Letters to the editor
Published on Wed, Jan 6, 2010Read More Letters
Good schools attract
good doctors
As a hospital commissioner representing Sequim and the eastern portion of Clallam County, I am keenly aware of the need to recruit qualified medical providers to our area.
2009 was a remarkably successful year with 13 new professionals agreeing to come to our area.
One of the key things they are looking for is excellent schools. Many of the medical professionals who are interested in coming here have or plan to have children and so have a very direct interest in having access to excellent education. Others may simply see excellent schools as a diagnostic characteristic of a high quality place in which to live.
We who live in the Sequim School District are very fortunate to have an excellent educational system. Not only do our students receive a high quality learning experience, they tend to do extremely well at the college level and beyond. It is essential that we maintain what we have and strive to grow even better in the future.
The first step is to approve the levy in February.
John Beitzel
Sequim
Heated classrooms,
functional plumbing
Voters in the Sequim School District always have supported students when the need was clear. Past examples include the construction of Greywolf Elementary, a new middle school and the renovations at the high school back in the early and mid-1990s.
The upcoming February maintenance and operations levy comes at a critical time of need. Let me explain why. For the past 16 years, I have taught at Helen Haller Elementary. Teaching in an aging building always has had its share of challenges, but never more so than now. During last month's cold snap, there were first-graders without heat in the classroom. Emergency space heaters eventually brought the temperature up to a chilly 57 degrees F. Unfortunately, this was not the first time we have experienced this problem.
District maintenance personnel have performed minor miracles over the years, scavenging parts, repairing and rebuilding whenever possible. However, the heating system has reached the end of its usable life span. Most heat units are now decades old. Spare parts are no longer available.
A maintenance and operations levy provides local support for things like upgrading heat systems, fixing old, leaky plumbing (we have a lot of that at HHE) and other basics that are not funded by state or federal funding.
With additional cuts to our district's state funding on the horizon, the three-year replacement levy is critical to repairing and maintaining our school facilities. Sequim's students deserve heated classrooms and functioning plumbing - basics that most of us take for granted. Please join me in voting yes for the replacement levy.
Eric Danielson
Sequim
Why we'll vote 'yes'
We are the proud parents of a sixth-grader at Sequim Middle School and past board members of the Parent Service Organization at Five Acre School. Our family, like many, has been negatively impacted by the economic downturn and now more than ever we feel a duty toward helping our schools.
Here's why we're voting "yes" on the upcoming
Sequim School District levy:
1) Our local economy is linked to the quality of our schools; it's well documented that professionals from all business sectors consider the quality of local schools when they choose where to live and work ... We did.
2) Sequim's levy rate is a bargain - it's 40 percent of the state average and half that of other school districts in Clallam County; and
3) By law, the total dollar amount of the levy collected in Sequim cannot change from what voters approve; this means every local levy dollar stays in our community to benefit our students and no dollars are sent to the state for reallocation.
Voting "yes" on the levy shows you care about investing in education, the quality of life in Sequim and a community where educated students are the path to a stronger economy, healthy environment and brighter future.
To learn more, visit www.sequimschools.com or attend the meeting tonight, Jan. 6, at 6 p.m. at the Boys & Girls Club in Sequim.
Dave Shreffler and
Ann Soule
Sequim
Trying very hard
I am responding to the letter "Help Us Do For Ourselves" (12/23/09). As the manager of the Sequim branch of the North Olympic Library System, I apologize to Azella for the inconvenience she experienced during her last visit to the library.
The Sequim branch library, which had been on a septic system, recently was hooked up to the city sewer. The parking lot was closed during construction from Dec. 7-11. The Sequim Worship Center, the library's neighbor to the north, was kind enough to allow library customers to park in its lot during construction. Access from the church parking lot was available via a handicapped-accessible pathway between the two properties. Granted, the walk from the church to the library was longer than it would have been from the library's parking lot. Unfortunately, there were no other options during the one-week parking lot closure.
