Illinois Valley News

Illinois Valley News welcomes Letters to the Editor. Please e-mail them to dan@illinois-valley-news.com.

POLICY ON LETTERS: ‘Illinois Valley News’ encourages letters to the editor provided they are legible and not libelous or scurrilous. All letters must be signed, including name, address and telephone number. The latter need not be published, but will be used to verify authenticity. The ‘News’ reserves the right to edit letters. Letters are used at the discretion of the publisher.

(Editor’s Note: Views and commentary, including statements made as fact, are strictly those of the letter-writers.)

A breath of fresh air!
Gregory D. Anderson
Cave Junction

Many years ago as a youth I used to love to visit my aunt Jenn. She was a school teacher all her adult life and she always had stories to tell. Usually they were about her teaching experiences before the advent of the automobile, but occasionally her narration was from the lessons she taught her students.

She truly loved to teach. I had felt the children today are missing out! Until I read a letter from a local teacher at Evergreen Elementary School.

Cathy Bosse wrote a letter to another newspaper expressing her love for “the wonderful children and parents of the Illinois Valley”. She wrote of her disappointment that the “superintendent is demanding a 15 school-day cut each year for the next three years”.

“My greatest sorrow in all of this is that I cannot perform the job I was born to do. I truly believe our future depends on the children we teach. After all, they are our future” wrote Ms Bosse.

What a breath of fresh air! She is a perfect example of why there should be merit pay. I’m sure her students and their parents would agree.

Unfortunately the majority of teachers think children are a necessary evil to support their unions. Unions first and childrens education second is the unwritten motto of these malignant organizations.

Even our President allowed the unions to force the closure of the wildly popular Charter Schools in Washington D.C., depriving minority children a quality education.

Unless, of course, they are the President’s children or those of the political ruling class. Just imagine how much the drop out rate would decrease and the education of our children would increase, surpassing their peers in other countries, indeed those in this country the last four decades if we could clone Cathy Bosse“

This is only possible if we decide our children’s education is more important than the arrogant unions.

Firefighter seeks truth
Hubert Smith
Jacksonville, OR

Our family lived in the Illinois Valley between 1982 and 2001. During that period I became a volunteer firefighter under Chief Chet Yanase.

Fast forward. At the present time, in our town of Jacksonville, I am spearheading a Recall of the mayor and a councilperson.

Why“ It all has to do with fire protection. Over some 8 years, our City government has switched our small village from a volunteer force to a staff of 7 paid and unionized firefighters. City government has overturned two votes of the people, resorting to a surcharge on our water bills to fund paid positions the city didn’t have the cash to support.

The mayor has recently resigned in the face of the Recall and the vote on the councilperson will take place late in January. Understandably, some of our paid firefighters are irritated by what I am doing.

They started rumors that my fire service experience is not what I represent. I finally sent our chief a note detailing my IVRFD record. Now things get sticky. The Jacksonville Chief sent this to Harry Rich and Chief Rich apparently began an investigation for the “truth.”

Your chief then sent me an email claiming he had uncovered all my lies and even warned me that, if he came over here to testify before our taxpayers, things wouldn’t look too good for me. Of course, all his “discoveries” were errors prompted by his zeal to wave the flag for paid fire people and his neglecting to realize that the IVRFD files were possibly not complete. I quickly supplied documentation which refuted his claims.

After some pressure from me, our Chief in Jacksonville has been told to not repeat his actions. I have waited some weeks for an apology from Chief Rich but none has been forthcoming.

I trust that IV Fire is as good or even better than it was when Chet Yanase was chief. One thing is certain, Chief Yanase was a straightshooting professional.

Next Christmas Let’s Light-Up Cave Junction
Jo-Ann Wulf
Cave Junction,OR

This past week-end we visited Jacksonville,Or.

Jacksonville is a very small town with a very big holiday sprite. Store fronts was gracefully decorated for the Christmas holiday with white lights and Christmas trees aglow in the historic store front windows.We had dinner at the historic Bella Union Restaurant. The food was fresh and nicely prepared as well as very delicious. Bella Union Restaurant owners and their employees made our holiday visit very delightful. We did some Christmas shopping in the attractive holiday decorated shops along main street. The shop keepers were cheerful and very helpful even offering free gift wrapping to their customers.

Upon returning home last night my Christmas sprite was dampened as I saw our store fronts mostly dark and gloomy.I thought if our store keepers and restaurant owners had the holiday spirit such as Jacksonville,Or what a wonderful place Cave Junction would be to shop and eat during the Christmas holiday.

As a seven year resident of Cave Junction I would very much appreciate our shop and restaurant owners giving back to the community during the holiday season by gracefully decorating their store fronts and presenting a cheerful holiday spirit to their customers.

I would like to thank the people in the community that have decorated their homes and yards for the Christmas season. They may not know it but by doing this it brightens up other people’s holidays and thrills the little children’s hearts as their parents drive by these homes at night.

It is my hope next Christmas season Cave Junction will come alive and our store keepers and restaurant owners will decorate their shops for the holiday season. It’s my hope some of our restaurant owners will take much more pride in their food and service. It is good for business. I would love to keep our money in Cave Junction in support of our small business owners but until they do their part I will be eating out and shopping in welcoming towns like Jacksonville , Or .

Pedestrians and low light conditions!
(Name withheld)

I wonder how many other drivers in the Illinois Valley have had close calls with “dark moving objects” on the edge of the road. You’ve seen them walking on the edge of the roadside in dark clothing as you almost hit them. I have no problem with people walking and know several that have no choice but why in dark clothing“

I can’t understand how any parent would allow their child to walk in the dark or even low light conditions without a flashlight, reflective belt, or light colored clothing.

That parent would be the first to point their finger at a driver for hitting their child even though the explanation could be the child was wearing dark clothing and wasn’t seen“

Please everyone put something reflective on when you go out at night or when the conditions are low light. You may think drivers see you but you’re wrong, they only see you the last 15-25 feet before either hitting or missing you.

Let’s practice the missing part by being SEEN!

Plumbers saved the day
James and Linda Tedder
Cave Junction, OR

I got up the other morning and my kitchen was somewhat flooded. Opened the dishwasher,dishes clean but water still sitting in bottom of it. I turned on the garbage disposal and now dirty water was shot into the washer bottom.

So what my husband and I did was go and buy ‘stuff’ guaranteed to clear out any kind of clog from disposable diapers to dead rodents. Even with a homemade snake(wire coathanger) the handy dandy declogger didn’t work,plus the chemical smells were sending out smoke signals,and we were choking.

We decided maybe we weren’t professionals.

So now it was late in the day we decided to maybe call someone the next day.

The next morning the clog was still there soaking in the chemicals we had used.

We called the Illinois Valley Plumbing, and by noon Mr. Granville & son came in did the deed 20 minutes time all total, very affordable and we were up and flushing in no time! They also took the time to clean up any left over spills under our kitchen sink .

My husband and I want to thank them publicly and we highly recommend them.

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