Sequim Gazette Editorial and Letters to the Editor

It's tired I am of bidding goodbye to people whose talents I valued.

Foremost is Tim Quinn, the Sequim Gazette's Opinion Page cartoonist for 25 years.

Tim was found in his apartment next to our office after it was too late to intervene in the illness that killed him.

Throughout the tenures of six editors, including my one year, he'd injected humor onto pages where people often take themselves too seriously.

My deepest regret is that I hadn't gotten to know him better.

Having Tim as a friend, however, might have been something like lighting a cigar with a Roman candle - ultimately satisfying but scary at the time. He was iconoclastic, irreverent and more than slightly to the left of the political centerline.

He also was invariably honest - and expected other people to be, especially those who stepped into the limelight be it behind a lectern or on a street corner.

That's what made Tim such a talented cartoonist and, to some readers, such an infuriating one. Their howls of indignation testified both to the accuracy of his jabs and the tenderness of their egos.

But Tim relished all the reactions to his work, the curses as well as the compliments, provided that someone, somewhere, drew a smile from his cartoons.

Like many a good Irishman, he had a mighty thirst - foremost for the beauty that surrounds us here in Clallam County and that he reproduced on the mural behind Port Angeles' downtown fountain.

So may the road rise to meet Tim Quinn, wherever his last long hike takes him in the cowboy boots he invariably wore, may the sun shine warm upon his shoulders, and may the wind be always at his back.



Rebecca Redshaw

At about the same time we learned of Tim's death, Rebecca Redshaw told us she'd soon stop writing her "Sofa Cinema" column that appears in the Gazette each week.

Today's column is her last.

In "Sofa Cinema" she has spotlighted films that had been re-released on videotape or DVD, movies that ranged from the classics of Hollywood's golden age to the latest madcap animated creation.

Late last year, Rebecca released a book that compiled her reviews; it's available at local booksellers.

Rebecca long had worked in the film industry's production side and could write with authority. As an editor, what I valued most was her knack of evaluating a movie without sounding like some cinema student writing a term paper.

One of the best and rarest talents a newspaper journalist can develop is underwriting, roughly the difference between deftly drawing a sketch and painting the side of a garage.

Rebecca Redshaw mastered underwriting and her

readers will miss her.



Craig Jacobs



After four years' reporting for another newspaper in a nearby town, a blogger accused me of being too soft covering Clallam County government.

Oddly, the same blogger said county officials who thought I was too tough had ousted me from my job.

Neither allegation was true - mostly.

What I'd come to think about the county

was that it's well served by its elected and appointed officials - not to perfection but pretty much to the full extent that honesty, hard work and dedicated public service could carry them.

Perhaps chief among those officials was Craig Jacobs, who recently retired as director of public works.

Jacobs won my admiration through a number of traits, foremost of which was his habit of telling the truth, sometimes in painful detail. He never dodged a question and never played the blame game.

As I wrote here last fall, the public works department faced perhaps its biggest challenge in 2007 when bids came in $6 million over estimates to replace the one-lane Elwha River Road Bridge.

Officials were flabbergasted and deflated - for a few days. Then led by Jacobs and County Engineer Ross Tyler, they set to digging up and scratching out the money to do the job.

A picture of the project's funding would look like a crazy quilt, but the bridge looked terrific - breathtakingly beautiful, actually - when it officially opened last September.

Meanwhile, other controversies arose, such as whether to site a disc-golf course at Robin Hill County Park and whether to continue to allow hunting at the Dungeness Recreation Area. Citizens' tempers flared over the proposals, which both were denied.

Jacobs, though, displayed his trademark courtesy to people on each side of each issue.

Sure, Craig could get mad - at other officials; at his supervisors, the Clallam County commissioners; or at his ultimate bosses, the citizens. No one could expect otherwise.

But what people could expect from Craig was that he would be a gentleman of the cut and cloth you hardly find these days.

Thank you for the 30 years you served us, Craig Jacobs.



One lingering irony: Tim Quinn died, Rebecca Redshaw announced her retirement and Craig Jacobs worked his last day all while I was on vacation the last two weeks of 2009.

I don't think I'll take any more time off any time soon.



Biting a bullet



Today's Gazette also is the last in which you will see television listings.

We apologize to those who will be inconvenienced but ask them to consider the savings in fees, paper and ink that can be used better, we think, to sustain and expand other features.

We continue to be deeply committed to presenting Sequim and the surrounding area with the newsiest, most creative and most colorful self portrait that we can produce.



Jim Casey is the editor of the Sequim Gazette.

Contact him at jcasey@sequimgazette.com.