When Azella asked a staff member about a book she'd requested, we told her it had been sent to Sequim from another NOLS branch and could possibly be in one of the 20 shipment boxes that had just arrived. The staff and I profusely apologized to her and assured her that we would contact her as soon as we had her book in hand.
We try very hard to meet everyone's needs at the Sequim library. If you have questions about the North Olympic Library System or if you need special help at the library, please contact me at 683-1161 or Sequim@nols.org.
Lauren Dahlgren,
manager,
Sequim branch library
Keeping his presence alive
Tim (Quinn) was my friend since mid-1980 when I first moved to Sequim.
After I moved to the Olympia area, he and I stayed in constant contact over the years.
I last talked to him about six weeks ago.
My ex-wife, who lives in Sequim, called me to give me the news of Tim's departure from our midst.
I am so sad and will miss him and the time we spent together greatly.
Tim's art and letters will keep his presence alive in my home.
Guy Grayson
East Olympia
Remembering
Tim
I was the advertising director when Tim (Quinn) came on staff at the Gazette; my name then was Judy Holder.
I have lots of early fun memories of Tim and a few sad ones, too.
Tim loved to tease me and pulled little jokes by telling me about something that would get more and more bizarre as I listened intently, eventually ending when I would say "Really?" or "Are you sure?" Then he would laugh and say, no and tease me about how gullible I was.
One of his favorite memories of me, which he loved to share with friends, is the summer I drove him up on Bell Hill, which was just beginning construction. He didn't have a driver's license so was pretty confined to town. We would go up a couple of times a week during lunch hour, sit in the car and eat lunch and comment on the ships and sailboats out in the strait. Sometimes we would argue over what color the sailboats' sails in the distance were, what the big letters painted on the hulls said or what style of ship it was: cargo, container etc.
He loved getting out of the office and apartment for that short break and would ask, "Are we on for lunch?" It wasn't until the end of summer when the roads got bad and we went for our last lunch on the hill that he said, snickering, "Ya know, Jude, there is something I really gotta tell ya. I have really enjoyed all of our time up here but, to be honest, I can't see past the hood of your car since I broke my glasses last year." All that time, all those comments and arguments about what we were looking at and he never saw any of it. I guess I was pretty gullible then.
I am also the one who took him for a drive up on Deer Park, punched a hole in my gas tank and coasted all the way down to the highway going as fast as we could so we had enough speed to make it over the next hill. As we slid around the corners he would hold on to the dashboard and yell, "We're all gonna die ... we're all gonna die" and then trying to make it to the top of the next hill he would act like he was whipping a horse and yell, "Giddy-up, come on, go go."
He had a wonderful sense of humor. He learned to identify his callers by their laugh when he put a recording on his answering machine of Elvis laughing during a jam session. It would take everyone by surprise and by the time the beep happened you were already laughing and would just hang up until you got your composure back to leave a message.
Thank you for the nice tribute you wrote for him in the paper.
Judy M. Marie
Sunnyside, Wash.
Afraid
What other evidence do we Americans need that the health care reform bill is bad policy. It took back-room deals and carve-outs for Nevada, Louisiana, Vermont, Massachusetts and Nebraska to get the 60 votes necessary for passage. Now I'm wondering if the other 45 states feel slighted that they didn't get big payoffs. I am not only afraid for my country; I am afraid of my country.
Anne Olson
Sequim
Still getting fried
Last week it was announced that using CAT scans to detect cancer was causing cancer, as the machine uses frequency radiation. Yes, radiation nowadays is taking on many forms - all deadly when there is too much exposure.
Nuclear radiation in various forms has a parallel partner in frequency radiation; both cause deadly sickness and cancer.
Look around you: What is making all sick with invisible frequency radiation zapping rays through your family all day long?
The microwave oven is using high frequencies but it is in a sealed box. Stay a few feet away when it is on. There is much more to be said about the food or water cooked in the microwave oven. The supermarkets have rows of frozen foods catering to the microwave users. The Germans invented these ovens for use in the failed invasion of Russia. Russia bans microwaves.
