Editorials

The elders among us will remember that the late Sen. Everett Dirksen was said to have quipped, “a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.” His point was that unchecked government spending adds up quickly. On the local level, where elected and appointed officials handle much smaller sums, the principle still […]

Overnight solutions Winthrop recently took the right step to address, from one angle at least, the town’s drift toward a community full of nightly rentals and desperately short of housing for residents and workers. The Town Council adopted a Winthrop Planning Commission recommendation to impose a six-month moratorium on applications to convert existing housing into […]

The federal courts, those troublesome upholders of the rule of law, constitutional guarantees and due process, continue to thwart the worst aspects of the Trump administration’s ideological assault on existing federal policies — that is, policies promulgated by any previous administration, Republican or Democrat, but most notably Barack Obama’s. In fact, it cannot be argued […]

We’ve become sadly used to the Trump administration subverting democracy, freedom of the press and governmental transparency on daily basis, with the arrogance, impunity and disdain for the citizenry that characterize a dictatorship. We didn’t expect the same kind of behavior from the Washington state Legislature. But with the secretive, old-fashioned, smoke-filled-room brutality of public-be-damned […]

Guest Editorial By Sandy Stokes The Washington Newspaper Publishers Association is deeply disturbed by the Legislature’s action to limit the public’s right to know. As of Friday (Feb. 23), the state’s lawmakers and their staffs are no longer subject to the state’s Public Records Act. Most problematic is the way our elected officials went about […]

Here’s something you don’t read very often: The state Legislature acted quickly and appropriately on important legislation just days into the current legislative session. That’s not a misprint. Yes, the Legislature more commonly leaves the disposition of crucial matters to the very last second or, in the case of extended sessions, well beyond. But the […]

Hatched too quickly The haste with which the Douglas County Public Utility District (PUD) is severing ties with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is puzzling and troubling. It’s not clear why the PUD is in such a hurry to take over operation of its fish hatcheries at Wells Dam and Winthrop from […]

The so-called Hirst decision has caused enough consternation, confusion and disruption all by itself. Now, Republicans in the state Senate have made things even worse by crassly seizing on the state Supreme Court’s ruling in the Hirst case as a political bargaining chip. It’s bad politics, bad policy and an act of bad faith that […]

By Don Nelson Publisher, Methow Valley News Defining our mission, and how we will carry it out Before I purchased the Methow Valley News in 2011, I thought a lot about what that would mean. I came up with a mission statement and vision statement that I intended to guide the newspaper’s operations and establish […]

More comprehensive The Okanogan County commissioners took an important step toward calming the political waters with their recent decision to review the updated comprehensive plan that the previous board of commissioners approved in 2014. That previous board — made up of Ray Campbell, Sheilah Kennedy and Jim DeTro — adopted a plan update that had […]