Letters to the editor for April 13
Vote no on combining fire departments
I find it chilling that under the proposed combining of the Olympia and Tumwater fire departments into a new “district,” we get property tax collections and a “fee” based on the square footage of one’s residence or business. The property tax is limited in annual increase by state law, but the “fee” based charge has no restrictions except it cannot make up more than 60% of the budget.
So come each annual renewal of the “fee,” the new fire protection district can raise the fee to whatever amount they wish to charge for the coming new year budget.
Also the “fee” is not likely to count as a federal tax credit when filing your annual income taxes. The businesses that pay the “fee” will only hike the prices for what consumers buy from them to cover that additional cost.
So vote no on April 25 on this measure and do not give them a blank check to charge you an increased “fee” each year on the square footage of your building, either residential or business, with no checks on how much they can raise the “fee” from year to year.
Scott A. Blomberg, Tumwater
We want to belong
Today is a day of mourning once again. Children and adults were shot in a school in Nashville, AGAIN! We don’t know the reason why. Yet no matter how bad you feel or how hurt you are, shooting up a school and others is never the answer.
Last night 39 Guatemala seeking a better life in in the country that has welcomed Immigrants for hundreds of years were rounded up in the streets of Mexico and now 39 are dead in a fire.
They were willing to walk across three countries, across snake infested jungles and horrible conditions to escape great danger in their own country, where they can no longer live in safety.
The horrible irony is that in this country there is a great danger. Danger in our homes, place of work and worship. People here in this country are using automatic weapons to kill other people, because they do not feel like they belong that they have been marginalized that they have been disrespected or made small.
So I temper my retorts, or what could be taken as a unwanted or cruel comment, because somebody might be at her wits end, and this could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
I wish all of us peace and I just want people to know that they are enough and that they belong. You are worthy.
Maria A Trevizo, Olympia
Gillnets are not selective
The Olympian February 25 op-ed article on salmon management correctly notes that gillnets are selective “by time, place and mesh size.” But that begs an important point not included in the otherwise informative article: Gillnets are not a selective method of harvesting salmon.
All methods of fishing, whether selective or non-selective, are selective by “time” and by “place” merely by choosing when and where to employ each method. For example, using a clearly non-selective method such as dynamite to kill every fish in a body of water is “selective” by time and place because we can choose when and where to dynamite for fish. But selecting the time and the place cannot cause non-selective methods of fishing, such as dynamiting or gillnetting, to become selective methods.
Selective methods of harvest must minimize mortality of protected, non-targeted species and/or of natural-born (versus hatchery-born) fish. Gillnets are not selective, regardless of the selected “mesh size.” Mesh size merely determines the size-range of fish that will be captured. It protects other fish by their size, not by their species nor by their natural origin. Therefore, a selected mesh size that captures and kills a targeted, 12-pound, hatchery-born chinook salmon will also capture and kill a protected 12-pound steelhead, coho salmon, sturgeon, natural-born salmon, etc.
This fact, along with the many important points in your article, should inform our governor, our elected state leaders, and tribal and state co-managers as to the proper role of commercial gillnet fishing vis-à-vis salmon management.
Darryl Wareham, Aberdeen
