Letters to the Editor 06/08/2005

To the Editor:

In case you haven’t heard, there is an important issue facing our community that needs your immediate attention.

We all know about McDonald’s coming in (the store is under construction on the west end of town). That puts Sisters on the map for other chain and fast-food restaurants (so-called “formula food” restaurants because they all serve the same cuisine everywhere USA).

These restaurants pose a threat to the unique image and character of Sisters, one that is NOT everywhere USA, as well as to our locally grown and operated restaurants. Other communities around the country have put a stop to the takeover by these huge chains and so can we!

The Sisters City Council will hold a public hearing Thursday, June 9, at 7 p.m. to hear a proposed ordinance recommended for unanimous approval by the Sisters Planning Commission that would ban any additional formula restaurants in Sisters.

We currently have four and these would be allowed to remain with limitations on where they locate. This is a fair compromise. Please attend the public hearing and give support to this ordinance!

Linda Davis

s s s

To the Editor:

The letter trom John Simpkins in The Nugget, June 1, implies that everyone at the second hearing by the Planning Commission greeted the announcements concerning formula restaurants with applause. I do not know the percentage, but it was definitely not all of the people there.

In the letter trom Sandy Marlow in the same issue, she notes appreciation for several of the non-formula restaurants in Sisters. She’s right that they worked hard and deserve recognition for their efforts. However: 1) All of them were developed before the beginning of SDCs (systems development charges). 2) Most did not build their own building. 3) Land costs were significantly lower. Therefore, it is much more difficult now to do what they did.

The tourist segment of the local economy has a significant feast and famine cycle. Many businesses have been established by people full of high hopes and big dreams. Now they are gone. Some have even lost their entire investment. If they didn’t match their product or service to the customer base, they didn’t survive. Special legislation was not created to save them.

Most of the tourist businesses who do remain year after year, are subsidized in some way from private sources, including savings, investments, a spouse with a second income, local customers, etc. Of all of the different types of businesses that serve tourists, current restaurants are the one type that gets significant support from local customers. At our store, we recommend non-formula places to eat. That will probably not change. Other businesses will likely do the same.

Extending the distance between formula restaurants is a relatively fair way to severely restrict them without setting the precedent that relatively few people can dictate what a person sells inside their independently owned and operated business.

Maggie Hughes

s s s

To the Editor:

I hope that the city council will pass the formula food ordinance as it was unanimously approved by the planning commission. We need this ordinance to help maintain the town’s sense of place and to prevent our town from gradually assuming the drab business monoculture of so many other American towns.

Without an ordinance like this, Sisters risks becoming a captive of nationwide franchising and mass marketing.

There are those who say let the free market decide by having people vote on restaurants with their wallets. Trouble is that you don’t get to vote with your wallet until the store is already in place and then it’s too late. Besides you can’t trust a free market to produce socially desirable ends, especially when it’s a small vulnerable town versus nationwide franchise operations. This ordinance nudges the market in a positive direction.

The ordinance is a compromise and not an outright ban. Existing formula food restaurants are not only grandfathered in, but four such restaurants are always permitted. Other towns are benefiting from similar ordinances. It’s good for tourism and the economy. Let’s adopt this ordinance as a proactive step to Keep Sisters Special.

Tom Parks

s s s

To the Editor:

Administrators for Sisters School District will soon adopt a high school honors program that, as an educator and artist, I feel is deeply flawed and lamentable in a community where the arts are so openly embraced. Indeed, much of Sisters’ future appears to rest on music festivals, craft fairs, galleries, and stores specializing in home decoration.

In setting criteria for the Honors Diploma (and in turn valedictorian and salutatorian honors), the cadre of well intentioned but myopic planners set a course for student recognition that is markedly slanted. This bias heavily favors those areas of study where student achievement is most easily counted, sorted, ordered, graded, standardized and ranked.

The arts, which are not so easily quantified, are unceremoniously dumped into a meager two-credit catchall labeled clustered electives.

The members of the committee who designed this approach did not set out to denigrate the arts. However, their final product implicitly tells academically-minded students that math, science, writing, foreign languages and social studies are more important to their futures than are the arts.

What is truly important is that a high school staff has high expectations of students, broadens students’ view of their futures, pushes them to achieve far more than they initially believed that they could…and allows them to each study his or her passion.

I would not care to be the Sisters School Board member who has to tell the parents of a straight-A student heading for Julliard or Rhode Island School of Design that their son or daughter can’t be valedictorian because all of those endless hours of study simply were not in the correct classes.

Let’s hope that here in Sisters, the home of “Starry Nights Concerts,” “My Two Hands,” and “The Americana Project,” that our school board and administrators will redesign the high school honors program to be more inclusive and support the arts as readily as they accept the money raised by the arts.

Steve Mathews, Ed.D.

s s s

To the Editor:

Once upon a time in the town of Sisters, the Chamber of Commerce and a group of merchants decided to start an “Art Stroll” in an effort to bring more business downtown during less busy tourist seasons. They would ask local artists and art students to participate, thereby benefiting both merchants and local artists.

The evening was successful and therefore it was decided to make it an annual event. Several years passed by and sadly, the event seemed to become less important.

There is a disconcerting note to the present-day stroll.

It seems the local art galleries have taken over the responsibility of sponsoring the Sisters Art Stroll.

In the recent Nugget advertisement regarding the event, I noticed that the art stroll will showcase “accomplished” Sisters artists. Since when did this art stroll become so selective and only “accomplished” artists allowed to participate? And what does “accomplished” mean anyway? Only artists the gallery owners feel are commercially viable and thus are represented in the Sisters galleries? If this is so, then there are an awful lot of “unaccomplished” artists in the area not represented by anyone.

