Stay behind the line
Dear Editor:
I hope you noticed we had our parking lot re-striped at the Methow Valley Community Center in Twisp. Please notice the white painted line in front of the building. This will allow children and adults to walk in front of the cars, instead of behind them. Please help keep the “sidewalk” open by parking your car behind the line, so we can keep everybody safe from cars backing up.
Also, as the days get cooler, turn your car off when you are waiting for your kids to get done with classes. The exhaust drafts into the building, and it’s toxic.
Thanks so much.
Kirsten Ostlie
Methow Valley Community Center
Twisp
Great venue, great show
Dear Editor:
It was a spectacular night of fine music. Pierre Bensusan and Lenny Price gave us an amazing night of music at the Methow Valley Community Center. I so appreciated that both Terry Hunt and Rebecca Gallivan from Cascadia started the evening praising the improvements at the center that will enhance our experience of the music and the musicians.
They did not disappoint. The lighting gave us great viewing of the artists and the artistry that is evident in their playing of the guitar and saxophone. The sound system brought the music to a quality level. After the performance Lenny told me he was so impressed with the acoustic quality. “Better,” he said, “than many other venues I have played in.” All here in our valley. We are so lucky to have the venue, the planners, the musicians and a receptive audience.
Carolyn Sullivan
Winthrop
Change needed at PUD
Dear Editor:
The Enloe Dam, on the Similkameen River above Oroville, last generated electricity over 60 years ago. Since then, Okanogan County PUD has spent tens of millions of dollars on this white elephant, almost certainly well over a thousand dollars per customer. Numerous studies over more than a decade have indicated that removal of the dam would benefit the environment, with manageable repercussions, while relieving the PUD of the considerable expense of ongoing maintenance. Now the PUD has signed up to do yet another study. Is this a ploy to remain in office, by acting as if they are doing something useful? Why not make the decision and get the job done?
We need a change at the PUD. The current incumbents have sat on their hands so long that expecting them to do anything else is, at best, betting against the odds. The Enloe Dam issue is only one issue out of a wide array that are going to confront the PUD in coming years, and it’s pretty clear that the incumbents aren’t up to the job of dealing with inevitable, and critically important, changes in the electrical power sector.
Joseph Enzensperger wants a responsive and responsible PUD, dedicated to serving its customers as the 21st century brings non-traditional challenges that may require non-traditional responses. When a tool or process is no longer effective, I replace it, and our governmental and quasi-government agencies are simply tools. Vote for Joseph.
Pat Leigh
Winthrop
Got it backwards
Dear Editor:
Rep. Dan Newhouse’s latest letter to constituents takes his weekly outpourings of misleading statements to a new level of hypocrisy. He attacks President Biden’s student-loan debt forgiveness plan because it supposedly “takes from the poor to give to the rich while making things worse for American taxpayers across the country” It looks like he’s trying to confuse the loan program with the 2017 giant Republican tax cuts on the rich.
Factually, Newhouse has it backwards. This program actually gives to the poor and middle class, those who’ve been trying to give their kids a college education. Contrary to Newhouse’s claim, the rich get nothing from the student loan program.
The student loan debt forgiveness is capped in most cases at $10,000. Contrast this with the Trump tax cuts for the rich and for the largest corporations. Those 2017 tax cuts saved millionaires and billionaires (the top 1%) tens or hundreds of thousands (even millions!) of dollars every year. Many of the richest corporations saved tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in the first year alone. As a result, the U.S. deficit soared by $1.5 trillion. Talk about really “making things worse for American taxpayers across the country.”
Newhouse knows that his party has always heavily favored the rich. He voted for that giant tax cut himself. And yet he’s whining because, for once, it is the low- and middle-income folks getting even a small benefit that the rich don’t get.
It’s obvious whose side Newhouse is on. Hint: It isn’t most of the folks who live in Okanogan County, one of the poorest counties in the state.
Randy Brook
Twisp
