Letters to the editor

The following are letters to the editor that appeared in the Aug. 5 print edition of The Peninsula Gateway. To submit a letter, e-mail gatewayeditor@gateline.com. Please keep letters submissions to 250 words.

Don’t let group’s claims confuse you on KP Fire lid lift levy vote

A group — mainly one person — calling itself “responsibility first” is trying to confuse Key Peninsula voters. Here is the truth:

First, the “group” claims that the Key Peninsula Fire Department doesn’t have drug testing. Its claim is false. Key Peninsula Fire has a drug policy and procedure in place that has been used successfully. It employs a policy that is the standard of the industry, endorsed by the Washington State Council of Firefighters and utilized by most of the departments in Washington State.

Secondly, this group says KP Fire doesn’t have a fitness standard. That’s also false. KP Fire actually uses the same standards as Tacoma Fire and even uses the same testing agency for annual evaluations of both career and volunteer members.

Truth be told, it isn’t about fitness or drugs. It’s an internal battle between two commissioners. Tell them to leave our fire department out of their fight.

Join me in taking “responsibility” for the safety of this community, and vote yes for our fire department.

Chuck West, Key Peninsula Fire Department employee, Key Center

Physical fitness, drug policy a higher priority than lid lift levy

I am sure a lid lift levy failure will bring changes to Fire District 16, but I fear not the changes the voters want.

When I was running for office, there were headlines telling of a person at FD16 having trouble with drugs, and I think that’s what started the people demanding I do something about it, if elected.

That incident cost your fire department many thousands of dollars and the department’s insurance company more than a quarter million in settlement costs. We paid because we didn’t follow policy, and it was cheaper to settle out of court. Substance-abuse testing would have caught that case before it happened.

Can anyone be physically fit and obese at the same time? I don’t think so. At one of the training sessions I attended, one of the speakers addressed the audience of firefighters, police officers and others and said it best: “The day you put on that uniform is the day you gave up the right to be unfit.”

Recently, I was talking to a firefighter in another district more than 100 miles away, and, naturally, he’d heard of the problems here. He told me, “I met one of your chiefs a while back, and I wondered, ‘If they aren’t using drugs or alcohol, why are they afraid to test? And if they want to be firefighters, how can they be so fat and expect to do the job?’ ”

I had no answer for him.

Our policies are setting us up for a disaster where lives are lost. Responsibility first, before more taxes.

Allen A. Yanity, Key Peninsula Fire District 16 Commissioner, Lakebay

Corrections officers are mediators, role models for offenders

I am a correction officer who protects offenders, visitors, volunteers, staff and the citizens of Gig Harbor. I work at the Washington Corrections Center for Women.

I want everybody to know it’s vitally important that male correction officers share equally at the facility the Yin and Yang concept — courage, protectiveness, organization is masculine energy; sensitivity, emotions, nurturing is feminine energy. Both male and female possess yin and yang.

As both parents share responsibility for the care of their children, both male and female officers share responsibility for offenders without biases or prejudices while they perform their many duties as a correctional offenders.

As an officer, I do not only correct offenders’ negative behavior but many times act as a mediator, counselor and role model. Correction officers are critical to the stabilization, education and information assistance of offenders.

Whether the offender is departing the institution today or five years from now, it’s just as important they are updated on society’s trends, hardships, education, job opportunities and inflation. The offender needs to prepare themselves and set goals for what goes on outside the institution.

Both female and male correction officers play a vital role in giving knowledge to the offenders, role modeling proper behavior in front of the offenders and reflecting professionalism toward them, so they can have a successful life once they depart the Washington Corrections Center for Women.

Steve McConnell, Gig Harbor

Find sex predators in your area and re-educate your children

As the heart of summer approaches and the search for 10-year-old Lindsey Baum of McCleary continues, it’s important for parents to remember that this can happen to any child in any area — even in the safety net of Gig Harbor.

Children are playing outside later in the evenings. Currently, there are sex offenders in the Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula areas whose crimes vary from sexual misconduct with a minor to the rape of a child.

I encourage parents visit www.icrimewatch.net/index.php?AgencyID=54599 and identify the closest sex offenders, and also to educate and re-educate their children on safety.

Nicole Modun, Gig Harbor

Full-service Fred Meyer would help keep tax money locally

Re: Fred Meyer full-service store.

I think Fred Meyer would be an asset to Gig Harbor, as I shop in Port Orchard, along with my friends, because they have a better selection.

Now some people want a bowling alley in the harbor so we don’t have to go across the bridge. They could use the old Fred Meyer building if a new full-service store goes in. That way, we keep money here in Pierce County and not in Kitsap County.