What is on these towers and high buildings that is making all sick?
Dish beams of microwave to hospitals, doctors' offices, fire departments, city offices, police and public works, etc. Then there are cell phones and the "Wave" Internet blasting away with broad splashes of high power frequency radiation. That transceiver mounted inside or outside your house is a frequency radiation receiver and transmitter using high frequencies that cause cancer. You cannot feel these beams cooking the cells of your body, just warm.
Now there is UHF TV. This is Ultra High Frequency or frequency radiation. It is coming to your new set and new antenna via line of sight from the cities or cable or satellite and dish antenna. Weak frequency radiation coming down from the sky from many sources now adds up - not good.
Many are watching Canada TV now and video and discs but still are getting fried with too many other sources of frequency radiation they don't use.
Yes, we too have problems with thyroid burnout and cancer, etc., from frequency radiation in Sequim. Do we all have to move to the Yukon?
Richard Dobbs
Sequim
good doctors
As a hospital commissioner representing Sequim and the eastern portion of Clallam County, I am keenly aware of the need to recruit qualified medical providers to our area.
2009 was a remarkably successful year with 13 new professionals agreeing to come to our area.
One of the key things they are looking for is excellent schools. Many of the medical professionals who are interested in coming here have or plan to have children and so have a very direct interest in having access to excellent education. Others may simply see excellent schools as a diagnostic characteristic of a high quality place in which to live.
We who live in the Sequim School District are very fortunate to have an excellent educational system. Not only do our students receive a high quality learning experience, they tend to do extremely well at the college level and beyond. It is essential that we maintain what we have and strive to grow even better in the future.
The first step is to approve the levy in February.
John Beitzel
Sequim
Heated classrooms,
functional plumbing
Voters in the Sequim School District always have supported students when the need was clear. Past examples include the construction of Greywolf Elementary, a new middle school and the renovations at the high school back in the early and mid-1990s.
The upcoming February maintenance and operations levy comes at a critical time of need. Let me explain why. For the past 16 years, I have taught at Helen Haller Elementary. Teaching in an aging building always has had its share of challenges, but never more so than now. During last month's cold snap, there were first-graders without heat in the classroom. Emergency space heaters eventually brought the temperature up to a chilly 57 degrees F. Unfortunately, this was not the first time we have experienced this problem.
District maintenance personnel have performed minor miracles over the years, scavenging parts, repairing and rebuilding whenever possible. However, the heating system has reached the end of its usable life span. Most heat units are now decades old. Spare parts are no longer available.
A maintenance and operations levy provides local support for things like upgrading heat systems, fixing old, leaky plumbing (we have a lot of that at HHE) and other basics that are not funded by state or federal funding.
With additional cuts to our district's state funding on the horizon, the three-year replacement levy is critical to repairing and maintaining our school facilities. Sequim's students deserve heated classrooms and functioning plumbing - basics that most of us take for granted. Please join me in voting yes for the replacement levy.
Eric Danielson
Sequim
Why we'll vote 'yes'
We are the proud parents of a sixth-grader at Sequim Middle School and past board members of the Parent Service Organization at Five Acre School. Our family, like many, has been negatively impacted by the economic downturn and now more than ever we feel a duty toward helping our schools.
Here's why we're voting "yes" on the upcoming
Sequim School District levy:
1) Our local economy is linked to the quality of our schools; it's well documented that professionals from all business sectors consider the quality of local schools when they choose where to live and work ... We did.
2) Sequim's levy rate is a bargain - it's 40 percent of the state average and half that of other school districts in Clallam County; and
3) By law, the total dollar amount of the levy collected in Sequim cannot change from what voters approve; this means every local levy dollar stays in our community to benefit our students and no dollars are sent to the state for reallocation.
Voting "yes" on the levy shows you care about investing in education, the quality of life in Sequim and a community where educated students are the path to a stronger economy, healthy environment and brighter future.
