It seems like a logical question that should have a simple answer: when water pipes serving homes and businesses in Winthrop freeze up in super-frigid temperatures, why can’t the town help those people and restore their service? Then the second you start talking about, it’s no longer the least bit simple, and to the people […]
Editorials
Do we have to be reminded?
Apparently, some people do need to be reminded. So here goes: “Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a […]
ROC solid
As this grueling, grating, seemingly endless election season staggers to a welcome finish, it’s appropriate to give one local organization due credit for helping make our county commissioner races more competitive and meaningful. Represent Okanogan County (ROC) has weathered some attacks from certain quarters — the quarters that think the current commissioners are doing a fine job, […]
Editorials: August 10, 2016
Notes on the election The Aug. 2 primary election produced some intriguing results with implications for Methow Valley residents. Change is coming to the Okanogan County Board of Commissioners, and it may dramatically affect how the three-person board operates. In District 2, which includes the Methow Valley, incumbent Commissioner Ray Campbell managed to draw only […]
Editorials: July 13, 2016
Meeting the need Most of us who own businesses would find it difficult to survive under the expectations placed on a typical hospital — in particular, small rural hospitals. You’d have to be open 24/7 to handle the problems of whatever “customers” come in, you couldn’t turn them away if they ask for service, and you’d have […]
Editorials: June 15, 2016
A matter of choice Incumbents should never go unchallenged, at any electoral level from cemetery district on up. Nice principle to evoke, but it usually doesn’t work out that way in a lot of local elections, or sometimes at higher levels when conventional wisdom is that the current office holder just can’t be unseated. Conventional […]
Editorials: June 1, 2016
Headwaters help It’s difficult to overstate the significance of the state’s two U.S. Senators joining the effort to prevent not just copper exploration but also any future mining in the 340,000-acre Methow Headwaters area. (See story here) Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell are co-sponsoring the Methow Headwaters Protection Act of 2016, which would authorize […]
Editorials: April 13, 2016
Clearing the air It’s an odd coincidence that two big stories this week, both of them good news for the Methow Valley, involve aircraft — those that will be coming here, and those that won’t (see stories on page A1). First, the U.S. Army announced that it was withdrawing a proposal to conduct helicopter pilot training exercises […]
Editorials: March 23, 2016
Take a deep breath The rapid development of a marijuana industry in Washington state has created both opportunities and problems. Marketplace forces and entrepreneurial energy pretty much guaranteed that the businesses of growing, processing, distributing and selling marijuana would evolve quickly along traditional capitalistic lines: round up financing, make something the public wants, sell it […]
Editorials: March 9, 2016
Doesn’t add up If there are more than three people in Okanogan County who think that outsourcing the county’s juvenile detention responsibilities to the Spokane area is a good idea, we haven’t heard from them. If there have been even two times when those three people — the county commissioners — actually listened to their constituents’ concerns and backed […]
