Sequim Gazette Editorial and Letters to the Editor

Perfect Pawn

The pawn should be the "protected" class, intelligent, articulate, persuasive, charismatic, etc.

Such a person was fashioned and a platform of hope and change was articulated. Defining neither of these terms, citizens were left to formulate their own definition.

To fantasize a grandiose future that costs them nothing. Some just knew they would get a house and the government would pay for it. The "fairness doctrine" was evoked. "It is not fair that some people have a house and I don't."

Radical leftists and ACORN created a crisis following the Apollo Alliance agenda. Home financing criteria was loosened, requiring nothing down and clients' stated income was accepted resulting in an era of creative financing with no "qualifying" involved, which resulted in a beautifully engineered travesty. Home loans were not being repaid and the financial community was unable to survive the gigantic losses and TARP was created.

Then other crises followed: the massive stimulus package, (prepared by Apollo Alliance), bank bailout, auto bailout, cash for clunkers, printing of currency backed by nothing, the push to get the health care bill passed before people learned what is really in it. With Cap and Trade waiting in the wings. Add to all that the leftist czars, possibly unvetted, surrounding our president.

Does this sound like a government founded by we the people? I don't recognize Washington, D.C., as being for the people anymore. The hope and change is certainly not what I envisioned.

Some other questions:

1. Is the pawn a chameleon?

2. Why is everything a crisis and must be done now?

3. Is it time to be afraid, very afraid?

Concerned citizens should contact their senator and representatives and let their concerns be known.

Remember, silence gives consent.

Hopefully wisdom will direct us.

Roger Smith

Sequim



Here we go again



That headline on the front page of the Gazette, regarding the city council/manager problems, could just as aptly have been used with the article at the bottom of the page.

Remember the Highway 101/Louella Road wreck last year - and how many times before that? Remember the old comics cartoon "There oughta be a law?"

Well, this isn't funny. In the absence of a much-needed law that prohibits interrupting the smooth and safe flow of traffic on a two-lane state artery such as 101, please use common sense:

You don't stop traffic just so you can exercise your privilege to turn left onto Louella. Until DOT gives priority to construction of a left-turn lane, pull off to the right shoulder and just sit there and wait until it is safe to turn left. Otherwise, share the blame when it comes to handing out citations.

I guarantee it works. I live in SunLand and even on southbound Sequim-Dungeness Way, let alone Highway 101, I wouldn't think of stopping traffic just so I could turn left into my home neighborhood.

Pull over to the right, sit and wait.

Al Hiebert

Sequim



Golf tourney success

On behalf of the citizens for Sequim Schools, I extend our thanks to the sponsors and golfers who made our first golf tourna-ment such an overwhelming success.

We are thankful to event sponsors

7 Cedars Casino, The Cedars at Dungeness, McMenamin & McMenamin, and Price Ford and our major donors Westport Marine, Dave Blake, High Energy Metals, D.A. Davidson & Co. and

Frankfurth Autobody & Towing.

We are equally grateful to all the other community businesses and private individuals who donated so generously to this cause: Jack and Sheri Edson, SunLand Golf and Country Club, Team McAleer at Re/Max Fifth Avenue, Port Townsend Brewery, Blake Sand & Gravel, Sequim Vision Clinic, Walt Schubert, Town & Country Home Inspections, Windermere Sequim East, Windermere SunLand, Jon Jack State Farm Insurance, Jim and Cherie Pickett, Healing Hands Massage and Body Treatments and The Oak Table Cafe.

An enthusiastic and supportive group of golfers enjoyed a beautiful day on the course and helped ensure the event will continue in the years to come.

Proceeds from the event will help pass the 2010 Sequim school levy. We thank all our sponsors for their generosity and commitment to this important cause.

E. Michael McAleer

President, Citizens for Sequim Schools



Observation of Follises

I have always enjoyed Jim Follis' "Observations" and found more meaning, most particularly, in last week's "Boredom illegal in Sequim."

Jim writes about all the wonderful things one can spend time doing in Sequim and does so with the usual humor and obvious joy. He writes about those things he and his wife Nancy like to do but they fail to mention, and not surprisingly so, how much time they both have spent helping a neighbor who recently lost his wife of 65 years.