To learn more, visit www.sequimschools.com or attend the meeting tonight, Jan. 6, at 6 p.m. at the Boys & Girls Club in Sequim.
Dave Shreffler and
Ann Soule
Sequim
Trying very hard
I am responding to the letter "Help Us Do For Ourselves" (12/23/09). As the manager of the Sequim branch of the North Olympic Library System, I apologize to Azella for the inconvenience she experienced during her last visit to the library.
The Sequim branch library, which had been on a septic system, recently was hooked up to the city sewer. The parking lot was closed during construction from Dec. 7-11. The Sequim Worship Center, the library's neighbor to the north, was kind enough to allow library customers to park in its lot during construction. Access from the church parking lot was available via a handicapped-accessible pathway between the two properties. Granted, the walk from the church to the library was longer than it would have been from the library's parking lot. Unfortunately, there were no other options during the one-week parking lot closure.
When Azella asked a staff member about a book she'd requested, we told her it had been sent to Sequim from another NOLS branch and could possibly be in one of the 20 shipment boxes that had just arrived. The staff and I profusely apologized to her and assured her that we would contact her as soon as we had her book in hand.
We try very hard to meet everyone's needs at the Sequim library. If you have questions about the North Olympic Library System or if you need special help at the library, please contact me at 683-1161 or Sequim@nols.org.
Lauren Dahlgren,
manager,
Sequim branch library
Keeping his presence alive
Tim (Quinn) was my friend since mid-1980 when I first moved to Sequim.
After I moved to the Olympia area, he and I stayed in constant contact over the years.
I last talked to him about six weeks ago.
My ex-wife, who lives in Sequim, called me to give me the news of Tim's departure from our midst.
I am so sad and will miss him and the time we spent together greatly.
Tim's art and letters will keep his presence alive in my home.
Guy Grayson
East Olympia
Remembering
Tim
I was the advertising director when Tim (Quinn) came on staff at the Gazette; my name then was Judy Holder.
I have lots of early fun memories of Tim and a few sad ones, too.
Tim loved to tease me and pulled little jokes by telling me about something that would get more and more bizarre as I listened intently, eventually ending when I would say "Really?" or "Are you sure?" Then he would laugh and say, no and tease me about how gullible I was.
One of his favorite memories of me, which he loved to share with friends, is the summer I drove him up on Bell Hill, which was just beginning construction. He didn't have a driver's license so was pretty confined to town. We would go up a couple of times a week during lunch hour, sit in the car and eat lunch and comment on the ships and sailboats out in the strait. Sometimes we would argue over what color the sailboats' sails in the distance were, what the big letters painted on the hulls said or what style of ship it was: cargo, container etc.
He loved getting out of the office and apartment for that short break and would ask, "Are we on for lunch?" It wasn't until the end of summer when the roads got bad and we went for our last lunch on the hill that he said, snickering, "Ya know, Jude, there is something I really gotta tell ya. I have really enjoyed all of our time up here but, to be honest, I can't see past the hood of your car since I broke my glasses last year." All that time, all those comments and arguments about what we were looking at and he never saw any of it. I guess I was pretty gullible then.
I am also the one who took him for a drive up on Deer Park, punched a hole in my gas tank and coasted all the way down to the highway going as fast as we could so we had enough speed to make it over the next hill. As we slid around the corners he would hold on to the dashboard and yell, "We're all gonna die ... we're all gonna die" and then trying to make it to the top of the next hill he would act like he was whipping a horse and yell, "Giddy-up, come on, go go."
He had a wonderful sense of humor. He learned to identify his callers by their laugh when he put a recording on his answering machine of Elvis laughing during a jam session. It would take everyone by surprise and by the time the beep happened you were already laughing and would just hang up until you got your composure back to leave a message.
Thank you for the nice tribute you wrote for him in the paper.
Judy M. Marie
Sunnyside, Wash.
