Miller park plan a ‘waste of money’

The plan State Parks has for the Miller Peninsula is an absurd waste of money. “Nature within reach,” they tout. What? What kind of nature will be left after they cut down acres of trees, pour tons of concrete and bring in hundreds of people on a daily basis?

In addition to wasting $25 million of taxpayer money, their plans will destroy the natural beauty of the Miller Peninsula State Park that people seek.

The Miller Peninsula State Park is already a fine park. It has over a hundred miles of trails that are maintained by a cadre of dedicated volunteers. It costs the state nothing. It is a park that puts nature within reach of people who don’t need campgrounds and big RV spots.

The park should be left alone and if Jay Inslee is concerned about the environment he will stop this ridiculous waste of money and resources.

Dave LeRoux

Sequim

Vaccinations not perfect, but good step

Yes, Bertha, you were right!

Last week, someone wrote a letter that criticized Bertha Cooper for wearing a mask and getting vaccinated, but still getting COVID. He claimed maybe the mask and vaccine were not warranted.

According to science and all the credible medical experts, there is a general consensus on mask wearing and vaccines. Our government supports these facts.

Masks aren’t perfect barriers to transmission, but they help protect people, especially those with compromised immune systems, plus they protect others.

As for vaccines, none are 100-percent effective with possibly 20-percent breakthrough infections. However, vaxxed people generally have milder symptoms and shorter recovery. Available vaccines are highly effective at reducing severe disease, hospitalization and death from COVID.

Vaccines save lives. They help protect people you care about. All the major medical organizations agree that vaccines are safe — one of the safest ways to protect your health.

It seems to me that Bertha Cooper did everything exactly right, medically, to help protect herself and her husband. For the man who wrote this LTE, I hope he gets vaccinated.

Just this past month, a man in his 30’s, with no underlying conditions, succumbed to Covid. Protect yourself. And if he does refuse to do that but gets COVID, why would he go to the hospital when he won’t follow the medical advice?”

Getting vaccinated and wearing masks are done not only for one’s protection, but also for others, i.e. for the common good. That is what caring people do.

Dianne Salyer

Sequim

Thanks for the support!

The Sequim Bay Yacht Club (SBYC) appreciates the overwhelming community support for the 2021 Reach and Row for Hospice event.

Since 1991, the club has raised funds for the Volunteer Hospice of Clallam County respite fund through an annual sailing and rowing event.

For 2021, $30,863.72 was raised which makes a grand total of $433,866.45 contributed by SBYC to the Hospice respite fund since the first race.

Thank you for your support that makes a difference for those community members who need our help.

Susan Sorensen

Sequim

Sorensen is chair of the Reach and Row for Hospice event.

Outcome backs Cooper’s precautions

Mark White’s response (Letters to the Editor, Sequim Gazette, Feb. 16, page A-12) to columnist Bertha Cooper’s experience with COVID-19 (“Why me? Why not?”, Sequim Gazette, Feb. 9, page A-12) concludes that everything she believed about COVID-19 may have been wrong. The outcome of her infection actually supports all the recommended precautions she practiced.

Those who have received three doses of the vaccine can still become infected. Their illness however is usually mild and of short duration. This is exactly what she experienced. She believed herself to have only a mild cold but took the precaution of having herself tested which likely saved her husband from more serious illness. They self-isolated at home and both wore masks when in close contact. He did not become infected and she has fully recovered.

Those who decline vaccinations and flout mask mandates not only risk their own health. They risk unknowingly spreading the virus to others and allowing new mutations to develop. N-95 and KN-95 masks are 80-90 percent effective.

One person wearing a mask has a 10- to 20-percent chance of the virus sneaking through. If the other person in an encounter is also wearing a mask it doubles the level of protection.

We all pay a cost for an individual’s health care choices through an increased cost to Medicare and private insurance plans. Unvaccinated individuals make up the vast majority of those who are critically ill and dying of COVID, overwhelming our healthcare system, causing others to be unable to access needed care and surgical procedures.

This is not about politics or individual rights. It is about personal responsibility and respect for the lives of others.

Marcia Limoges

Sequim

Threats to democracy

I have been hearing a lot recently about threats to our democracy so I investigated and discovered who is responsible for this. Here is what I found out:

Who is passing laws that will make it more difficult for some people to vote? Republicans, that’s who.

Who is saying that the 2020 presidential election was a fraud in spite of all the claims of fraud that have been debunked by republican secretaries of state and by over 60 state and federal courts? Republicans, that’s who.

Who refused to certify the electoral votes representing the will of the voters? Republicans, that’s who.

Who encouraged demonstrators to come to the Capitol to “be wild”? Trump and Republicans, that’s who.

Who says that the insurrectionists were just patriotic citizens peacefully demonstrating? Republicans, that’s who.

Who refuses to cooperate with the investigation of Jan. 6? Republicans, that’s who.

Who is not interested in finding out who was responsible for the Jan. 6 insurrection? Republicans, that’s who.

According to my investigation it looks like it’s the Republican Party and their twice impeached and defeated ex-president Donald Trump who are the threat to our democracy. It is a disgrace that very few Republicans have stood up and told the truth. They and their followers are disgusting and committing outright treasonous actions against the constitution and the rule of law. They keep going to Mar-a-Lago and kissing the golden ring.

What has the good old party come to? Sad. Do patriotic Americans really want these people in charge of anything?

Stan Riddle

Sequim

Coddling the criminal

Ya gotta’ wonder — marvel, even — at the strength of what would appear to be the criminal lobby in Olympia which recently successfully passed House Bill 1310 forbidding law enforcement officers from using force to detain anyone at a crime scene.

It could also be known as the “Coddle The Criminal bill” or more succinctly, “Just Let’em Go.”

Passed in the Senate (26-23) and the House (55-42) and signed into law last May, this decree, to the delight of the criminal element, further restricts our law enforcement officers’ ability to … well … enforce the law.

Believe it or not, if a police officer notices someone with, say, a truckload of catalytic converters, apparently torn from the vehicles in which they were previously installed, the officer is now unable to detain this person on the suspicion that these converters were, in fact, stolen but must “just let’em go” (“Predictable results from a Democratic ban on police force at crime scenes,” Washington Examiner, Feb. 3).

Because, using this same example, the officer must have proof that these converters were, in fact, recently stolen in the neighborhood or they do not have probable cause to detain them or, even, to have a conversation with them.

And then they must “just let’em go” which may seem funny to us, but the only people really laughing are, of course, the criminals.

But the “coddle the criminal” legislation certainly does have some benefits. For instance, police officers no longer need to carry handcuffs because they are now forced to wear them, courtesy of our legislators.

Dick Pilling

Port Angeles