Tri-City roadsides are becoming a dump. We all need to pitch in | Opinion
Keep our roads cleaned of trash
Local State Rep. Mark Klicker has introduced legislation to increase the base fine for littering. He has said that Washington State has 42% more litter than the national average. Years ago, police would cite drivers that refused to cover their loads. Today, it is a rare sight to see any truck cover their load.
We need enforcement for compliance. Washington spends over $26 million a year to provide teams to pick up trash. Yet, the “Evergreen” state’s roadsides look like dumps! There is only one “Adopt A Highway” sign along state Highway 240.
Businesses along that filthy highway should “Adopt” a part to keep it litter free for everyone. How can residents, schools and cities promote litter-free roads?
Bend, Ore., is pristine, and it has an “Adopt-A-Spot” program that encourages citizens to participate in the beautification of city streets. It’s no wonder Bend is desirable. It is committed to staying free of garbage. Tri-Cities needs to show some pride.
Keep a trash bag in your car, throw your trash in a receptacle. Cover your load, Adopt-A-Highway, organize a “Beautification” Project in your neighborhood. Call or email your State representatives to tell them we want Washington to be beautiful again!
Shelley Nielson, Richland
The soft landing outcome is a myth
Tariffs and the economic instability caused by them have been blamed for the stock market plunge, and we may enter a recession. However, economic growth (GDP) up till now has not been driven by steady increases in productivity but massive government spending and immigration. For asset owners this was acceptable but for average Americans it was inflation.
The private sector has been in a recession for three years while the public sector and the associated contractors had quite the soft landing. Had Trump approached trade by the Friedman school of thought, the Wall Street pummeling would still have come.
The hurt for Wall Street is not over. Deporting illegal immigrants will decrease GDP, but will improve standards of living. Restoring business through tariffs will hurt GDP, but increase wages (when combined with small government regulatory policies). The stock market is not going to like policies that increase wages, but main street has been ignored for far too long.
Judah Davis, Pasco
Mark women’s history in March
March marks Women’s History month. Our proud ancestors and current courageous women are continuing the fight to have our voices heard. Remember Clara Barton, Red Cross founder; Harriet Tubman, underground railroad leader; Bessie Coleman, aviator; Susan B. Anthony, women’s rights activist; Rosa Parks, civil rights activist; Sally Ride, astronaut; former president Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court justice Kamala Harris, former vice president, and so many more who have pushed all of us to achieve.
When the UN report on women was released, António Guterres, UN Secretary-General stated that, “When women and girls can rise, we all thrive.” Yet, globally, women’s human rights are under attack. Instead of mainstreaming equal rights, we’re seeing the mainstreaming of misogyny.
Currently, the toxic hyper-masculinity environment has attempted to subjugate women and declare dominance over even their most personal decisions.
Men who are responsible for impregnating women with or without their consent are able to obtain pills and gels for erectile dysfunction, while courts and politicians have placed restrictions on women’s access to birth control and abortion. Women cannot allow this to happen. We must stand firm and remember the women who have demonstrated their courage against misogyny.
Suzanne Feeney, Kennewick
The president is not above reproach
Robert Reich published three quotations from President Theodore Roosevelt and suggested we share them. Perhaps others among your readers have shared this one already, but I would like people to read it
”To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
It’s too late for voting, but I hope it’s not too late for impeachment.
Judith Loomis, Richland
Trump’s ‘Art of the Shakedown’
Trump threatens Mexico and Canada with on-again, off-again tariffs. His yo-yo tariff threats are tanking the stock market. His wish list includes adding Canada as our 51st state, buying Greenland and taking over the Panama Canal. He wants to permanently displace Gazans and build a resort.
He threatened Ukraine over a one-sided rare earth minerals deal without offering any security guarantees. If Trump truly wanted to cut costs, then let Medicare negotiate all drug prices. Stop rampant military cost overruns and price gouging by defense contractors.
Support the IRS. Most large corporations and wealthy individuals are audited because they commit an outsized portion of tax cheating. End tax rate cuts for the wealthy. Return the corporate tax rate to 21% and remove all other tax breaks and loopholes.
Trump’s tax law enacted in 2017 ballooned our national debt. He is now dismantling our federal infrastructure as an excuse to fix a problem he helped create. Trump is well on his way to destroying our economy, gains our society made to be more inclusive, our government institutions and our alliances around the world.
