Thanks from Jamie’s Place
Dear Editor:
Jamie’s Place Adult Family Home board members and staff would like to send a huge thank you to everyone who attended and helped with our second annual Open House and Ice Cream Social. We had over 100 community members come to our homes, take tours, meet our staff and board, visit with the residents, and see what an amazing service Jamie’s Place offers to our community. Special thanks to Joe O’Driscoll/FSA for donating the ice cream, to the musicians who provided lovely music, to the Kiwanis Club for yard work, to Byron for coming early and staying late to prep and clean, and Outreach Committee members for all the planning. It takes a village!
Jamie’s Place board and staff, Winthrop
Case for emotional support animals
Dear Editor:
The statement in the Methow Valley News (July 17) that emotional support animals do not enjoy protection is wrong. This statement is being used by some residents and some on the Town Council to attempt to ban Peter, the beloved rooster of Twisp resident Sergey Kushnarev.
First off, Twisp is a small rural town in which chickens and eggs are plentiful so one would expect roosters. It makes little biological sense to ban them.
More to the point, Washington state law states:
Emotional support animals are simply that — providing support for those in need. If (a person) suffers from anxiety, depression, panic attacks, or other psychological and emotional conditions, the law protects (their) rights to have an official emotional support animal … unlike service animals, emotional support animals are not required to be specifically trained … for specific tasks.
Although emotional support animals do not have the same rights as service dogs under ADA, they are protected under the Fair Housing Amendments Act (FHAA). If you meet the criteria of these provisions, you are entitled to an emotional support animal in the air and in your housing unit. The FHAA allows emotional support animals access in housing facilities, even when the complex has a no-pet policy or breed/weight discriminatory policies. Landlords are required to provide reasonable accommodations so you are granted equal opportunity to use and enjoy your housing. Moreover, the ACAA allows emotional support animals to fly with you in cabin without extra fees and charges. If your animal is larger in size, they will provide you with reasonable accommodation so you can sit on the plane with your emotional support animal.
We may presume that towns should accept an emotional support animal just as rentals and airplanes do when a physician or therapist prescribes or recommends one.
The comment made by Chief Budrow that “if we let a rooster in now we will have to let a lion or a bobcat in” was poorly informed.
Please stop harassing Mr. Kushnarev. Kudos to his neighbors who have signed a petition in his favor.
Julianne Seeman, Lost River
Don’t revisit ‘good old days’
Dear Editor:
Sometime in the 1980s Twisp lost its water rights due to negligence on the part of the mayor, town councilors and staff to fill in the proper paperwork. That misstep cost the town dearly in its ability to provide the infrastructure for public works, and therefore in its ability to grow, thereby expanding its tax base.
The people in charge in those times were well-intentioned but they followed the ideology of “the less government the better,” were generally leery of regulation, and were loath to be too conscientious following even local regulation. They were people of good standing in the community, friendly people, comfortable in their ways. They were voted into their positions by way of a “good old boy” network. And I do mean old boy: the elected were almost exclusively male, all white, and mostly over 50.
Every mayor and council since has had to deal with their lack of due diligence as best they could, and where growth within the town limits has been absent for nearly 40 years, only under the aegis of the administrations under the leadership of Soo Ing-Moody, has the town been able to secure water rights (in cooperation with the irrigation district), and consequently only very recently has Twisp been able to grow again. Standard accounting principles that were ignored have been retroactively applied and now Twisp passes muster with the state of Washington. This is not due to good luck, or good timing, but to a lot of diligent research, grant-writing and lobbying of the state. These last administrations have an impeccable record with the state and the current mayor has been honored by the state for her mayoral work.
The town governance has not only been excellent, it also has been able to maintain a wonderful working relationship with the Twisp Chamber of Commerce and impressive cooperation with some valley-wide nonprofit organizations. Good for business and good for the residents.
As citizens of this marvelous place we cannot overstate our approval for how this town administration has benefitted all of us.
So why would we ever want to go back to the “good” old days? (Good for whom? I might ask.)
Carolanne Steinebach, Twisp
