Letters - April 1, 2010

Message received

In January, when we heard of the requests of the School Board for the amounts of the special levies, we were very concerned and wrote a letter asking the voters of our school district to vote no on the levy proposals. Since that time many meetings have been held and community involvement in the process has been great. The School Board has agreed to reduce the levy amounts to levels that are comparable to previous levies and to reduce spending to compensate for reduced State funding. We applaud the School Board for their actions.

While the process has disclosed that other problems exist within the District, we feel that these problems can best be solved by the teachers, the Board, the administration and input by the citizens of the District.

We realize that the School District cannot function without a maintenance and operation levy. At this time, we would ask the voters of our School District to vote YES on the special levies and would like to extend our appreciation to the School Board members for their service to the community.

Don Deen,

Joe Henderson,

Colfax

No-brainer?

Having read your article about CRP in the great Ag section, I would like to comment. There seems to be some CRP acres coming out of the program this year, and the concern is that it will be plowed and cultivated conventionally which will undo much of the good done by the CRP. It seems that the logical way to take it out would be to spray the ground fairly early in the spring and not allow anything to grow all summer. By fall the sod should be degraded enough so one could do a reasonably good job of seeding it to fall wheat with a no-till drill.

There is one problem with that. If the contract expires this fall, probably in September, the rules say you cannot spray it this spring. The contract must be over before one can touch it. That rules out no-till for this year. As I understand it the government will pay one a substantial amount to chem.-fallow it next year. I suspect that anyone would be happy to do it for nothing if they would allow it to be done this year. No one would be getting any income from it this year. The land would be sitting there like it has been all through the contract. It seems like a no-brainer to a simple farmer like me.

Both the operator and the land owner will be interested in getting the land into production as soon as possible. It is very possible to have a crop on it next year. One option would be to plow it after the contract expires and seed it conventionally to spring wheat next spring. I think most people would rather spray it with Roundup in May of this year and seed it to fall wheat this fall. It is hard to understand why it would do anyone any harm to spray it in May even if the government still has a CRP contract on it.

There is a lot of land out there to come out of the program.

If the rule stays as it now is, a lot of that land will be plowed.

The local people in the Conservation office have to follow the rules, but surely somewhere there is someone with authority that can see this problem and do something about it.

I wish they could see the need for this change.

They talk about “putting conservation on the ground”.

This would probably do more to put conservation on the land than anything else they can do.

All that needs to be done is to spray that CRP land in May. They could make a rule that if you sprayed it in May you would not be allowed to plow it.

I wish those in authority could see how easy the main concern about CRP takeout can be.

Don’t you think this is a no-brainer?

Jack Ensley,

Colfax

Misconception

We wish to correct what we feel is a misconception in the article regarding the deaths of our pets and other people’s dogs in Farmington.

I spoke with Officer Anderson today Thursday, March 25, 2010.

It seems that the vet he spoke with was NOT the same veterinarian who treated our cat Rollo.

When our cat Rollo had received the injection to end his suffering, my daughter and I turned to the vet and asked her “What do you think happened?” Her words to us were “I would suspect poisoning, it just isn’t normal to see kidney failure accompanied by heart disease.” A discussion between us ensued where we mentioned reporting the case to the Sheriff and not once did the vet discourage us or offer any other possible cause of Rollo’s death.

Imagine our surprise when after reporting the poisoning, Officer Anderson came back to tell us that the vet had said something entirely different to him.

We now know that Officer Anderson spoke with another vet in the practice who was offering an opinion based on the chart notes alone.

Having said that, if we set aside our Rollo’s death there are still the deaths of three dogs, all in the prime of their lives all struck down on the same day.

In that case, there is proof by autopsy of poisoning.

We hope with all our hearts that the monster who did this no longer roams the streets of Farmington.

Our only wish in speaking to the Sheriff’s Office was to establish a base case so that if other family’s lost their beloved companions under suspicious circumstances, law enforcement would have knowledge of other deaths.

We also wanted people to be aware of what has happened and keep a closer eye on their companions.

We are hardly guilty of being unfounded alarmists as the article insinuated.

Christine Mikalson,

Amanda Mikalson,

Farmington

Changed

Wow, how lucky are we to have Tom Jefferies and Steve McGehee as the moral compasses of Palouse! Whew! What a load off my mind!

Mr. Jefferies apparently attended the Steve McGehee school of history revisionism. Mayor Echanove did indeed take responsibility for the audit findings. He also stated, however, that he was operating under the mistaken impression that since none of the work he did was for profit, it was acceptable under the policy governing the use of WSU resources. For this he was punished by having 80 hours taken from him, which many of us felt was wrong. Thus the party of which Mr. Jefferies so strongly disapproved.

I am teaching my children to stand up for what they believe is right; always have your friends’ backs and don’t allow the bullies to win. Pretty darn good values, if you ask me!

Furthermore, simply because one never saw someone doing something doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I never saw or knew Tom Jefferies existed until his atrocious letter last Thursday, but now I do. I, and many others, have seen and even teased Michael about his penchant for picking up litter along the roads. For him to dismiss it so snidely is despicable.

Oh, and by all means, Mr. Jefferies can call if he gets into trouble. Between all 90 of us we might bother ourselves to scrape together enough money to pay his cab fare home.

I remember moving to Palouse right after the flood of 1996. Buildings downtown were uninhabitable and no one wanted to shop here. I remember when there was no Haunted Palouse, no Bluegrass Festival, no Turkey Leg, no Palouse Arts Council. I remember a definite lack of community spirit. I even remember hearing a story about a councilman with such disregard for his office that he sometimes schlepped into council meetings wearing shorty-shorts and flipflops. That has all, thankfully, changed.

I think I speak for much of Palouse when I say we have grown weary of Mr. McGehee’s sanctimonious, self-aggrandizing twaddle and nebulous accusations of wrongdoing against the mayor and others. If he finds so little in our community to be positive about any longer that he has to wax poetic about the “good ole’ days” ad nauseum then perhaps it is time to move on. I can think of 90 volunteers that would be happy to party it up a second time to make that dream a reality.

Tracy Milano,

Palouse

Palouse response

Mr. Jeffries, I really hope that you have 90 disgusting friends to rely on when you are in need.

As a disgusting person of Palouse, I and my family have given 16 years of ourselves in volunteer work to this city and have helped and seen the Mayor pick up and sweep other people’s trash. I hope we all are as disgusting.

As for Mr. McGehee, I guess he has forgotten the condition of the city and its lack of businesses in the past years. You need to be a problem solver, not a problem maker.

Bev Pearce,

Palouse