Wildfires now pose a constant existential threat. It’s time to treat them that way | Opinion

Lehrman is right for Pasco council

Please join me in supporting and voting for Kim Lehrman for the position of Pasco City Council at-large member, Position 7. Kim Lehrman served the youth of our community for 12 years as a teacher in the Pasco public school system, as a tireless volunteer on behalf of our schools and students, and now as a teacher of high school students in Pasco.

She is a member of Pasco’s planning commission, listening to community members’ concerns and collaborating with commissioners and city staff on issues of affordable housing, infrastructure and economic development.

Lehrman has demonstrated through her roles as an educator and active community leader her ability to build consensus and make others feel heard. She’s been an advocate in our community for equal treatment for all. She is a public servant, not a political operative, and as a council member will work to make sure that the City of Pasco honors the values of all its residents and honors its responsibility to them.

Vote for the best for Pasco; vote for Kim Lehrman, Pasco City Council at-large, Position 7.

Lynne Harrison, Pasco

No evidence, but GOP goes on

At the urging of certain far-right House Republicans, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is formally launching an impeachment inquiry into President Biden without any evidence of his wrongdoing. McCarthy hopes this will make it easier for him to hold the speakership and secure the votes necessary to avoid a government shutdown at the end of this month.

He also cynically knows that if the House ultimately votes to impeach President Biden, a Democratic-controlled Senate would never muster the two-thirds threshold necessary for his impeachment.

This political type of theater is helping to create a new norm of retaliation in which every president could face impeachment whenever the opposing party controls the House. In doing so, McCarthy’s cheapening a vital constitutional remedy that should be reserved for severe abuses of power and wasting precious legislative time.

Compare this type of baloney with (1) clear evidence showing that Mr. Trump tried to shake down Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by holding up vital military assistance to get the Ukrainian government to announce an investigation into the Biden family, or (2) President Trump’s incitement of the Jan. 6 insurrection — both of which should have resulted in impeachment and conviction, but were blocked by Republicans.

Bill Petrie, Richland

More fires mean more resources

With so many fires due to global warming and human activity, it will require progressively more than the approximately 1,042,000 volunteer and professional firefighters we have currently in the U.S.; we’ll need at least an 8% increase by 2030. Furthermore, every size of community from a small town to a big city needs to practice evacuation to avoid the tragedies that happened in Paradise, California, in 2018 and Lahaina in Maui in August 2023.

California would have had more deaths had it not been for a good alert system and immediate response by emergency personnel; nonetheless, 85 people died and hundreds suffered.

The failure to have earlier, systematic evacuation and a proper use of the tsunami sirens as warning in Maui resulted in so many deaths, bottle-necked roads, property destruction and panic, that the toll in lives, misery and property is still unsettled.

We need to have the civilian equivalent of the Civil Defense people in London during the (World War II) bombings who knew how to assist people to the right shelters.

Only in this case, the enemy isn’t human and isn’t attacking just from the sky. It’s arising quickly from the imbalance of our faster-than-expected environmental crises: fires, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis.

Michael Kiefel, Walla Walla