Community asset
Dear Editor:
I am thrilled that the Friends of the Winthrop Library has been conducting such a thorough community needs assessment to determine the best possible way to serve our diverse community.
As a teacher at Liberty Bell High School, I know that the larger library will provide much needed space and computer access for my students to complete their assignments and to meet with their community tutors. As a mother of two young children, I know that it will continue to provide a quality indoor learning environment for families. The expanded library will be a resource for everyone in our community.
For example, free public internet is a critical resource for those who do not have internet access in their homes. Students in my English classes are all required to write many (some of them may say too many) essays and narratives. Although many students have access to an internet-connected computer or tablet at home, many do not.
Libraries are indispensable community assets particularly in the digital age. Our local librarians and volunteers do an incredible job serving our valley in the current building and I can’t wait to see what they will be able to do with a new, bigger and better library!
Dani Golden, Winthrop
A pollution solution
Dear Editor:
Nowadays, we live in a time where the environment is in danger and necessities are extremely expensive. One necessity that associates with both of those is vehicles. We need them to travel from place to place, but they are very expensive, use lots of gas and pollute the environment.
Old diesel vehicles are the worst of all and new engines are their solution. In new vehicles, the engines have new technologies including direct injection which increases the efficiency by 1 percent and turbochargers which increase the efficiency by 8 percent. As well as being less efficient, old diesel engines produce nitrogen dioxide which is harmful to humans, the environment and the ozone layer. Specifically, this gas can form acid rain, harm growth of plant life and affect other aspects of the environment. In addition to those, it also harms our respiratory system and can cause an increased response to allergens.
A small solution to this problem is an old diesel vehicle rebate program. This program would help anyone with an older diesel vehicle gain an opportunity to retire their old vehicle and in return would receive a credit when buying a new vehicle. This program would benefit the participant by helping them buy a new car. With a new car, the participant would also save money on gas due to the reduction in needed fuel by new engines. Not only do new cars burn less fuel, but they burn fuel cleaner. By driving a new car, the participants would be doing more of their part in protecting the environment which is needed nowadays more than ever. California has a program very similar to this one that is called Cash for Clunkers which has been implemented multiple times due to success.
If you would like to support this program and all that it would be working towards, please sign my petition at www.ipetitions.com/petition/create-an-old-diesel-vehicle-rebate-program or a paper petition at Cascade Pipe and Feed Supply in Twisp. It would also be helpful to call our representatives to push this rebate program into place.
Ali Palm, Liberty Bell High School sophomore
Support the commissioners
Dear Editor:
Our county commissioners and planning staff have spent substantial time and effort on an intelligent concept that would allow the county to move forward with the current Comprehensive Plan and zoning while acknowledging that certain areas of the county may not have adequate water to support normally permissible future development.
According to the proposal, if current information indicates that there may not be adequate groundwater for future development in a particular area of the county, it could be declared a “Water Availability Study Area,” which would then appear as an overlay on the new county zoning map. Temporary restrictions would then apply to certain land uses in that area until necessary studies are completed.
Due to the importance of this issue to the county’s future, the commissioners held a public hearing on May 8. Incredibly, only two individuals and no representatives of organizations attended to comment on the draft ordinance!
While one citizen testified in favor of the concept, the other (proponent of a contested development in the Methow) testified in opposition, stating that litigation would result.
Our county commissioners were elected to deal with difficult issues like this and are doing a good job with the nearly impossible task of looking into an uncertain future. They ask important and appropriate questions while debating solutions publicly each week during commissioners’ meetings. New technology allows them to visualize overlapping land use regulations. The welfare of our county and its inhabitants depends upon their decisions.
The commissioners deserve more support than they have received on this proposal. It’s a good concept, although final wording is unclear and needs work.
The public hearing is now extended to 2 p.m. on Tuesday, May 29. The fairly brief ordinance proposed is located at www.okanogancounty.org/planning (click on the box for “17A400, Water Availability Study Areas,” then find a link on the left sidebar).
I urge you or your group to attend the hearing or submit written comments and suggestions to ljohns@co.okanogan.wa.us by early Monday, May 28.
Isabelle Spohn, Twisp
Still no shame
Dear Editor:
Any time you think Trump can’t sink any lower, he does. He has again embraced two of the most viciously anti-Semitic, right-wing, Christian leaders in the United States. Incredibly, this action was made part of his moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Trump sent two religious leaders to bless the new embassy. Neither were Jewish. John Hagee is pastor at an extreme right-wing, evangelical church in Texas. He is known for proclaiming that Hurricane Katrina was god’s punishment for New Orleans tolerating homosexuals.
Hagee also infamously said that Hitler and the Holocaust were part of a divine plan to bring the Jews to Israel. This sickeningly positive view of the Holocaust comes from a fundamentalist tenet that the battle of Armageddon – humanity’s last great war – will occur after the Jews are in Jerusalem. It will bring the second coming of Jesus Christ and the mass conversion of Jews to Christianity. So what if 6 million Jews, plus millions of other minority people, died in the process?
The other Trump religious representative was Robert Jeffress, a Baptist pastor from Texas. He is known for comments like “the Jews are going to hell,” “Judaism – you can’t be saved by being a Jew,“ and “Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell.” He has called Catholicism a “cult-like, pagan religion” that “infected the early Church” and “corrupted” it by showing “the genius of Satan.”
These ministers have a right to preach their abhorrent and vicious views. But there is no way they should be sent anywhere as representatives of the U.S. government. They represent only a small minority of Christians, and very few other Americans.
By not speaking out (except for John McCain and Mitt Romney), it appears that the Republican leadership is tacitly embracing them. They should be ashamed. Sadly, virtually nothing Trump does in their name (and, unfortunately, in all our names) shames Republicans enough to speak out.
Randy Brook, Twisp
