Only slap on wrist for DUI drivers

I just read in the Friday, Oct 3, paper that a Mount Vernon man is facing his 14th DUI arrest. At the most, he could get five years.

OK, let’s see here. If I get three friends with clean records, and we start going out and Driver One gets busted, the next time we’d switch. Let’s see here. Four DUIs multiplied by three, that equals getting caught 12 times and earning only a slap on the wrist. We cannot be sending this kind of thing out.

I know that the jails are overcrowded. We need to find a way to free up the jails so someone’s loved one does not become a victim of a stupid crime that could have been stopped. Any ideas?

Tom McNair
Mount Vernon


Power-supplying PUDs doing well

I have become quite interested in what’s transpiring in this county on Proposition 1, due to the large onslaught of anti-PUD advertising by PSE. I have found similar activity is occurring in Island and Jefferson counties, as well. It is probably as a result of PSE’s request to the State Utility Commission to merge with a consortium of Australian and Canadian investors and take the company private, eliminating all stockholders. The alternative appears to be to implement a PUD; hence Proposition 1.

In researching the available PUD data, I find there are 28 PUDs in operation statewide, with 23 of the 28 supplying power.  Additionally, I find every one of these 23 PUD’s has a lower residential rate than PSE, who sits at the top of the rate chart with another rate-increase request still pending with the State Utility Commission.

I note also that most of these PUDs operate their own locally based service and repair crews, which not only helps their local economies but makes them more responsive to local service failures. I am voting yes on this proposition and urge all concerned to follow suit.

The PSE billboard theme “Government Takeover” seems somewhat inappropriate in this instance.

To paraphrase Walt Kelly’s Pogo: We have seen the government, and it is us.

Wally McKinley
Sedro-Woolley


Acorn being falsely maligned

Recent letters to the editor attempt to portray the volunteer organization Acorn as evil because of a voter fraud case four years ago. What the writers failed to acknowledge is that it was Acorn that discovered the fraud perpetrated by the people it hired, and it was Acorn that reported it to the state for prosecution.

None of the fraudulent voter registrations resulted in votes. Now the U.S. attorney general has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate if our regional U.S. attorney was fired because he wouldn’t turn this into a political issue to support Republicans.

I suspect opposition to Acorn is part of the continuing efforts of the Republican Party and its fellow travelers to deny certain citizens their right to vote. Voter suppression by intimidating voters and denying equal voting space is widespread across our country.

The attack on Obama as an Acorn activist clearly shows that those writing the letters have done no independent research that would have shown them that his connection was to help with a lawsuit partnered with the U.S. government to enforce the Motor Voter Act in Illinois.

My personal experience with Acorn involves three two-month trips to New Orleans, where I volunteered with Acorn, cleaning up after Katrina. During these activities, I joined literally thousands of other volunteers from all over North America and beyond as we mucked out devastated homes.

This past year, there were federal funds involved as Acorn took on the project of removing lead paint from homes and schools where children have tested for high rates of lead. What a bargain, as Acorn provided volunteer labor and the government supplied the materials. Compared to the failures of business and government at all levels to respond to Katrina, Acorn and similar groups stand out as a major success.

Vince Sellen
Anacortes


PUD’s Prop. 1 would OK studies

The recent Burlington Library presentation by proponents of Proposition 1 concerning the current hot topic of the formation of a PUD electrical service was very informative! There is a lot of misinformation swirling about initial start-up costs, tax revenue bases, access to renewable energy and, most disturbing, the misunderstanding about exactly what a yes vote on Proposition 1 means.

The ballot language itself is misleading. A yes vote for Proposition 1 does not authorize Skagit County to begin providing electric power. Rather, it authorizes feasibility studies along with public hearings.

In a 1932 speech, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “Where a community is not satisfied with the service rendered or the rates charged by the private utility, it has the undeniable basic right, as one of its functions of government, one of its functions of home rule, to set up, after a fair referendum to its voters has been had, its own governmentally owned and operated service.”

This right is guaranteed us by RCW 54.

