Views
Question of the Week When recreational marijuana becomes legally available, will you be a buyer?
To vote in this week’s poll, see www.courierherald.com
The Enumclaw Courier-Herald • Page 6
In Focus
See ELFERS, Page 17
Volume 114 • Wednesday, October 23, 2013 • No. 6
1627 Cole Street, Enumclaw, WA 98022 360-825-2555 • Fax: 360-825-0824 E-mail: letters@courierherald.com Web site: www.courierherald.com
Scan this code and start receiving local news on your mobile device today.
Yes: 4.5% No: 95.5%
Wednesday, October 23, 2013 • www.courierherald.com
If only D.C. would Letters easier, vote to take author’s advice Sleep keep District 28 staffed
Have you ever thought about your life as you live it? I have, and I’ve come to the conclusion that each of us struggles to decide what to do with the hundreds of decisions we make each day. Those decisions send us in one direction or the other and make us who we are. Perhaps we can shape the directions of our lives better if we become more aware of these daily decisions. In that regard, I’ve thought about the decisions of the president and leaders of Congress toward the government shutdown. Both the president and the Republican House leaders have perspectives that differ over Rich Elfers the best direction Columnist to take the country. Fortunately for the nation and the world, the deadlock ended Oct. 17. Neither group really knew how the other side would react. We humans are all in the same boat. Time passes and decisions loom, but with all the potential choices before us, none of us is sure which of the many options we should choose. We all take a leap of faith, hoping our decisions are the correct ones. Those consequences bring new problems and new choices for us to make. And so it goes for all our lives. Often we don’t know the impact of our decisions for 20 or more years. By then our children are grown and the damage has been done, or the benefits reaped. As one person noted, once we have been trained to be good parents, we’re out of a job because our children have grown up and left home. Wouldn’t it be easier if we had a crystal ball or the gift of prophecy so we could see the end result of our choices before we made them? What if all of us followed the advice of the late author, Steven Covey, who admonished us to, “Plan with the end in mind.”? Perhaps we would make fewer mistakes. Possibly we could change the trajectory of our lives if we incorporated that axiom in our decisionmaking. I know I made better decisions in raising my children because I taught high school students and I saw the effects of parents’ choices on teens. I observed the behavior of my students and then asked myself what attitudes and approaches their parents incorporated to make their children act the way they did. Using that insight, I decided in what direction I should nudge my children to avoid the mistakes and imitate the successes I saw in the students I taught. Steven Covey’s advice really does work, but using it forces us to look to the long term, not the expediency of solving a problem in the short run.
LAST WEEK: Have you registered for health insurance through “ObamaCare”?
As a local businessperson operating Buds and Blooms on the Enumclaw Plateau for the past 10 years and living here for the past 35 years, I am asking you to join me in voting “yes” on the proposed fire levy lid lift this fall. As a business owner, resident and volunteer firefighter in Fire District 28, I have a vested interest on several levels in seeing this levy lid lift pass. The Enumclaw Fire Department/ KCFD 28 is asking for an increase in funding so that they can continue to keep our homes and businesses safe without reducing firefighters and relying more on volunteers like me and surrounding fire departments. Both of which would increase the response times to emergency calls. I think what they’re asking for is modest and is worth the security of knowing our homes, businesses and family members are protected by an adequate number of firefighters to enter a burning building or respond to concurrent medical emergencies. If this levy fails our fire insurance rates will most likely go up as a result. Personally I would rather pay our local fire district so they can respond in a timely manner because an insurance payout won’t save my loved ones but a well-trained firefighter getting there fast certainly could. I don’t want to lose sleep at night knowing that my business or home may be at increased risk because there are not enough firefighters on duty to respond to an emergency in a timely manner. Please join me in voting “yes” for the levy lid lift in King County Fire District 28 so we can all