I am the daughter of that neighbor, "Rocky," and find it

necessary to tell you and your readers how much their kindness and thoughtfulness has meant to him. Both Nancy and Jim have our entire family's thanks for their generous spirit.

In our busy everyday lives, we often forget about our neighbors and these two people remind me that this is what a caring community is all about, not only helping one another in times of need but at other times as well.

This letter is also thanks to the other caring members of the SunLand North neighborhood who showed my father that he wasn't just another old Marine but a valued member of their community.

Jody Heydon

Sequim



Roundabouts

Since I live in Mexico most of the year where roundabouts are common, it is somewhat amusing watching the locals using the roundabouts in Sequim. It is true that they are unusual here and there really is nothing intuitive about using them. Even in Mexico, each big roundabout has developed its own set of user conventions and it takes experience negotiating it.

The small, two-lane roundabouts like in Sequim are really simple: The outer lane is for getting in and getting out. If you are getting off on the very next exit after you enter, then that is the lane you should stay in. Otherwise you should move to the inner lane as soon as you can. For one thing, it is a shorter, straighter route.

But most importantly, it allows a driver waiting at the road that you are driving past, to enter the roundabout without waiting for you to pass. Once you are in the inner lane, it is a fairly safe assumption that you aren't going to cross the outer lane again except to exit.

You are allowed to exit the roundabout from the inner lane. A car in the outer lane must allow a car ahead of him to exit. The roundabout isn't the place to try and get ahead of other cars (unless they are just sitting there confused by the whole thing.)

There are two lanes to the roundabout. Drivers seem to think that it is discourteous to move to the inner lane. On the contrary, it is a courtesy to the cars trying to enter the roundabout for you to move to the inner lane, so that traffic keeps moving from all directions. That's the whole idea of the roundabout - otherwise it might just as well be a four-way intersection.

Steven Higbee

Discovery Bay

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sequim's roundabouts have one lane. The area paved in red brick is not to be driven upon and driving on it is a traffic infraction.



Radically wrong



On Sept. 12, 2009, 53 patriots representing a cross section of political parties assembled to demonstrate their dismay on what the Obama administration is doing to, rather than for, our country.

Signs displayed opposition to these issues ... cap and trade, Obamacare, trillion dollar spending spree, ACORN, disapproval of czars, closing Gitmo, amnesty for illegals, presidents' apologies for America, 9,000 earmarks and failed bailout, weak position on terrorism, CIA interrogation, highly deceptive communications lacking credibility and accountability.

Support was expressed for protecting the Second and 22nd amendments, return to a constitutional government with sanctity of life values. Private health reform was stressed.

The community response was 80-percent favorable with horns sounding, waves of encouragement and voices expressing similar concerns.

A business owner volunteered their facilities and services and expressed desire to participate in this event.

Across America, millions of alarms are sounding, in fact some churches bells in Sequim and Port Angeles rang advocating the need to return to constitutional government principles. It's not about a black president, it's about a radically wrong direction of this leadership.

It's time for every American regardless of political affiliation to come to reason and know that we are being fractured and destroyed from within by this faulty administration with non-American principles and agenda resulting in corruption of every description.

Obama's constant stream of verbalization demonstrates his inability to listen to America, so get involved in an organization to defend our country.

Don Albright

Sequim



Keep Calhoun on port commission



I am writing this letter in support of John Calhoun for Port of Port Angeles commissioner. I believe he is the most qualified and the right person to direct port business for our communities.

The port's overarching mission is economic development, and the best metric for evaluating success is numbers of jobs created. Creating jobs by enabling business enterprise to prosper is job one for the port.

John's background and experience in resource management and his innovative approaches finding balance in natural resource protection and commercial opportunity that create sustainable family wage jobs uniquely qualify him for port commissioner and therefore warrants his re-election.

A thriving port is a critical asset for the peninsula's commercial well-being. Also, protecting the environmental quality of the port area around Port Angeles is critical to quality of life and downtown economic health too.

John has demonstrated the energy, capacity and skills to maintain this most critical balance. Let's re-elect John and enable him to continue his work stewarding our port and our sustainable economic future on the peninsula.

Al Vaughan

Forks