Afraid
What other evidence do we Americans need that the health care reform bill is bad policy. It took back-room deals and carve-outs for Nevada, Louisiana, Vermont, Massachusetts and Nebraska to get the 60 votes necessary for passage. Now I'm wondering if the other 45 states feel slighted that they didn't get big payoffs. I am not only afraid for my country; I am afraid of my country.
Anne Olson
Sequim
Still getting fried
Last week it was announced that using CAT scans to detect cancer was causing cancer, as the machine uses frequency radiation. Yes, radiation nowadays is taking on many forms - all deadly when there is too much exposure.
Nuclear radiation in various forms has a parallel partner in frequency radiation; both cause deadly sickness and cancer.
Look around you: What is making all sick with invisible frequency radiation zapping rays through your family all day long?
The microwave oven is using high frequencies but it is in a sealed box. Stay a few feet away when it is on. There is much more to be said about the food or water cooked in the microwave oven. The supermarkets have rows of frozen foods catering to the microwave users. The Germans invented these ovens for use in the failed invasion of Russia. Russia bans microwaves.
What is on these towers and high buildings that is making all sick?
Dish beams of microwave to hospitals, doctors' offices, fire departments, city offices, police and public works, etc. Then there are cell phones and the "Wave" Internet blasting away with broad splashes of high power frequency radiation. That transceiver mounted inside or outside your house is a frequency radiation receiver and transmitter using high frequencies that cause cancer. You cannot feel these beams cooking the cells of your body, just warm.
Now there is UHF TV. This is Ultra High Frequency or frequency radiation. It is coming to your new set and new antenna via line of sight from the cities or cable or satellite and dish antenna. Weak frequency radiation coming down from the sky from many sources now adds up - not good.
Many are watching Canada TV now and video and discs but still are getting fried with too many other sources of frequency radiation they don't use.
Yes, we too have problems with thyroid burnout and cancer, etc., from frequency radiation in Sequim. Do we all have to move to the Yukon?
Richard Dobbs
Sequim
LETTERS POLICY
Your opinions on issues of community interest and your reaction to stories and editorials contained in your Sequim Gazette are important to us and to your fellow readers. Thus our rules relating to letters submitted for publication are relatively simple.
• Letters are welcome. Letters exceeding 250 words may be shortened. We strive to publish all letters.
• Letters are subject to editing for spelling and grammar; we contact the writer when substantial changes are required, sending the letter back to the writer for revisions. Personal attacks and unsubstantiated allegations are not printed.
• All letters must have a valid signature, with a printed name, address and phone number for verification. Only the name and town/community are printed.
• Deadline for letters to appear in the next publication is noon Friday. Because of the volume of letters, not all letters are published the week they are submitted. Time-sensitive letters have a priority.
• Letters are published subject to legal limitations relating to defamation and factual representation.
• To submit letters, deliver to 147 W. Washington St., Sequim; mail to P.O. Box 1750, Sequim, WA 98382; fax to 360-683-6670 or e-mail news@sequimgazette.com.
Your opinions on issues of community interest and your reaction to stories and editorials contained in your Sequim Gazette are important to us and to your fellow readers. Thus our rules relating to letters submitted for publication are relatively simple.
• Letters are welcome. Letters exceeding 250 words may be shortened. We strive to publish all letters.
• Letters are subject to editing for spelling and grammar; we contact the writer when substantial changes are required, sending the letter back to the writer for revisions. Personal attacks and unsubstantiated allegations are not printed.
• All letters must have a valid signature, with a printed name, address and phone number for verification. Only the name and town/community are printed.
• Deadline for letters to appear in the next publication is noon Friday. Because of the volume of letters, not all letters are published the week they are submitted. Time-sensitive letters have a priority.
• Letters are published subject to legal limitations relating to defamation and factual representation.
• To submit letters, deliver to 147 W. Washington St., Sequim; mail to P.O. Box 1750, Sequim, WA 98382; fax to 360-683-6670 or e-mail news@sequimgazette.com.
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