Due to an abundance of letters, some will appear online only. Visit www.courierherald.com. sleep easy at night. Lucas Christenson Enumclaw
Taxpayers cannot take another tax increase Union firefighters and Fire District 28 management have been accusing Citizens for Smart Taxes of lying to the public about district mismanagement. Citizens information is backed up with documents from the fire department, city of Enumclaw, Washington State Auditor’s Office, The Seattle Times and Enumclaw Patch. Fire District 28 has been spending thousands of taxpayers’ dollars on two-page ads. Much of the content is self-promotion. From a taxpayer’s point of view, should a government agency use taxpayer money to tell you how wonderful they are and brag about all the charity stuff they did? Is this charity or self-promotion with an end game? The chief stated in his letter, the commissioners are “volunteer elected officials” and “receive a very small stipend for attending meetings.” Fire commissioners receive $114 per meeting. Most commissioner meetings last under 30 minutes. Minutes times are found on the fire district website. Is $114 for a 10-minute meeting “very small”? From 2010 to 2012 the fire chief received $49,000 in raises bringing his total compensation to $189,000 per year. Source: Fire District 28 office. Fire District 28 spent $309,794 on a mobile home. Five real estate agents stated that $85,000 paid for the
mobile home was many times what they sell for. It was sold to the district by commissioner Dave Hannity. Source: Enumclaw Patch, The Seattle Times’ front page Sunday edition, Oct. 28, 2012, and Washington State Auditor’s Office. Then there’s the half a million dollars paid for property to build an new station with too many problems to list here. There is much more to this story than a simple letter can address. Ask yourself: Are politicians and government agencies in America out of control? King County Fire District 28 doesn’t understand that us citizens working for private companies are struggling with less pay (or no pay) and don’t want another tax raise again. Private citizens and the companies they work for are the source of almost 100 percent of all government revenue. Oct. 16, 2013, Courier-Herald you’ll find the Fire Department’s ad to convince voters for raising their taxes. Add wages and overtime and personnel benefits numbers, $2,671,761. Confirmed by the Fire Department, there are 19 employees. Do the math. Average total compensation per fire district employee is $140,617.11. And now they want more money. Really? Ted DeVol Enumclaw
Why would union lend support in council race? In reference to Rich Elfers’ column dated Aug. 5, 2013, “Union Seeking More Influence,” I was curious to
See STORY, Page X
The science behind the screen Back in the day trons arranged when I was full of themselves in spark and vinegar, horizontal lines television sets, and “miracuboth portable and lously” formed a console, were huge, picture. clumsy things. To Today, of Wally DuChateau move a large concourse, instead of Columnist sole with a 26-inch being two or three screen required feet deep, TV sets nothing less than a are only a couple team of horses or half the neighbors of inches thick and can easily be in your block. carried about and hung on a wall. If I had a high-school physics class you haven’t done so lately, step into that explained the theory and practi- a retailer and look over the wide cal functions of such antiques. Each selection of truly awesome screens. TV set contained a cathode-ray tube. It might blow you away. Remember? This cone-shaped conObviously, the cathode tube is tertraption shot a bean of electrons ribly obsolete so, before I became from the rear, narrow end of the similarly passé and ready for the structure to the face of the tube – trash pile, I decided to check out that is, the screen – where the elec- the technology and theory behind
Wally’s World
a modern TV. At their best, cathode tubes had roughly 30 pixels (specks) per diagonal screen inch. Current plasma and LCD sets have 100 or more pixels per diagonal inch, making a picture so sharp and clear you can see the sweat on the faces of spectators 20 rows behind home plate. (Math has never been my strong suit but, near as I can calculate, these figures are pretty accurate.) Plasma screens are filled with various inert gases that become very luminesce and brilliant when stimulated by subatomic stuff. LCD screens are something else, again. The acronym stands for “liquid crystal display.” What is that, you might reasonably ask. A “liquid crystal” sounds like an oxymoron and, to
See WALLY, Page 17