Amy Small, Richland
Tell Newhouse your point of view
On Feb. 25, House Republicans passed a budget resolution that would slash Medicaid coverage for 70 million Americans, including 10 million children, and would remove a major revenue source for rural health facilities. It would include a $4.5 trillion tax cut.
The top 0.1% richest Americans would see a $300,000-a-year tax cut. (Why can’t tax cuts be limited to working-class Americans? The wealthy seem to be doing fine.) It would also lift the debt limit by $4 trillion. It passed with only one GOP no vote, and no Democratic “yeahs” 217-215.
If Congressman Newhouse had voted no, it would have failed, 216-216. It’s Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” and he was personally twisting the arms of reluctant Republicans. The next day, in a classic Halley’s Comet type misdirection, Newhouse’s email newsletter was all about his new bill prohibiting Chinese purchases of U.S. farmland.
“Budget Resolution? What budget resolution?”
He’s unlikely to do a town hall, given the rage that other congressmen have faced from their constituents of all political stripe, so concerned voters need to contact him, 509-713-7374 or 202-225-5816 in D.C.
Greg Carl, Richland
Trump’s end for war is too familiar
Trump will end the war in Ukraine just as he did in Afghanistan; by surrendering.
Twenty years of war, 2,461 service personnel killed, 20,000+ wounded, and $837 billion; all for nothing.
Trump’s secret Camp David deal with the Taliban released 5,000 motivated fighters from prisons, making our enemy their strongest.
The only condition of America’s complete capitulation was that the next administration get left holding the bag (“full withdrawal of all NATO forces by May 1, 2021”).
The then Afghan government was not involved in negotiations, nor was it a participant in the signing of the Doha Accord. “Insurgent attacks against the Afghan security forces surged in the aftermath of the deal, however, with thousands killed.” (Wikipedia)
The surrender agreement was signed in Feb 29, 2020. Americans left on Aug. 30, 2021. Why didn’t Trump immediately withdraw our forces after he had ‘negotiated’ giving our enemy absolutely everything they wanted? The then pending election was likely his top consideration.
Soldiers splitting on his watch would make bad TV. In exchange for destroying its nuclear weapons, President Clinton promised security protection to Ukraine. President Trump has broken that promise. How can our allies ever trust America?
Ukraine’s most perilous hour is now.
Michael Harrington, Pasco
Study Bible, learn from it, writer told
Re: Mark Mansberger’s op-ed in the March 9 Tri-City Herald, “Trump’s real agenda is autocracy:”
“The rule of law is under assault,” he begins that there is a contingent in America that don’t believe the liberating ideas of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution or in democracy, separation of church and state, and the intrinsic equality of people, but “believe that wealthy, white Christian men are superior and hence should run ... the world.”
He implies that racism, sexism and disdain for the poor are in the oligarch’s ideology wanting to take away the people’s rights and impose their fundamentalist Christian views on all with religious stories replacing science in the schools.
Those so-called “religious stories” in fact tell us about God and His plan for the salvation of His people as told throughout the Bible. If Mansperger were to study those religious stories, he would find they prove science and not replace science as he implies.
If our leaders would endorse the Biblical truths, the autocratic assault on our country would be curtailed.
“All scripture is given by God, ... for instruction in righteousness ... the man of God may be complete.” 2 Timothy 3:16
Charles Robinson, Prosser
Missing facts mar story of murder
The Herald’s March 13 article, “Suspects charged in Minn. transgender man’s death plead not guilty to torture, murder,” misleadingly implies the murder of Sam Nordquist in New York state was clearly a hate crime against a transgender man that, for some unspecified reason, the local DA is not prosecuting as such.
It’s misleading because it omits a significant, related piece of information, namely that all murder suspects, acquaintances of Nordquist, identified as LGBTQ+ per the DA office’s press statement.
This doesn’t exactly fit the profile of a killing by bigoted transgender haters. Small wonder the DA is hesitant to treat this as a hate crime.
Is the article’s omission due to an oversight caused by poor research, or is it a case of don’t allow facts to get in the way of publishing a good story about the persecution of transgenders? If the latter, this is an excellent example of media misinformation.
Richard Engelmann, Richland
This story was originally published March 22, 2025 at 5:00 AM.