MVSD students need librarians

I am shocked that the MVSD is considering the removal of half its librarians. The library is the heart of academic institutions across the nation. Have we lost sight of our purpose? Aren’t we supposed to instill and model the value of knowledge and the power it provides to improve the quality of our lives?

What does it say to students when the library is reduced to a video store? You check books in, and you check them out? There’s nothing to it? Who will teach them how to use the tools of an academic or help them select a book that interests them at their reading level?

According to Mila Ramos, author of “The Role of Librarians in the 21st Century,” librarians “give value to the needs and expectations of people that enter the library.”

Every single interaction with a librarian has “raised my expectations” of what I could learn and accomplish from books, magazines, journals, encyclopedias and Web sites.

I understand budget restraints all too well, but when I’ve needed to “cut back” it’s been an agonizing process of giving up the latte I don’t need and figuring out how to improve my spending habits. I’ve been tempted to “sell the car” for a quick fix, but soon concluded that it gets me to work. Cutting librarians is a quick fix.

It makes absolutely no sense to reduce the number of librarians in our district. They are at the heart of why we do what we do. The public school system is an entire community working together to provide what kids need and come to expect from life.

Librarians meet with our kids one-on-one every day to teach and encourage them to use knowledge to become the best they can be. Why would we consider removing them?

Tracy Hall
MVSD employee/parent
Mount Vernon


Need smart approach to growth

To paraphrase Mayor Bud Norris at the recent City Council meeting in regard to expanding the Urban Growth Area (UGA): I would also like to go on record and say that I don’t want to look back in 20 years and realize I did nothing.

In response, I say, I am not against growth — just unnecessary growth — bad growth. I was dismayed to see my hometown of Vancouver, Wash., swell from 40,000 to more than 120,000 in less than 20 years. I watched the farm communities of Battle Ground and Brush Prairie get swallowed by sprawl. Woodland, too. Even Camas; its smelly smokestacks notwithstanding. Clark County is now the most densely populated county in the state. The farms are gone.

I left Clark County saddened at what it has become. Recently, my husband and I moved to Mount Vernon to be active participants in a community.

I am not asking the mayor to shut the door behind me. I am asking him to take a hard look at Mount Vernon; then take a drive to Marysville and visit the decaying parts of the city. Drive to the new sprawling developments, without sidewalks or safe roads to walk or bicycle on. Then he should ask himself: How can we create the type of long-term growth that would make people want to live here, work here and stay here?

I also was very disappointed with Norris’ closing remarks. I would have respected his opinion if he had calmly restated his support for the UGA without pointing the finger at the attendees’ “inconsistencies” and explaining why he were more qualified to make this decision than the people who voted him in. He requested that the public remain respectful of him, the council and the hearing process, but it appears that he failed to follow his own request.

Heather A. Romano
Mount Vernon


$14 million MV parking garage?

The revitalization plan for the city of Mount Vernon has an estimated cost of $32 million broken down into $18 million for flood control and $14 million for a parking garage ($20,000+ per parking space).

According to people presenting at the Planning Commission meeting this month, the plan is a “re-hash” of a 1960 plan. The ideas and concepts are 40-plus years old and do not fit or reflect all the current and future needs of our community. Protecting the downtown from floods for $18 million is a much higher priority than building a $14 million parking garage in this time of rising transportation and living costs.

Preserving our city historical buildings provides a special character to our downtown, yet the City Council will review and pass judgment on the plan June 11, before the consultant even presents the report. Planning for the future means emphasizing people and open spaces with fewer cars in the city core; therefore, there’d be no need for a parking garage. Downtown employees should be encouraged to park in a park-and-ride lot and shuttle into the downtown core.

Increased free public transit from park-and-ride lots and free shuttles for pedestrians in the downtown core will be less expensive than a parking garage and will help preserve the unique character of our downtown.

Voice your concerns to our City Council members now about spending $14 million of taxpayer money on a parking garage.

Gerry Douglas
Mount Vernon


If fluoridation were as they say …

If fluoridation were the wonderful practice that promoters claim it to be, then they would behave differently. They would be happy to openly debate the issue with expert opponents. They wouldn’t have to use endorsements of biased “authorities.”

They wouldn’t have to denigrate opponents. They wouldn’t have to pressure the media to hold back stories. They wouldn’t have to deny our individual rights. They wouldn’t have to ignore, obfuscate or deny the findings of the NRC (2006) review concerning fluoride’s dangers.

They wouldn’t have to intimidate government officials, water department personnel, scientific researchers or individuals who speak up on the issue. They wouldn’t have to overwhelm local authorities with armies of whitecoats when they have the wisdom to reject fluoridation. They wouldn’t be afraid of doing the research that would demonstrate its safety.

They would be willing to study scientifically the many anecdotal stories of people who claim — and can often demonstrate — their sensitivity to fluoride. Sadly, the officials and “professionals” who continue to force fluoridation on a largely unsuspecting public do not have the confidence in this practice which they verbally extol. Thus they stoop to many of the dubious tactics above.

Why? Because they have the power and they are willing to misuse it. They often get away with it because not enough people are outraged by their bullying tactics.

Jo Roark
Mount Vernon


Few attend Memorial Day services

Memorial Day 2008 was a recent three-day national weekend with memorial services available each day.

A Saturday service rededicated Memorial Highway in commemoration of Skagit County’s World War I fallen military. It was well done. It reviewed the history behind naming Highway 536 as Memorial Highway, a history unknown to many today. A rollcall of Skagit County’s World War I fallen was read, and each tolled. And carrier pigeons were released, depicting the freedom we hold, by being victorious in World War I, etc.

The rededication of Memorial Highway was due to the vision and efforts of citizen/veteran LeRoy Anderson. He was aided by master gardeners and WSU’s Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center.

A Sunday memorial service was held at the Trinity Anglican Church in Mount Vernon. It was a “homey” service in a church setting. The Trinity Anglican Church memorial service was open to the public and ecumenical, meaning that it was reverent but not “churchy.”

On Memorial Day, services were conducted at various local cemeteries by veteran organizations, (i.e. the American Legion or the Veterans of Foreign Wars), in concert with the Boy Scouts or the Burlington-Edison High School ROTC, depending on the cemetery.

There was ample opportunity for the public to attend a Memorial Day service over the Memorial Day weekend. The community pages of the local print media informed the public of the Memorial Day services. But the three Memorial Day services were poorly attended: Most attendees were seniors!

America’s freedom is not free. We are free only because of those who went before. If we do not reflect upon and honor those who establish/maintain our freedom, we could lose our cherished freedom — for example, freedom some “take for granted” as a birthright.

Some need to wake up. We are in troubled times.

Roger Pederson
Mount Vernon