Gig Harbor North would be a great place to keep all the big stores located in one area. All I read about is not enough money being generated in our area, so let’s keep the money and people in our area.

B. Allen Wilson, Gig Harbor

Government takeover must stop before it becomes a dictatorship

I’m sure someone at President Obama’s office has thought of this, but I thought I would express my thoughts about Cash for Clunkers.

Has anyone thought of the consequences of taking the clunkers off the streets? The auto parts retailers don’t sell many parts to people who own new cars — they rely mostly on service to older cars.

If hundreds of thousands of cars are taken off the streets to satisfy the auto industry, now owned mostly by the government and the unions, the sales of replacement parts will be seriously curtailed.

That not only affects retail stores but the suppliers of those parts and the mechanics who install them.

It makes work for the UAW, but to heck with the thousands of workers who are being curtailed.

Does that satisfy Obama, to make work for the unions? It certainly does — at the expense of all the rest in the replacement chain.

The idea of the government getting control of industries is affecting us all. We, as citizens, must unite to stop this takeover by the government of our lives and the way we live.

It will soon be a dictatorship if we do not stop it now.

Marsh Allen, Gig Harbor

What would universal health care ultimately cost taxpayers?

Re: “Health care issue debate will continue (Gateway letters, July 29).

The writer claims most civilized nations provide universal health care for their citizens, and it works. Canada spends half of what the United States does per citizen. Its secret to efficient and effective health care is only possible when you remove the financial burdens of for-profit medicine, high executive salaries, dividends to investors, lobbyists, etc.

But the writer ignores Medicare-Medicaid fraud (U.W., $300 million) and our high density of sue-you-guys-and-gals. Also, U.S. drug companies backed by risk-taking, for-profit investors pay high development costs for most of the new drugs used by those countries at bargain prices.

With low defense and drug research costs, they have freeloaded for decades on our for-profit system. Their socialism, low Gross Domestic Product and high taxes have resulted in decades of unemployment ranging from about 8 percent to 20 percent or more.

Why pick on for-profit medicine when risk and potential profit is the incentive for development? Most non-profits are really non-taxables. We’ve tried real non-profit financial institutions, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Why not non-profit airplane manufacturers, non-profit farmers or non-profit grocery stores?

Medicare has low-admin costs because, too often, they just write checks. Private insurers often question payments, catching double billing and other “mistakes.” They provide services Medicare completely ignores or furnish catastrophic backup. My insurance company answers the phone in minutes, while Medicare is unreachable.

If the top 5 percent of for-profit risk takers in the United States disappear, who will pay for all this? If the debasers of our dollar succeed, the final U.S. universal health care question may well be, “What is the cost of universal coverage in Pesos?”

John Stadler, Fox Island

State Legislature must work to help fund higher education

The 2009 Legislature dealt with our state’s fiscal crisis in a way that sought to avoid lasting harm to public higher education. However, a combination of deep budget cuts and steep tuition increases has led some to speculate we have crossed an important divide.

This biennium, four of our six baccalaureate institutions will receive more than 50 percent of their operating revenue from tuition and fees. From 2007-09, state support for those institutions averaged 64 percent of operating revenue.

Have we started down the path to a privatized funding model for our public higher education institutions? We hope not.

We need a serious discussion about the future of higher education and a re-affirmation of why it’s a solid and necessary public investment.

Broad and affordable college access enables societies to compete in our increasingly complex and integrated world. Many states and nations are making the investment to raise education levels among their citizens.

But Washington is failing to meet that challenge. Rather, we’re importing people with degrees to fill our best jobs. We need to do better.

The state’s master plan for higher education calls for a 40 percent annual increase in degree and certificate attainment by 2018. We believe that goal is attainable, but we recognize much work will be needed.

A new System Design Plan authorized by the Legislature — the first in 30 years — will provide rational rules for growth to help expand higher education access to the communities and populations that need it most.

Now is not the time to sit on the sidelines of this important discussion. We need advocates who can explain the importance of higher education to all the people of the state.

Ann Daley, Executive Director, Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board, Olympia

America’s ‘War on Drugs’ has been counter-productive

A drug-free America is a myth. As long as there is a supply and a demand, neither will go away. Our trillion-dollar, counter-productive “war on drugs” has been waging for more than 40 years with no success.

Some common sense should be used regarding the fight against addictions and the crimes perpetrated due to drugs. The outlawing of drugs has not made them magically go away. Quite the contrary.

The prison population of those incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses has soared more than 2,500 percent. America has become the largest jailer in the world with our incarceration of drug addicts and the mentally ill.

Jack A. Cole, head of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, said, “You can get over an addiction, but you can never get over a conviction.”

Lou Krewson, Stanwood