Numbers speak for themselves
I keep reading about all the fighting about the vaccinations. I would think that with 700,000 dead and all the hospitals full of non-vaccinated people this debate would end and people would simply get the shots and stop arguing.
Also, on the religious exemption, those people might want to get another religion if the one they belong to wants them to risk their lives by avoiding getting vaccinated.
Also, exempted people mixed in with vaccinated people does not make any sense.
Dick Sutterlin
Sequim
Fast, effective responses appreciated
Kudos to Ty Brown, Sequim city operations manager, for a speedy and satisfying response regarding protective signage at Pioneer Memorial Park.
Tasteful and well-placed signs were up within 24 hours of him being contacted.
In a time where governmental action often seems slow or ineffective, it’s a pleasure to see our pristine gem of a park (maintained by volunteers) receive his immediate attention.
I also appreciated the Sequim Police Department response to my letter to the editor (“A reasonable concern,” Sequim Gazette, Oct. 6, page A-14) outlining their efforts to address addiction and unsheltered issues in Sequim.
Nancy L. Martin
Sequim
Who, exactly, is ‘wounding our democracy’?
Ah, Bertha, Bertha, Bertha! Thank you, Bertha Cooper, for inspiring me, or rather jolting me, into writing a letter in rebuttal to your latest eruption of your hatred toward Donald Trump and Republicans. (“Is Democracy worth saving?” Bertha Cooper, Sequim Gazette, Oct. 6, page A-14)
Whew! Talk about “secret, subversive gutting of democracy in America”! Readers, just put “Democrats” in place of everywhere Bertha has written “Republicans” and you will see my point.
You see, Bertha, you do not speak for all of us, you merely seem to feel entitled (by some qualification unknown to us readers) to write as though you do, time after time.
Ask yourself exactly what you are trying to accomplish in your biased and unfair tirades against Republicans. Truth is not determined by who speaks the loudest or most repetitiously.
Cindy Mackay
Sequim
Broad brush
In her 10/6 column Cooper tries to paint the Republicans as trying to limit citizen’s ability to vote, when in reality all that’s being asked is for a person to prove they are a legally eligible U.S. citizen with proper ID.
A large number of European countries have outlawed mail-in voting because they know it encourages voter fraud. The U.S.’s 2020 wild-west crazy election demonstrated in spades why mailed ballots are unreliable. Everyone wants all legal eligible voters to vote, with the emphasis on “legal.”
And no, Trump is not spreading lies about the election being crooked. The Democrats, with total cooperation from the corrupt media, have simply ignored the evidence and/or failed to report it. Plenty of undeniable evidence exists about various forms of election fraud for anyone who will open their eyes, ears and brains.
She uses the common dishonest strategy of Democrats, that is accusing the other side of doing exactly what they themselves are in fact doing. The Hillary “Trump Russia collusion” hoax is a prime example.
Cooper accuses the Republicans of trying to fix elections so they never lose when in fact the Democrats are trying to do exactly this with their horrible bills HR-1 and S-1. These would nationalize control of elections making it virtually impossible to ever have an honest election in the future due to such limited voter and election integrity requirements.
In person voting and hand counting with easily auditable ballots is the only way we will ever have honest elections.
Greg Carroll
Sequim
Vote for Lowe I
Your vote matters
This letter is an appeal to all who live within the City of Sequim: please vote, and vote wisely, in the upcoming election for City Council.
I am among the majority of “Sequimites” who live just outside the City boundaries, and therefore cannot vote, even though I shop, eat, volunteer and recreate in Sequim. Council decisions affect all of these activities.
There are some stark choices this year, so please be mindful who you choose. For example, Vicky Lowe is by far the best candidate for Position 3. She has the local knowledge (since birth), the talent and the patience to be a real asset to the community.
Please help all of us who can’t vote for her.
Lyn Muench
Sequim
Vote for Lowe II
My name is Tom Lowe and yes, I am Vicki Lowe’s Dad. I urge the citizens of Sequim to vote for Vicki to represent them on the Sequim City Council. She will be an exceptional representative of the citizens of Sequim.
I am 83 years old and with the exception of six years in the United States Navy I have lived my entire life in Sequim and the surrounding area.
I owned a business in the City of Sequim for 17 years and was a volunteer firefighter until becoming Sequim’s first paid fire chief. During this time I have known, worked with and been friends with many council members. I believed all of them to be honest and to work with transparency and in the interest of the community.
I do not see that in the four unelected members of the current Council. In my opinion it is time for them to be voted out.
Thomas W. Lowe
Sequim
League’s support of abortion a ‘severe mistake’
Ironic that an organization promoting women’s equality should sponsor eradicating some women. And yet, here we are, 101 years after the League of Women Voters began with the noble purpose — to help women take a larger role in public affairs after winning voting rights — it sponsors a demonstration supporting the deliberate eradication of children in the womb (act.womensmarch.com/event/oct-2-2021-march/2523).
How, exactly, does abortion aid women and girls and children in the womb?
