Of May Day marchers’ demands

Regarding the May Day protest and illegal aliens:

The paper covered a protest march for farmworkers. One person is even quoted as saying, “The day was about fighting for workers who don’t receive adequate health care, wages or government aid.” I also see a Mexican flag being carried in the picture the paper ran.

This may not be politically correct, but if you come to this country (illegally), don’t be demanding government aid benefits, free schooling, etc., and then be shouting your demands in Spanish while doing so. That is not the way to win my or others’ support.

Those things being demanded (ie. health care and government benefits) are not free; someone has to pay for them. Personally, I don’t want my taxes to keep going up to pay for those benefits for illegal aliens who pick and choose what laws they want to obey. Also, waving a flag from another country in my face while demanding those things is so wrong.

Chris Sternick
Burlington


Meeting on PSE gouging slated

On May 20, joint hearings will be held in Bellingham that will determine just how badly Puget Sound Energy’s captive customers will be gouged on future electric and natural gas bills. First, it’s imperative that the public loudly protest PSE’s latest rate hike request, which will “increase the monthly residential electric basic charge from $6.02 to $9,” according to PSE.

There are other add-ons, but this one amounts to a staggering 49.5 percent increase — more inflationary than the past year’s whopping jump in the price of gasoline. And there was another price to pay. PSE has provided demonstrably poorer service to its customers since laying off most of its repair and maintenance staff in an effort to improve its bottom line. Why? To make this increasingly inept and overwhelmed utility an attractive buyout target.

And guess what?

PSE is being bought out, pending Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) approval, by a consortium composed largely of Australian and Canadian trusts and management groups. Collectively, these partners have a sorry track record of bleeding regional utility acquisitions in order to obtain lavish returns for investors. Expect to pay much higher rates to absentee owners in the future while feeling the brunt of scaled-back repair and maintenance programs aimed at boosting profits and dividends.

If you have any interest in keeping your electric and gas rates within reason over the coming years and decades, you owe it to yourself to speak out against PSE’s demands at the May 20 UTC hearings to be held at Bellingham’s Senior Activity Center at 315 Halleck St.

At the same time, provide active support to Skagit PUD’s efforts to assume operation of PSE’s holdings in our county. Local, nonprofit control of our utilities is the only way of assuring future generations of affordable rates and responsible, responsive management.

Roger Miller
Bow


About PSE’s plans: It’s simple

Regarding the May 7 letter titled, “It’d be business as usual at PSE”:

The author of the letter identified himself as the “Manager, Local Government and Community Relations, Puget Sound Energy.”

Fair enough.

He’s doing the job he gets paid to do. He delivers the message that PSE wants you to read. He also omits a few important facts in the process.

Personally, I should care less whether or not PSE stock is “owned by institutional investors that span the globe” and is “traded on the New York Stock Exchange.” The water PSE uses belongs to us! No water, no “institutional investors.” Besides, how many of those “investors that span the globe” support our nation’s infrastructure and public schools, or have sons and daughters in our military? Really! Exactly how many?

One of the proposed new owners (from Australia) has a name. It is Macquarie. It also has a reputation — a highly questionable one. Search the Web! Find out for yourself! (And you thought Enron was bad.) The information is out there! Only a fool would believe lawmakers aren’t privy to it, too.

It’s really quite simple: Who will elected officials honor? Will it be we the people or will it be Macquarie and “investors that span the globe”? Will they agree to the further sell-off of America?

Any lawmaker who puts the interests of Macquarie and foreign investors ahead of ours does not deserve to be re-elected.

See? I said it was simple!

Richard Austin
Mount Vernon


Will commissioners defend public?

Regarding Karla Stevens’ May 8 letter: 

I find it very interesting that someone from Mount Vernon can stereotype us Bow Hill Mill neighbors as a bunch of “complainers” just because we want the Bow Hill Mill to operate legally. Would she not complain if one of her neighbors were selling drugs out of his or her house at all hours of the day and night? Maybe not — if they had lived there longer than she had.

Anyway, the mill’s neighbors I know are not trying to shut the mill down; they just wish the Port Gardner Timber Company would quit violating its special-use permit 92-006 and Skagit County Code 14.16.900(2)(b)(iii) by often operating the mill before 7 a.m. until after 9 p.m., and on many Saturdays. My neighbor, the mill, is clearly violating the law by operating before 7 a.m. and after 4:30 p.m., and I have an obligation to complain about it, just like most people should complain about their neighbors selling drugs. Breaking the law is breaking the law.

Further, most people would expect the police to protect the public by enforcing the law and stop the neighbor from selling drugs; likewise, my neighbors and I expect the commissioners to enforce the special-use permit they approved and the county’s regulations.

Isn’t that what they were elected to do? It would set a very scary precedent for county homeowners if the commissioners rule against the public and allow the mill to continue to break the law. And it would be even worse if they “reinterpreted” the special-use permit to condone the mill’s law-breaking.

Dana Dixon
Bow