This proposition is not a blank check to raise taxes, increase rates or issue revenue bonds. Skagit PUD would not move along in the process if it could not offer competitive rates. The facts speak for themselves.

Washington state has 23 PUDs with lower rates than Skagit citizens currently pay PSE. PSE seems to enjoy touting Orcas Power rates as an example of “higher PUD rates,” when in fact Orcas is a cooperative rather than a PUD, which includes many islands with fewer residents served by costly underwater cable.

Ask yourselves: If PSE is so interested in our community, why has it offered to sell PSE stock, giving full control of the utility to Macquarie Bank of Australia?

Give Skagit PUD permission to see if public power works for us! Vote yes on PUD Proposition 1 on Nov. 4!

Sue Shellenberger
Bow


Clear Skagit’s logjams, silt buildup

To the county commissioners, the flood-control zone advisory committee and all other members, and the editorial board:

The threat facing us is piled up in the river. There are logjams from Marblemount to Sedro-Woolley, and if any one, two or three break loose at one time, we’ll have a wrecking ball coming down the river that nothing can stop. Mother Nature will clear her drainage systems; nature cleared the Chehalis River drainage because men failed to. We can prevent that if we just take the logjams out now.

It will help stop flooding, and to aid that effort, remove the buildup of silt from the north and south fork outlet. Water will flow more quickly to the bay if not blocked by silt or logjams. The pile of logs and buildings in Chehalis is 100 yards wide, 400 yards long and 40 feet high. If nature clears the Skagit, it will be 10 to 15 times more disastrous here. Roads, bridges, pipelines, cities, freeways and lives will be lost.

This plan would do the least damage to the environment and would do the most to help stop flooding. If someone has a better plan, step forward. If you agree with my plan, then e-mail the commissioners and flood committees.

Ring dikes work when they are maintained. New Orleans’ millions in maintenance money was used for casinos. Who did that? The Army Corps of Engineers? Could we have and audit to see what our $14 million was spent on? We got nothing for it?

Charles R. Stroud
Burlington


Macquarie is part of this issue

PSE’s anti-PUD campaign, led by a Seattle lobbying firm using a UPS mailbox in Burlington, focuses on scare tactics to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt into the minds of voters. In a costly attempt to defeat PUD Proposition 1, PSE has already contributed more than $230,000 of ratepayer money to this campaign.

Macquarie Group’s shares have lost as much as 65 percent this year and are far from its level of nearly $97 a share in May last year. The UTC has reopened PSE’s records to consider recent financial news on reports of Macquarie’s negative credit rating and its ability to pay debt.

Investors now say Macquarie is less likely to repay its debt. Standard & Poors gives Macquarie an A-minus credit rating; yet Macquarie Treasurer Wayne Swan claims Macquarie is rated with Australia’s Big Four banks that carry credit ratings of AA or higher. Who do you believe?

Prop. 1 is not a “blank check,” as ads assert. If the voters pass PUD Prop. 1 and further in-depth feasibility studies determine that PUD cannot afford acquisition of the facilities without burdening Skagit County electric customers, it won’t happen.

Macquarie Group has no interest in our locale or our regional growth and well-being. To Macquarie, we are a speck on the fly paper; our local needs are not even on its radar screen.

Vote yes on Prop. 1 on Nov. 4. Save our community from global greed.

John Vieira
Mount Vernon


Vote to positively change system

The tenor of many of the letters to the editor lately reflects a sense of public outrage and frustration with the political process.

If you vote good people into a bad system they will do bad things. Therefore, changing the system in order to attract good candidates or to help prevent good ones from going astray should be a fundamental goal. It can be done.

Two candidates worthy of support this year are Washington Public Campaigns and Instant Runoff Voting. You can find out all about them by Googling their names. Washington Public Campaigns is working effectively to remove the big-money influence from political races while Instant Runoff Voting is making it possible for voters to unburden themselves of the unfair winner-take-all election results we are often presented with now.

Change in the system can happen rapidly if enough people take part.

Gene Derig
Anacortes