In case you did not attend the April “Make Time” stroll and auction, believe me there is a tremendous amount of terrific talent in this community and a large portion of these artists are not represented in local galleries. Does this make these artists less “accomplished”? In my opinion NO! Nor should they be left out of a “local artists” art event.

I hope I am wrong, but it seems to me that this “bank” of local talent is only drawn upon when donations are needed for fund-raisers.

I think we should bring back the old Art Stroll where everyone within the artists’ community has a chance to participate, not just a select few.

Ann Ingham

s s s

To the Editor:

To the community of Sisters — It takes a village to raise a child and it also takes a village to say good-bye.

On behalf of Tony, Mary Allison, Emery, Elle and all of our family, I would like thank you for all of your thoughts, prayers and deeds. During these times of such great sorrow, please know your acts of faith and kindness have eased our burden.

Jerry Meyer, Joel’s uncle

s s s

To the Editor:

Joel Meyer will be remembered for the many outstanding gifts and talents he shared with his family, friends, and the community during his 21 years.

When Joel was seven years old he told his mother that he wanted to help the children of Uganda, Africa who did not have the funds to attend school and provide an activity for the children of Sisters who could not afford to participate in summer programs.

In the summer of 1992 from Joel’s idea sprung the first Children’s Teaching Fair. The fair was held at the Village Green Park sponsored by Sisters Good Samaritan Ministries (GSM).

Under the direction of Joel, his mother, Mary Allison, and community volunteers The Teaching Fair provided free crafts and carnival booths at 25 cents a chance. The event became a summer tradition for many years providing a day of free entertainment, special events, games, and fun for the children of Sisters.

Proceeds from the carnival booths were used to sponsor Amina Kybula and David Mubenzi of Uganda through grade six and then on to trade schools. Funds were also used to support a week long summer camp held in Uganda that brought together the sponsored children.

Joel’s dream built the bridge between Uganda and the community of Sisters. Today Amina has a sewing business. David is a mechanic. These children were orphaned at a young age and without the financial assistance to attend school their lives would not be successful as they are today.

In 1994 Joel and his family received the Samaritan of the Year award from Good Samaritan Ministries International office in Beaverton. The award was given for their dedication, leadership and work for Africa.

Joel touched and changed many lives in Uganda. His love, concern, generosity and hope for others will live on in Uganda as much as it will in our community. Thank you Joel.

Sincerely,

Theresa Slavkovsky

s s s

To the Editor:

Living in Sisters, it is no longer surprising to me to see the outpouring of love and support to a family when a loved one dies.

Even so, I feel compelled to comment on the recent services held Saturday in honor of Joel Meyer.

The fact that the high school gym was nearly filled to capacity was striking enough; we all feel the tremendous loss of his promising young life.

However, more striking was the way in which Tony and Mary Allison and the Meyer family so transparently shared with us the grief of their loss, and more importantly, the great hope and trust they have in a living God.

How humbling it was to witness their honest pain and deep personal faith and leave the service feeling blessed, encouraged and full of hope.

Thank you, Tony and Mary Allison, for sharing your lives with us. Sisters is enriched because you are part of this community.

Sincerely,

Cindy Uttley

s s s

To the Editor,

R.T. Tihista: I am very surprised that in this age of folks shouting “diversity, diversity!” you are so critical of another human’s right to believe their strong convictions and stand up for them as Lorene Richardson did.

Do you also call what Buddhists, Hindus, Native Americans, Afghanistans, and other religions believe “fairy tales”?

Now let me put in my two cents about this issue of teaching Creationism or Intelligent Design (read God, yes!). How can we ignore all the supporting evidence of a Creator? I honestly do not have the kind of faith it would take to not believe in a Creator. I know you believe that evolution is a fact, but there is a vast amount of the worlds’ population that doesn’t.

I just recently picked up a book titled, “Men of Science, Men of God” which tells of the many, many famous scientists who are in strong disagreement (due to their scientific study) of the evolutionary “theory.” We sure never hear about them in the media, do we?

I know some folks hate scripture-quoting, but be diverse now, my friends and let me give you just one small one that might help you understand where us Christians are coming from: I Corinthians 1:20 and following, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

If you believe so strongly that Intelligent Design is only a “theory,” why shouldn’t it be taught alongside your theory? What are you really afraid of?

I believe our young people deserve both sides and I trust in their ability to chose for themselves. Also, about those extinct animals, He did it once, He can do it again!

Gaynelle Savage Mulford

s s s

To the Editor:

Thank you so very much, Sisters VFW Post 8138 and American Legion Post 86 and all the other fine people who contributed to making the 13th annual Memorial Day service so special.

It gave me the opportunity once a gain to honor my father. He was with the 382nd Battalion 96th Division and was killed on October 28, 1944 in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

God bless America.

Shirley M. Perry

s s s

To the Editor:

On May 21, I bought my son an early eighth grade graduation/birthday present — a BMX bike.

On June 1, he rode his bike to school.

I am a school bus driver and when I pulled up to the middle school that afternoon, I was surprised to see him standing in line.

He informed me that his bike had been stolen.

My first reaction was anger. Now it’s just a deep sadness.

I am a single mom and every penny I get I’ve worked hard for.

In order to get Matt this bike, I raked pine needles, cleaned houses, and worked extra hours.

I am totally amazed at the lack of respect, principles, and values that this person has shown by stealing another person’s property.

I am not the only one I’ve found out that has had a bike stolen. There seems to be an epidemic lately of kids without a conscience, kids who have been bold enough to take bikes from peoples’ yards!

My son’s bike is a 21-inch black BMX HARO. HARO is in yellow letters across the bar. It has a gray seat.

If anyone has any information please contact me at 408-2153 or the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office at 549-2302.

The report I filed with them is in my son’s name, Matt Ayres.

I just want to get the bike back.

Brenda Colburn