A-8 • July 22, 2015
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Tribe urges vote for Proposition 1
On behalf of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, I urge voters to Vote Yes on Proposition 1 – the measure that will ensure SARC remains a viable and integral part of our community. Investing in our community is not a new concept to our Tribe, as evidenced by the Jamestown Family Health Clinic, 7 Cedars Casino and Longhouse Market and The Cedars at Dungeness Golf Course. We always have supported efforts to help make our community strong, healthy and self-reliant. By voting Yes on Prop. 1, it will keep SARC open for the public regardless of income status, and will continue to provide exercise, swimming and recreational facilities for the community that are not available in the Dungeness Valley. There are many priorities in life, but none is more important than a public facility providing a healthy environment particularly with the swimming pool option. I and our Tribe truly believe that we need to support this public service. I urge you and hope your family and friends will join me by voting for the SARC Metropolitan Park District and continue the tradition and proud legacy that the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe has invested in our community. W. Ron Allen Blyn Allen is Chair/CEO Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.
Not against SARC, but MPD As citizens of Sequim, we are not against SARC, but as taxpayers, we are against the MPD. For several years, SARC has not been managed effectively, resulting in a deficit of $260,000 in 2014, and an even higher projected deficit in 2015. While revenue has dropped by 15 percent in the past seven years, expenses have risen by 47 percent. With this history of poor resource utilization, the current SARC management is coming “hat in hand” to ask for a taxpayer bailout without any information as to how they will properly use the resources they have, or how they will use the additional tax funds. In the business world, we call this a business plan. With SARC approaching a $300,000 deficit in 2015 and deferred maintenance expenses of over $1 million, we do not see the SARC board members keeping the tax rate at 12 cents/$1,000 (assessed valuation). During a recent public meeting, most of the SARC board candidates pledged to keep the lowest tax rate. But with the level of current and future debt issues, this will be a “pipe dream.” SARC is now just another government entity coming to already heavily burdened taxpayers for money without an effective plan as to how they are going to use the funds they have, or how they will use the additional funds gained through the MPD. SARC needs to become frugal. Use volunteers to lower the excessive payroll burden, review the member rate structure to ensure that people who use facilities pay for them (pool), partner with local businesses, and OMC and the tribes, and finally develop a solid business plan to take SARC forward without using public funds. Bob and Carole Travis Sequim
SARC a happy place
Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center is full of happy and fun people of all ages. Sure the exercise is good for you and there are plenty of exercise choices there but it’s the friendships you form that will keep you coming back. Give SARC a try and you might find it becoming a regular part of your life, too. Please vote yes on Prop. 1 and save SARC for all of Sequim and the surrounding areas. Janet Hull Sequim
Editor’s note:
We have received dozens of letters to the editor in recent days, most (understandably) regarding the Aug. 4 primary. We’ll print as many as space allows. Those writing about other subjects may see their letters held in preference for election-related submissions. — MD
To submit a letter 147 W. Washington St., Sequim, WA 98382 Phone: 360-683-3311 • Fax: 360-683-6670 E-mail: editor@sequimgazette.com Deadline noon the Friday before publication
SEQUIM GAZETTE
SEQ
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
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Opinion SEQUIM GAZETTE
Compare and contrast
Sunday’s (July 12) League of Women Voters county commissioner candidate forum provided a good contrast for voters to consider. Answers from Democrats Mark Ozias and Brian Frazier are what one would expect from liberal challengers trying to unseat Republican incumbent Jim McEntire, who has proven leadership and a successful track record. Ozias and Frazier are antigrowth as they both would impose a moratorium on building in the Sequim area. Commissioner McEntire is pro-growth and opposes a moratorium because it’s drastic and unwarranted. Ozias and Frazier are anti-growth again as they would delay the dispersal of Opportunity Funds to create family wage jobs. Commissioner McEntire and his peers on the Board of County Commissioners transparently and legally authorized funds to be used to grow the economy. Earning no-growth bonus points, Frazier rejects the long ago debated and won Carlsborg designation as an Urban Growth Area. McEntire supports the UGA designation and is working to make it easier for businesses in Carlsborg to expand. Regarding the county’s failed 25-year experiment to control county roadside weeds without herbicides, Ozias doesn’t like herbicides and Frazier says no to all herbicides. McEntire supports herbicide use because it’s safe, gets results and is cost effective. Oh, and Ozias said he’d never take money from contributors who are outside the county, yet he’s accepted $650 from people in Mountlake Terrace, Bellevue and California. He’s also a climate alarmist.
