Kennewick Council prayer, boating etiquette and Mar-a-Lago are among Herald letter topics
Council praying for themselves
With the recent decision by Kennewick City Council to start meetings with prayer — prayer, they said, is for them, not residents of Kennewick. It’s important to understand this prayer is something our tax dollars are paying for. City staff will have to reach out, schedule and coordinate worship leaders to say the prayer and our tax dollars pay their wages. Why should taxpayers have to pay for something that council has clearly noted is for them, with no benefit to residents? Council claims to want to save the city money, but then demonstrates it’s okay to spend for their sole benefit.
Prayer is powerful, and council members will benefit, but why not pray together prior to stepping up to the dais? Council members could stand together or individually, and silently and authentically pray for guidance to make honest, ethical decisions that truly benefit our city. This would undoubtedly be more effective and cost taxpayers nothing. Unless of course, by praying in public, which is against teachings of the Bible (Matthew 6:5-6), they want to be like the hypocrites mentioned in the Bible and be seen praying in public with hopes it will somehow benefit them in the next election.
Eileen Tanner, Kennewick
Richland needs ‘No Wake’ signs
We desperately need “No Wake Zone” signs at the Richland Leslie Groves and Howard Amon boat launches, especially for the jet skiers. Some obviously have never owned a proper boat. They’ll launch and put them on the shore next to the docks. Then, jet out full throttle from the beach, creating big wakes.
Those launches have a lot of boat traffic, and if your boat is tied up to load passengers or to get your trailer, the last thing you want is your boat banging against the dock, which have sections of metal where the bumpers have broken off.
Also, some boaters will unload a person to retrieve their trailer. You nose into the dock ever so slowly with a person stepping off the bow onto the dock. Try doing that with giant wakes, it’s dangerous.
Many boats have custom graphics, or are fiberglass (which can be damaged); people get angry, words are exchanged. Surely you can imagine how tensions could cause conflicts.
Other launches have “No Wake Zone” signs. Explain to me why there are none at these docks? Can you please post signs at these launches?
Tracy Kim, Richland
Mar-a-Lago raid abuse of power
We have just witnessed the worst display of abuse of power that I have ever seen in my lifetime. I am talking about the FBI raid on Trump’s home, Mar-a-Lago. The excuse given by Department of Justice’s head, Merrick Garland, was that there was an extreme threat to national security. Never mind that government officials had gone completely through the documents in question just two months prior and that the search warrant allowed them to take any documents from Trump’s presidency, not just classified ones.
Now we know that attorney-client privileged documents were also taken and that the government has denied independent oversight of the seized documents. What is the government hiding? Garland said that the least intrusive means must be used to retrieve these documents; what would have been more intrusive, a rocket attack? He also said that justice must be served equally, yet that was not how they dealt with Hillary Clinton (who actually destroyed evidence under subpoena). We are so fortunate that Garland never made it to the Supreme Court!
In reality, this was nothing more than an illegal fishing expedition to find anything that would keep Trump from running in 2024. More abuses are at https://tinyurl.com/tucker815.
Tom Seim, Richland