Letters, letters, letters

The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer's name, address and phone number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday.

* * *

To the Editor:

Regarding your article on horses in Tollgate. I was very upset that the ad-hoc committee formed to review horses in Tollgate did not include any horse owners. I don't know if excluding horse owners was intentional, but at best, it was poor judgment.

Ad-hoc committees should be comprised of a mixture of property owners representing all sides of an issue. For this reason, I recently sent a letter to the Tollgate Board asking them to stop any further actions of this committee until its membership includes Tollgate horse owners. However, I don't know if the Board is going to follow my suggestion.

I don't own a horse, but I enjoy seeing the few horses we have in Tollgate. I prefer the smell of horses to the smell of smoke from the smoldering burn piles and the pre-code wood stoves we have here. I would like to see burning banned in Tollgate.

But the point is, both horses and burning are allowed here, and removing existing rights creates hardships for members of our community. Surely Tollgate owners can work together on this issue and resolve the disputes between individual neighbors without eliminating everyone's horse rights.

Nancy Kelm

Ed. Note: We were told a horse owner was included on the ad hoc committee.

* * *

To the Editor:

I'm responding to Gary Bickford's criticism of TheNugget for chastising Gordon Smith on his anti-Death With Dignity Act vote. I agree completely with TheNugget's position. Gordon Smith placed his religious values above those of his constituents and we who do not share them are stuck with the result.

Mr. Bickford states ..."you cannot deny the rightness of his vote without denying the fundamental purpose of the American Republic, along with at least two millennia of thought regarding truth, morality and honor. Plato's Republic is a good place to start."

Whew! That covers a whole lot of moralizing. Especially since Bickford is making it all up according to his values. There are many who believe that actively opposing Death With Dignity is a sadistic, immoral intrusion on a dying person's right to end his/her misery. My view is that neither Federal Drug agents nor pompous moralizers like Mr. Bickford and Gordon Smith should be allowed to poke their sanctimonious blue noses into the last agonizing days of someone suffering the excruciating pain of lingering death.

Plato be damned. This is 2000 AD, not BC.

As for Bickford leading a discussion on these airy topics based on the writings of the crotchety reactionary Allan Bloom, who could stand it? Mr. Bickford has already set the morality parameters. What's to discuss? It probably wouldn't be any fun anyway. He sounds like one of those boring professors I had in college who could put students into a coma faster than you could say "Plato."

R.T. Tihista

* * *

To the Editor:

It is so hard to say good-bye to old timers of Sisters, when they started it all.

The Shaws were active in so many things. He worked on the road going to Prineville. He worked on the first road in and out of Sisters, Lundgren Mill Road. He worked on the road to the County dump, it was left of the Mill road. In 1972 the dump was closed and the road to the dump should of been closed, graded up, and back to the forest.

Large mills and many small mills on the Mill road, when the small mills came down, houses went up.

People in Sisters wanted the town to stay an antique logging town. Merchants were all doing good. The only store needed was the Nugget paper, hardware store, and a lumberyard.

We had no crime in town, churches gave away free clothes, thrift store gave away clothes to those that wanted them.

When the ranches were developed, greed came to Sisters. One subdivision after another opened up, no one kept the antique logging atmosphere.

To the people living in Sisters, please live to bring glory to God.

To those living in the subdivisions, you didn't carry out the antique logging atmosphere.

God bless you all.

May Burchard