See LETTERS, A-9
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SARC closure would hurt community
To all the naysayers out there who are not supportive of Proposition 1, the SARC MPD measure, you are missing the boat entirely. More than likely, you moved to the Sequim-Dungeness Valley within the past 10 years and you moved to this location because of the great amenities the community has to offer, including a wonderful climate, good health care options, an affordable cost of living and all the services that one would expect to have in a growing and thriving community. You even have a multi-million dollar new city hall in Sequim! Your unwillingness to support one of Sequim’s greatest assets (for pennies a day) seems smallminded and self-serving. What do you suppose would happen to all the thousands of residents if SARC were to close? Many, including my motherin-law, would have to move away because the water aerobics classes would not exist. What do you imagine the economic impact would be to our community? Senior citizens, like my mother-in-law, would not be there to spend their money in the community — that goes for restaurants, grocery stores, espresso stands and the drug stores, to name just a few. The youth and small children would have no place to learn to swim or practice with the swim team, or even to play basketball. Please give it a more than a moment’s thought before you mark your ballot and think about the greater good the SARC pool and recreation facility provides to our community. Please vote Yes for Prop. 1. Bill Biery Quilcene
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SEQUIM GAZETTE Published every Wednesday 147 W. Washington St. Sequim, WA 98382 Phone: 360-683-3311 Fax: 360-683-6670 www.sequimgazette.com Sound Publishing Inc. Vol. 42, Number 29 USPS 685-630 • ISSN: 1538-585X
Noxious weeds … Me? You? Them? and I had about our future and our blunder of faith. But it was a difficult time and I have never forgotten the lesson of mistaken identity as a noxious weed.
Mistaken noxious weed identity
Think About It ... Bertha Cooper The first time I heard the term “noxious weed” was the summer we moved to Sequim from Seattle. I had accepted a position at the local hospital. My love of words and their meaning drew me into learning more about “noxious weeds” — after all, I thought all weeds were noxious. As it turned out, the newly built home we bought was surrounded by a landscape of noxious weeds, thistle being the most prevalent noxious bloom on the pile of rocks and sand that made up our yard. We made our first trip to the Clallam County Fair that summer and the noxious weed booth was one of our stops where I learned that plants, grasses, trees or weeds can be termed “noxious weeds.” The key distinguishing feature of a noxious weed is that it is non-native and invasive to the extent that it threatens agricultural crops, local ecosystems or fish and wildlife habitat. The problem, big enough for Washington State to have its own noxious weed control board, is still prevalent 17 years later. Just last weekend at a candidate forum for county commissioner position/District #1, I heard noxious weed control questions posed from very concerned citizens.
A personal noxious weed story I was reminded of my meanderings about the term “noxious weeds” when I first arrived on the peninsula. I was coming into a position that promised me the chance to fulfill a career mission of helping to design a system of coordination across the settings that serve the typical Medicare patient – hospital for acute care, skilled nursing facility for continued medical management and rehabilitation and home care with home health to complete the care cycle. I had been waiting for an opportunity like this and accepted the position at first part time so I could unwind my consulting business. Everything went well; our Seattle home sold quickly and we found a home in Sequim that we liked. Seemed like fate … until … Less than a month after we arrived, the hospital board was voting to defund my position and the almost daily newspaper was running stories about my employment on the front page above the fold. Even though the vote failed and my position remained funded, the message was pretty clear, especially when the administrator who hired me was soon gone taking the vision of coordinated services with him. It was at this moment I begin to identify with the plight of noxious weeds and other entities or beings not readily accepted into a community. It was strangely comforting to have a context for the rejection I was experiencing. Now, years later, I’m a long way and time from the unease that my husband
In frankness, I must tell you it was not the first nor the last time I have been in the push-pull forces of change, just the most personally dramatic and public. A lot of my work has to do with change — the system, the program or the order of things, although always with a team of people, never by myself. Change is difficult and often fearful. We are going through huge transitions in our culture, not the least of which is the change of work and skills needed to respond to technological advancement. Our democratic system seems unable to respond in a less political and more proactive way. Much too often, either side of an argument points to an individual, group or ideology as the “noxious weed” that is invading our communities intent on the destruction of everything we have come to know as the way life should be. “Class A noxious weeds are usually newcomers. They are often found in few places … and local boards hope to completely eradicate them before they get a foothold …” (WA Noxious Weed Control Board.) Among other things, doesn’t it make you think of certain responses to immigrants, legal or otherwise? Is there a group who came to this country without experiencing some kind of discrimination (I can think of one)? I am the daughter of an immigrant and remember how hard my father tried to reduce his Norwegian accent, to no avail but he tried. Currently a Presidential candidate is giving voice to people’s fears about being invaded by a foreign group. He warns of men being killed and women being raped. I have no doubt that rapists and murderers are the worst kind of human noxious weed, including those already growing in our country, but I mistrust the motives behind preaching fear. Come to think about it, I could as easily say that the ones that broadcast fear and hate seeds about anyone or thing different are the purveyors of invasive human thought intended to destroy or control others. Fortunately, some purveyors are just annoying like a common weed but some are insidiously invasive and never quite leave our senses like the thistle still trying to make it in our yard. Until we get this figured out, I will join the fight to control true noxious weeds, although I must admit that I often don’t know the difference and rue the days I pulled up a native plant thinking it was an unwelcome weed. On a larger more human scale, we would do well to avoid cases of mistaken noxious identity of new friends by remembering the Washington State Weed Control Board statement. “Only a very small fraction of nonnative plants become invasive.” Offhand, I can think of one that did. Bertha D. Cooper is retired from a 40-plus year career as a health care administrator focusing on the delivery system as a whole. She still does occasional consulting. She is a featured columnist at the Sequim Gazette. Reach her at columnists@sequimgazette.com.
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