Don’t sell Tri-City shoreline, support school levies and other Tri-City Herald letters

Rivershore land too precious

The proposals to sell public land along the Columbia River, in Richland and on Clover Island, for conversion into teeny-weeny motel room apartments, is bad public policy, and should be denied.

Our area is developing into a metropolitan hub of half a million people. There is land for apartments elsewhere. As population grows, public land along the river becomes more precious, more in demand for public use and more valuable. We need more public land along the river, not less.

Our forefathers were right to keep the land under the Clover Island and Riverfront hotels. Current officials should not sell this land. Indeed, the need is for more public property along the Columbia, not less. Especially in the high growth area of northwest Pasco, waterfront parks are critically needed. There is no public park along the east side of the river in 10 miles between Chiawana Park and Sagemoor hills. Officials should be acquiring shorelines for public benefit, not selling.

Citizens are making a plea to public officials: Please don’t sell our rivershore for a proverbial 30 pieces of silver. Instead, work to save our shorelines for the public!

Bob Carosino, Pasco

Too many people don’t wear masks

Went to Pasco Yokes yesterday and there were at least 10 to 15 people without masks. My phone was in my car or I would have called 911 to complain my life was being threatened. Why can’t we deport these people to Antarctica and they could take their MAGA hats (Make Antarctica Great Again) with them.

Larry W. Walker, Pasco

Richland levies needed

Jefferson Elementary PTA asks you to support the children in our community by voting ‘Yes’ on both school levies. These are not new taxes!

As parents and community members, the impact of these levies failing would mean severe cuts to programs and support staff. Richland School District students deserve the chance to excel and thrive in so many of these areas — special education, advanced placements, and technology knowledge to prepare them for careers in our community.

One out of every six dollars in the RSD budget is supplied by our community levies. State funding does not fully fund sports, arts, social needs, or technology.

Did you know that state funding only supports two nurses for all 19 schools in the district? Levy dollars ensure that our children have nurses and so many more staff resources on site, like security staff.

Schools are operating now in a time of great need and pressure. State mandates are not in the purvey of school districts. Don’t punish our students because of things we can’t control at the local level.

The school board is 100% in support of the levies and so should you.

Jefferson PTA, Vice-President Brianna Watson

Wear masks, save small businesses

Okay people, it’s time to wake up and face reality. If you are vaccinated or unvaccinated, please listen up. If we don’t try and help curb the spread of COVID-19 and the Delta Omicron variant, we are going to suffer a major setback.

If we don’t start wearing masks in stores, restaurants and small family-owned businesses, we will be back in phases. Then we will lose some more of the small family-owned businesses. I don’t like wearing a mask, but I do so I can keep myself and my family and other people safe.

If you don’t want to wear a mask in to get get food or supplies, you can order them online and pick them up in the parking lot — at no extra charge. If you do go into a store, please wear your mask properly, make sure it’s over your mask and nose. This not going to go away without everyone’s help. It’s really hard hearing about how many people die every day from COVID. So please think about it the next time you need food or supplies.

Marvin Raymond, Richland

Mussolini was right

Is history relevant to today? In January 1940, Italian fascist dictator Mussolini sent a message to German Nazi dictator Hitler questioning if it was necessary to attack England. His message was that “big democracies … must of necessity fall and be harvested by us, who represent the new forces of Europe.” He believed that democracies carried “within themselves the seeds” of their own destruction.

The question before us now is whether Mussolini was correct in his assessment as it applies to our American Democracy. Vlad Putin, Xi Jinping and the Trump Republican Party certainly believe Mussolini was right, and they are doing all they can to “harvest” our democracy.

Aspiring President-for-Life Donald Trump is a lifelong practitioner of the propaganda technique used by dictators throughout history. Repeat lies over and over again louder and louder and some, perhaps even a majority, will eventually believe them. But Trump, like dictators of the past and present, wants more than simple belief in his lies. He wants believers to attack our democracy and “harvest” it for him.

Do you stand with history’s dictators? Or, do you stand for American democracy? The time is coming when your vote will tell.

Edward Rykiel, Richland

Support Burbank schools

I would like to sincerely thank the Burbank community for their past support and ask for their continued endorsement by voting YES on the upcoming replacement Educational Programs and Operations Levy as well as the Technology Levy and Bond.

The benefits of having a technology levy in place since 1994 are evident in every classroom of our district. Columbia School District has dedicated itself to leadership and implementation strategies as we strive to bring the most effective and relevant technology to our students and staff.

Our Technology Levy provides a vast array of essential learning opportunities for students from the elementary, middle, and high schools. This includes robotics programming, multi-media classes, and video editing, just to name a few. Multiple upgrades have been made in both infrastructure and safety in order to stay current with technology standards. We continue to look to the future with the goal of maintaining a one-to-one student to device program for all grade levels. Our highest priority will continue to be providing our students with the tools they need for future success.

We ask for your support. Please vote YES, by February 8th to continue our standard of educational excellence.

Andrew Kramer, Pasco

A question of constitutionality?

And people wonder why the citizens don’t trust our elected officials..

From Today, and I quote, “I guess constitutionality is in the eye of the beholder.”

I was absolutely dumbfounded that an elected official ACTUALLY said that!

It’s here: at 28:15 or so into the meeting by state Sen. Patty Kuderer, D-Bellevue.

These people are elected officials? People like this get to determine how we have to live and determine what your ‘rights’ are? Oh hell no!

https://tvw.org/video/senate-law-justice-committee-2022011282/?eventID=2022011282

Dan Deckert, Benton City

15-minute charge equals 200 miles

Charles Robinson may certainly stay with his gasoline-powered car. He does seem to take his preference and work overtime with arguments against electric cars. While some of his points do address shortcomings of these vehicles, it’s not like these are secrets. People who choose them know this and plan appropriately. Teslas have mapping that helps calculate routes according to the charge on the car, and locations of charging stations.

Also, with their Supercharging stations, they can top off the charge for 200 miles in 15 minutes. In his six-hour drive to Idaho, a 15-minute pause for charging does not sound too onerous. His estimate of eight hours charging is an exaggeration. As more people have electric cars, there will be more charging stations and presumably range will increase. As for all electric vehicles running out of charge on a highway at the same time, this is not going to happen, except in extreme circumstances, as was seen in a recent 20-hour I-95 traffic jam where many cars ran out of gas from running heaters.

Jerry Lewis, Kennewick

Candidate doesn’t care about district

Jerrod Sessler, from Burien, Wash., is running to become the next congressman for our (Fourth) District.

When you look at Sessler’s campaign website, there is no mention of any typical local issues like the need for better infrastructure, helping businesses, creating more jobs, making college and childcare more affordable, extending health care to everyone, reducing the impact of global warming, reducing the cost of prescriptions, enhancing voting rights and cleaning up the environment.

Sessler believes the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol was instigated by the FBI and was staged. He believes the Capitol Police invited protesters into the building, and that it was not violent.

Anyone who watched the violence at the Capitol that day knows this is utter nonsense. Over 400 police officers were injured, some seriously. Five people died as a result.

Sessler opposes mask and vaccine mandates, even though more than 880,000 Americans have died from COVID.

This is Sessler’s first run for public office. He operates Hometask, Inc., a Burien company that performs maintenance and repairs for homeowners and property managers.

Why is Sessler running? He wants to promote his new online show, “Sessler Session,” to discuss the latest QAnon conspiracies.

Kenneth Stinnett, Sunnyside

This story was originally published February 3, 2022 at 7:05 PM.