Electoral system appropriate

Upon reading comments by contributors to the Sequim Gazette and other newspapers, I was flabbergasted! How can anyone not see that the Electoral College “protects” Democracy from the government and its vote-getting giveaway programs.

I think you can see a verification of this — with President Trump’s victory — looking at the number of counties he won on a map of the U.S. compared to Hillary Clinton’s.

It also establishes that the country still can’t be controlled by the “big city/population center” vote, as our forefathers had anticipated and guarded against.

Please get over the liberal/socialist loss and back our new president in a difficult job!

Travis Williams

Sequim

Concern about the ‘Y’

I understand as a Clallam County Park &Recreation District Commissioner, I no longer have a recognizable opinion in the operations of the old Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center that’s now managed by the YMCA.

As a commissioner, I do have an obligatory obligation to the public who still retains ownership and whose $1.1 million was given for updates of the 34,000-square-foot facility, leased to the YMCA at a rate that shows no financial returns to the public and just cover the minimal cost of Clallam County Park &Recreation District’s yearly paperwork.

While the YMCA has received these benefits, it has placed some 30 functional exercise machines, worth many tens of thousands, outside in the weather. Although these machines were purchased from SARC at sub-market prices, it seems a waste of good taxed assets when the YMCA needs communities’ donations to operate.

I find it annoying that both gym and handball hardwood courts that were repaired at $14,000 just two years ago, are neglected with impunity, while some areas are overly enhanced.

Even though the YMCA’s present enrollment is substantial at approximately 3,500, using the Centers for Disease Control’s estimations of demographic use and local census, I would not be surprised if by the first of 2018 that number will be substantially less — thus causing the YMCA to plead for tens of thousands in donation, or ask the owners of the property, the community, through the Clallam County Parks &Recreation Board for a levy to offset their shortfalls.

In the same light, I question the motive of the City of Sequim giving community money to (charitable) organizations such as the YMCA; that’s a function of the private community, not the city! I will make the YMCA’s required financials public when turned over to the Clallam County Park &Recreation District.

Jan Richardson

Sequim

(Richardson is a SARC board director.)