Taxpayers pay ‘public’ expenses again
Once again the “public class” is protected at the people’s expense (July 27 Columbian story reported “Grant may save 10 police officer jobs.”)
While the rest of us suffer through the “great recession,” the public class continues to feed at the trough and get fatter.
Meanwhile the people who pay the bills cinch up their belts.
Philip L. Johnson
Battle Ground
Is this really transportation?
After reading the July 22 story, “Plan for park overlooking wildlife refuge gets boost,” about Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge receiving a grant for $783,000 for a “welcome center” from the Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council, I became puzzled why an organization with such a name would have money to spend on a non-transportation project like this.
I looked at the SWRTC’s website and found its mission statement, which is, “To encourage and promote development of a balanced, efficient and affordable regional transportation system to meet the mobility needs of people and goods, within and through the region, and minimize transportation-related air pollution.”
Does a “welcome center” really fit as part of this mission statement?
Maybe there aren’t other transportation projects for the SWRTC to spend the public’s money on?
No wait, just next to this story was another story, “Summer road work under way,” on how Vancouver’s “pavement program manager” stated there wasn’t enough money to do what was needed. He said, “If you have very little money, what you do is you try to use the money in the best way possible.”
Shouldn’t that be our normal course of action at all times including avoiding spending transportation funds on welcome centers?
It’s stories like these that make taxpayers’ heads explode.
Mark Mansell
La Center
Dog’s impact is heavy on neighbors
Christine James’ July 26 letter, “Abide by original zoning,” really hit the target. Most of us buy homes hoping to live in a quiet, peaceful neighborhood.
Reading their July 25 letter, “Dog day park fills multiple needs,” Don and Char vonAhlefeld want us to believe their dog day care, allowing up to 40 dogs, “will impact no one.” What about the impact on their neighbors or property values or the integrity of a peaceful neighborhood or any environmental impact? The vonAhlefelds seem to want us to believe they alone live “at the end of a private deadend road” but there are 13 other homes in this neighborhood.
Initially they want us to believe noise won’t be an issue because somehow they can keep dogs from doing what’s natural: barking. Then they seem to imply that because their property is “bordered by state Highway 14, the I-205 bridge, Evergreen Highway,” any noise would be drowned out by traffic. Their house is also adjacent to at least two other houses and cityowned wetlands.
Try living next to a dog day care and say there’s no impact. Let the Vancouver City Council know this is not acceptable.
Jeannette Luther
Vancouver
Take light rail out of bridge formula
Regarding John Laird’s July 25 opinion column, “Toll lessons learned after the election,” this is more about a politician being disingenuous with voters when they are running for election.
If the position of the mayor doesn’t really have the power to affect the conversation of tolls, this should have been brought up. If I remember correctly, Tim Leavitt rarely mentioned this during the election. To me, this is not too much different than Sam Adams’ falsehoods when he was running for mayor of Portland.
The elephant in the room is really the fact that neither Portland nor Vancouver can afford light rail on the Interstate 5 Bridge. But just like global warming, the science is not actually settled, even though all want to pretend it is.
All of the concerned parties and commissions of this bridge project should go back to the drawing board and take the light rail out of this boondoggle. And then build a cost-effective, functional bridge like they did in Minnesota after the I-35 bridge collapse.
John Vanzant
Vancouver
Bush tax cuts story shows paper’s bias
I believe that anyone who has lived in Clark County for awhile understands The Columbian has a liberal bias. It is our own fault that as each new election rolls around, we have accepted unpaid political ads for Gov. Chris Gregoire, U.S. Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, and Rep. Brian Baird disguised as news stories. However, the story that appeared on July 26 was even beneath the lowest standards.
When I read the 1-inch headline above the story reprinted from the Washington Post, “Dems target tax breaks for the wealthy,” I thought I was reading a five-year-old paper, but there was a photograph of President Obama adding his own rewrite of history, which The Columbian dutifully printed as fact. I checked to see if I was looking at the Opinion page, but wrong again, it was page A2. I guess I should be amazed it wasn’t on the front page.
I submit that a headline reading, “Congress debates ending the Bush tax cuts for everyone,” would have been more truthful. If the tax cuts do, in fact, expire as Obama wants, a whole lot of the middle class will suddenly discover how “wealthy” they are.
Larry Plitt
Brush Prairie
Middle class pay for Bush tax cuts
As the graph accompanying the July 23 Columbian story, “Battle brewing over Bush tax cuts,” shows, the benefit of the Bush tax cuts the Republicans want to extend went to the rich, the deficit bill to the middle class, and the poor got zip.
Middle class income under the Bush Republicans, even in expansion of economy, was zero, highlighting the myth sponsored by Republicans that tax cuts to the rich or corporations float all boats. If this Republican economic theory had worked, then why are we in the biggest recession since 1929? I know — blame Clinton.
Republicans talk (when they are out of power) about fiscal conservancy, and they ignore it when in power. They are the party of hypocrites determined to help their rich friends (TARP bailout, $750 billion) and deny workers aid (filibustered unemployment extension, $34 billion).
The Republicans’ main tactic is fearmongering, with statements such as “they’re spending your grandkids future,” or “health care is socialism,” and “the government is the problem.”
Well, whose government is it? If you eliminated it, Republicans would be the first to make another, in their image, of course.
Time to change government back to where it is concerned with the middle class, the poor — the majority, not the few.
