone number for verification. Only the name and town/community are printed. • Deadline for letters to appear in the next publication is 5 p.m. Friday; because of the volume of letters, not all letters are published the week they are submitted. Time-sensitive letters have a priority. • Letters are published subject to legal limitations relating to defamation and factual representation. |
Boys & Girls Clubs deserve city support Save golf? Pitch idea into rough Waiting to inhale: a COPD saga Few fear the big, bad wolfJIM CASEYIf wolves stand at the door of the Olympic Peninsula, open it wide, more than a score of residents have told the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Testifying at a public hearing in Sequim on Thursday, Nov. 5, most speakers said they want wolves here as soon and in as large numbers as possible. Only a few said the wolves posed threats to livestock, people and pets - and one Jefferson County rancher countered that she protected her animals quite well with fences and trained dogs. The hearing - the only one of 12 such meetings to be held on the peninsula - sought comment on the state's draft environmental impact statement for managing wolves in Washington. Two mating pairs and perhaps a third already are in the state's eastern regions, having crossed from Canada or Idaho. An endangered species on both federal and state registers, they must be protected until they flourish to the point of sustaining themselves throughout their range. Eventually, wolves will populate the Cascade Mountains. Whether they can cross the Interstate 5 corridor and make their way into the Olympics is doubtful - and thereby hung most speakers' testimony. The state initially offered two alternatives for moving wolves that already had wandered into Washington across a wider range. Both combine the peninsula with the southern Cascades. Scoping meetings on the draft EIS (environmental impact statement) earlier this year, however, led officials to add a third option: a coastal region split off by the Interstate 5 corridor. Of the 120 people attending the hearing in the Guy Cole Convention Center at Carrie Blake Park, 30 spoke. Of those, 24 pleaded for the coastal alternative and six opposed placing wolves on the peninsula at all. Bruce Moorhead of Port Angeles, a retired Olympic National Park biologist, said, "Translocating them here as fast as you can would be a very wise move." The draft EIS will remain open for public comment until Jan. 8, 2010, after which it faces continued scientific scrutiny in a double-blind review supervised by the University of Washington. The 343- page document can be viewed and downloaded from http://wdfw.wa.gov and following links that begin with Wolf Management at the top of the page. It will be at least 10 years, officials said, before wolves would walk on the peninsula under the most optimistic conditions. For most of the people at the public hearing, it will be a long wait.
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