Admittedly, unintended pregnancy can lead to devastating consequences. But in promoting legalized abortion, the league and others make a severe mistake. They propose that the desperate woman abort her child. What a horrific choice! Sacrifice her life’s plans, her career, her relationships (with a partner or parent who may have given an ultimatum). Or choose invasive surgery, the destruction of her offspring.
What if we women — and the organization with “women” in its name — refuse to choose? How would that abortion-free resistance challenge our communities? Could we then demonstrate, agitate for even-handed hiring, creative jobs (flex-time, home-commute), school flexibility, improved medical care, child care and parenting assistance? What a concept: unconditional support for the mother and her child before and after birth!
Just a few decades before the League’s founding, early feminists were warning against abortion calling it “child murder” (Susan B. Anthony) and “degrading to women” (Elizabeth Cady Stanton). Yet 101 years later the League has ignored those warnings.
Another irony: Of the 60 million children aborted in U.S. since 1973, how many would have become women voters?
Janet Flatley
Carlsborg
We asked the local League of Woemn Voters for a response:
The writer who criticizes the League’s participation in the October 2 Women’s March offers a false “if-then” logic choice: if women were to “refuse to choose (abortion),” then we could advocate for constructive policies, such as “evenhanded hiring, creative jobs, improved medical care, child-care …
The inversion of this strange logic is that if women do choose abortion, then they should be denied these constructive social policies. But this issue is not an either/or. The League already advocates for all the support issues mentioned by the writer.
The League’s well-researched national position states:”Public policy in a pluralistic society must affirm the constitutional right of privacy of the individual to make reproductive choices.” In the United States, we do not live in a theocracy, and reproductive choice, in all its forms, is not the business of the state.
An additional important, but seldom discussed, issue is maternal mortality. The American Journal of Managed Care reports that “among 11 developed countries, the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate.” Reasons include a relative under-supply of maternity care providers. We are the only country not to guarantee access to provider home visits. They report, “Maternal deaths have been increasing in the United States since 2000 … two-thirds of these deaths are considered to be preventable.”
In light of this, is it ethical to force women to complete an unwanted pregnancy?
The LWV of Clallam County looks forward to working with the writer of the letter to urge Congress to adopt programs that support women and their children.
Rebekah Miller
President, League of Women Voter of Clallam County
SGGL suspect
The Sequim Good Governance League promotes itself as a hometown Sequim, grass roots organization. Yet the SGGL PAC refuses to disclose the special interests among its donor base as required by state law.
Two formal complaints have been filed with the Public Disclosure Commission to compel the SGGL PAC to fully disclose all donors and expenditures. The complaints are currently being investigated and can be viewed on the PDC website at pdc.wa.gov/browse/cases (case numbers 98858 and 99241).
According to a finding of the state legislature, “The public has the right to know who is contributing to election campaigns in Washington State and that campaign finance disclosure deters corruption, increases public confidence in Washington State elections, raises the level of debate, and strengthens our representative democracy” (Washington State Disclose Act of 2017).
In other words, the people have a right to know which special interests are hiding behind a shell organization to camouflage their attempts to manipulate Sequim City Council elections. That the SGGL PAC would refuse to disclose its high value rollers raises many questions.
Documentation filed with the PDC indicates that the treasurer of the SGGL PAC is Dale Jarvis, a Seattle-based consultant. We have heard much about outside interests attempting to influence policy within the Sequim City Government, mostly from the SGGL. Now we learn that the SGGL’s own ties to Seattle based interests run deep and wide.
Join with me in demanding that the SGGL follow the law and fully disclose its campaign finance transactions.
Pepai Whipple
Sequim
Ignorance is no excuse, part 4
Today (Oct. 5), stuffed in my USPS street-front mailbox, was a two-page printed statement in color written by the ignorant!
Its headings were “REVEALING THE TRUTH” and “EXPOSING THE LIE” in color, two pages of diatribe of essentially “Do NOT be COVID-vaccinated” during a “Pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
Today, the U.S. has sustained about 700,000 COVID-19 deaths and the current national death rate is still about 1,500 per day.
Of course, many people think the COVID virus is a hoax. At the bottom of the second page of this printed statement, quote: “God shows us the way.” For those readers who believe your God will protect you from the highly contagious COVID Delta variant, you are wrong! You who are unvaccinated should continue to attend closely-packed church meetings and other large, social group gatherings. The COVID virus will find you! Then you can tell your attending hospital physician, while you are requesting to be vaccinated, what Dr. Brytney Cobia in Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham, Ala., told her failing patients regretfully: “It’s too late.”
To paraphrase Sgt. Joe Friday on TV many years ago about seatbelts, there are a myriad reasons people give not to be COVID vaccinated, and some are “real killers”! Some people prefer Ivermectin — a horse de-worming medication — while others prefer hydroxychloroquine, a malaria-treating drug, and still others have tried injecting or ingesting bleach.
None of these are recommended.
Previously I have written and published three letters to the editor titled “Ignorance is no excuse.” This letter is most important and intended to save lives. Get vaccinated today! The shots are free.
Richard Hahn
Sequim
