Letters: School start, ship of state, fire district calls and more | Feb. 20

Starting school later good idea

Middle and high school starting time should be 8:30 a.m. Some students live far away from their school and have to wake up early to leave. This makes them tired and can make them lose focus. A later start time could also give people enough time to get to school

Who’s watching our ship of state?

A Dec. 29 New York Times article lays out in no small detail President Trump’s campaign to undermine what he thought of as his main 2020 political rival, Joe Biden, by pressuring the newly elected president of Ukraine to announce that Biden and his son, Hunter, were being investigated for corruption.

Numerous congressional reports, witness depositions and innumerable articles have examined in excruciating detail what the president did or didn’t do and why he did or didn’t do it. Despite this, the public remains split on the question of Trump’s impeachment and removal from office. No matter. The Senate will make its judgment of whether Trump’s actions constitute “high crimes and misdemeanors” almost entirely along party lines, and thus will almost certainly acquit.

What the general public is missing in all the “Sturm and Drang” over impeachment is the detrimental impact Trump’s actions — self-serving, ill-considered, or simply impetuous — have on American interests and on American lives.

The generals in the White House are gone. Who is keeping watch on the Ship of State?

District 4 calls increase by 78%

Every year, we report back on call volumes for Benton County Fire District No, 4. By way of reminder, our service area includes the City of West Richland and its immediate unincorporated areas, but we are not part of any city or county government.

Call volumes have increased 78.3% since 2010. We knew growth was coming and have planned to meet this demand while reducing impacts to taxpayers. For example, we secured voter approval for a new fire station and apparatus to serve our growing community. Both projects take a few years to complete, and we are approaching that deadline.

Our next step is to augment staffing by the time the station is finished to respond to higher call volumes from growth. This would require a voter-approved fire levy lid lift to provide funding for three additional firefighters/EMTs.

We don’t control growth, but we are prepared to respond to the increased demand for service while reducing impacts for our taxpayers. We will continue to share information on a possible lid lift as it becomes available. In the meantime, thank you for supporting your first responders.

Let students have backpacks in class

In my opinion, I feel like backpacks should be allowed in classrooms. I feel like there should be backpacks in classrooms because then students won’t have to carry a bunch of stuff around, also students won’t be late and they will have more time.

This story was originally published February 20, 2020 at 12:01 AM with the headline "Letters: School start, ship of state, fire district calls and more | Feb. 20."