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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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:

The house on the front page of The Nugget (website) holds many of my childhood memories.

My grandparents used to own it and I stayed there every summer. I am sad to see that it is one of the houses that have burned in the fire. I hope no more houses burn in this fire.

I wish luck to all of the hard-working men and women who are helping save homes and lives.

Amanda Kinney

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To the Editor:

Thanks to Eric Dolson, Jim Cornelius and all The Nugget staff who worked over the weekend to update the paper's website with breaking news on the Cache Mountain fire.

As the recent owner-publisher of a weekly newspaper in another part of "fire country," I can appreciate the importance of accurate, updated information for full-time residents, vacation property owners or their relatives.

Last July in the Methow Valley of Washington my paper was faced with a similar situation related to the Thirtymile Fire, which took the lives of four firefighters. I personally reported on that fire and the subsequent Forest Service and congressional inquiries.

As has The Nugget, we used our web page to provide information to readers between weekly print editions of the paper.

The news of the Cache Mountain fire has been especially important to me. My middle school daughter and her mother recently moved to a small ranch property east of Sisters. I was driving on Highway 20 while on my way to fish the Metolius when the Tuesday (July 23) thunderstorm apparently started the fire.

And last Friday I returned to Seattle via Highway 20, stopping around Suttle Lake to view the smoke rising from the fire.

On Sunday afternoon I learned via a Seattle television station that Black Butte Ranch would be evacuated and that Highway 20 was closed to the west -- a remarkable escalation since my trip just a few days earlier.

I've advised my Sisters friends and relatives, and those in Seattle, to follow The Nugget online. News related to a fire may evolve rapidly and dramatically -- and requires a careful filtering process to separate fact from fiction and rumor.

The Nugget commendably realized the importance of this story and allocated its news skills and online resources to serve the community.

Thanks for the fine effort,

Lee Hicks

Former publisher

Methow Valley News

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To the Editor:

Thank you for your fine coverage of the Cache Mountain fire.

We have a house on Bracken Lane in Black Butte which was in the path of the fire yesterday evening. We quite expected that our home would be gone this morning and have struggled to find adequate information until we found your website.

Your stories and photos have helped us understand what has been going on and has relieved some of the helplessness we've felt during this crisis.

Keep up the excellent reporting.

Sawyer Family

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To the Editor:

After reading the article about the Outlaw Cafe in The Nugget, July 24, I felt compelled to address some statements made by Jim Cheatham.

In the article Mr. Cheatham is quoted, while referring to Sisters High School students, as saying "You should see how they dress to apply for a job;" "...they are unwilling to work their way up from the hard, basic jobs to the plum positions;" "They want the fun jobs first."

I'm not in the restaurant business. I supervise a silviculture thinning crew for the Sisters Ranger District and have been hiring Sisters High School students for several years.

The students I've hired, and had work for me, Nicole Rogers, Chris Small, Garrett Brink, Nate Goodwin, Brett Van Houten, James La Mere, Jacob Baynes, Jeff Priest, Dusty Macauley, and Lizzie Affonso are the backbone and reason for success, of this thinning, tree planting, firefighting crew.

These young people have always been willing to dive into the dirtiest, most arduous, and unrewarding jobs with enthusiasm, good spirits, and professionalism.

Seven of the nine crew members this year are Outlaws. This crew is respected, and sought after throughout the region (Oregon and Washington) for their expertise in riparian reclamation work. Not only do these kids work hard at their job, they have also volunteered their time and energy to help with Campfire, Boy Scouts, grade school, high school, and 4H projects.

This spring I had the pleasure of working with Sisters High School in their IKE program. The group I was involved with, Resa Hodson, Amy Cretsinger, Noel Kimbrough, Whitney Smith, Angela Chick, Brittany Burdict, assessed some of the problems with aspen regeneration at Black Butte Swamp and came up with a solution that involved a lot of hard work and sweat.

For several days the girls dragged slash out into the edge of the meadow and created a natural barrier to keep the elk from eating all the aspen regeneration before it got knee high. Not only were they successful in keeping the elk out, they also produced an excellent presentation that they gave to the Sisters grade school students.

My point with this letter is not to refute anything Jim Cheatham has said, but to let people know that there are many Sisters students and grads out there who are quite willing to work themselves up from the "hard basic jobs."

The Outlaws I've hired have all been a credit to their parents, the school, the community, the Forest Service, and to themselves.

David Priest

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To the Editor:

I just had an interesting interaction with one of our many visitors. They had illegally parked their 70-foot RV in the parking spaces in front of the library.

He pointed out that there are no signs telling visitors that we have an ordinance prohibiting using more than one parking space.

He also noted that there were several other huge RVs taking up multiple parking spaces. Then he mentioned that they were spending money in our town.

What with Weitech, SISS, and Alpine Internet all leaving town this summer, maybe it is time for the city council to start thinking about catering to the tourists who support us working folks.

Maybe a parking lot so more restaurants could be opened downtown. Something to keep this town from going out of business.

Bruce Berryhill