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Letters to the Editor
(Editor’s Note: Views and commentary, including statements made as fact, are strictly those of the letter-writers.)
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Typed, double-spaced letters written solely to this newspaper and/or Website are considered for publication. Hand-written letters that are double-spaced and legible also can be considered.
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* * *Lorna Byrne items appreciated by family
From Barbara Vitto
Grants Pass“Illinois Valley News” provided great coverage of the 100th birthday celebration for Lorna Byrne. It was much appreciated by Lorna and her many family members and friends.
Evergreen Elementary fund-raisers important
From Eleanor L. Jones
Cave JunctionWe have been reading in newspapers and hearing on television about lack of money for our schools.
They are talking about millions of dollars to repair schools. Do you imagine that Cave Junction schools will be a top priority?
Cave Junction residents have been wonderful supporting the students’ sports activities through raffles and other fund-raising events.
I was wondering if most people know that the PTA is raising money to replace the playground equipment at Evergreen Elementary; 25 percent from each fund-raiser goes to that fund. Plus 100 percent or 20 percent designated on the fund-raiser: Playground equipment is not cheap.
So it will take more than one year. At this time the children are having a Penny Drive, and we hope that every parent and grandparents will get involved. The winning class will have a party, so if you bring money in, designate a class. Do not roll the change -- yes, we will take change or dollar bills.
The fifth-graders just had a quilt raffle, and they plan on using that money to buy paint for the gym walls.
Evergreen Elementary, as well as some other schools, is still collecting Campbell Soup labels, empty computer cartridges and General Mills Education Box Coupons. These items cost the giver nothing except time. I know time is important, but so are our children.
Get involved. I hear that a lot of people respond that our government should provide more. Let Cave Junction residents get involved in their schools.
Agency reps response called unprofessional
From Greg Walter
Cave JunctionI attended a wildfire research symposium by the forest service and others in Gold Beach on Feb. 8 on the last day of a three-day workshop.
Everything seemed to be fine as researchers presented their research or continuing research findings, until the last presentation. This is where things took a turn.
The last presenter was a panel of three headed by Dan Donato regarding his paper published in the journal “Science” as a one-page article in January that has placed question on the merits of salvage logging after wildfire. These three had done their research well, as their presentation was impeccable.
Upon opening for questions, I got to see how some of the forest service and others took what I thought were some cheap shots and stabs at trying to discredit and obfuscate the findings of their work.
Our own Illinois Valley District ranger was one of the ones I feel was at first attempting to confuse certain points of the paper and then attempting to politicize the issue by questioning the timing of the release of the research.
Others were peppering the panel, but they held their ground well.
What was disappointing was that none of these so-called professional foresters inquired about how logging could have been done differently to reduce the loss of seedlings or to reduce the logging so as to mitigate the fuels buildup and reduce fire danger.
Also, that to think they had not taken the time to read the above-mentioned one-page article and then to criticize the work was in my opinion, very slippery.
In summary, it was quite surprising to see otherwise trained professionals behave so poorly towards meticulously documented research that had had to stand up to a lot of scrutiny.
To me, the behavior of some of the public land managers and professionals during a science symposium represented that day the very antithesis of “Caring for the Land and Serving the People.”
Walden plan seen good in Safety Net situation
From Jim Feldkamp
Adjunct professor at Umpqua Community College, and Republican candidate, 4th congressional districtLike most Oregonians, I was concerned with President Bush’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2007.
In it was the reduction of the “Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination” (the Safety Net). My concern is the realization that the Clinton Northwest Forest plan had finally run its course.
The Clinton plan was designed to assuage the concerns of business and environmental groups about harvesting our counties’ most renewable resource -- timber. In this plan the counties that would have realized additional money, from taxes acquired by logging timber, would be subsidized by the federal government to equal the money that would have been recovered from taxes acquired by harvesting timber.
Unfortunately, the plan was flawed. The Safety Net only provides what are expected to be receipts from timber harvested -- not additional taxes created by new jobs and “spin-off” companies that would normally be associated with a vibrant economy.
Daniel Boone stated, “A government big enough to give us everything we want is big enough to take away everything we need.” It is once again proving true.
The federal payments in lieu of jobs/work are being reduced due to the financial crises and the desire to reduce our deficit. Now counties throughout our state suffer from budgetary shortfalls due to the restriction placed on our timber and resource-based industries. This comes at a particularly bad time -- counties in the 4th Congressional District have some of the highest unemployment in the nation.
Those of us in Josephine County know that these payments are vital to our local economy, and we know that all public officials are working hard to ensure that this Safety Net gets renewed by the federal government.
And it must occur. Because without these receipts our public safety, roads and educational systems will take a direct hit.
But that brings us back to why we needed this in the first place? The Clinton plan was designed to address the concerns of all. Yet in the proceeding 12 years we have seen radical environmentalists use laws to prevent the harvests of timber “guaranteed” in the Clinton plan.
The extreme agenda driven by these groups has ground down our economy and prevented any sustainable growth.
Luckily, one Congressman in Oregon, Greg Walden, has worked hard to develop and pass laws that allow Oregonians back into our forests to harvest timber. By being the original sponsor of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA), which provided the avenue to get people back into the forest to create jobs and stimulate our local economy, we have provided a modicum of security in this fiscal crises.
Now he is working hard to ensure that Oregonians can take control of the forests after catastrophic events and harvest dead and dying timber which would provide a new revenue stream and create new jobs and wealth in our state. It’s a bill that the Communities for a Healthy Forest (of which I am a member) understand would help reduce not only potential fuel for additional fires, but also provide a new revenue stream that could balance our state budget.
Yet through all these changes, through all these laws, our local Congressman Peter DeFazio has been silent. He was reluctant to get on board with Walden’s HFRA, and he is still not a co-sponsor or even a participant in the post-fire recovery bill with laws that can provide a modicum of support to our communities.
It has always been a fool’s errand to rely on the government to provide indefinite welfare at the expense of good jobs. In today’s political environment with polarizing agendas it is a shame that a political agenda conceived and implemented far from the state of Oregon has put our state into such a bind.
It is important that we fight to ensure that the Safety Net gets reinstated, but then what? I believe we should be looking into the future and planning to ensure that opportunities lay within the grasp for local businesses and Oregonians to have sustainable jobs and a vibrant economy.
Because without such assurances even our Safety Net will be inadequate to provide the funding for what are essential services.
It is time to look forward and see opportunities vs. problems, action vs. rhetoric and work to ensure that our counties, districts and state are not placed on welfare because of policies contrived in Washington that hobbles our state’s ability to generate family wage jobs here at the local level.
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