Letters to the Editor 10/04/2006

To the Editor:

Help stop ODOT's Highway 20 passing lane widening plans just west of Sisters.

Attend the Sisters City Council Meeting on Thursday evening, October 12, 7 p.m. at 150 N. Fir St. The council's official opposition can help prevent this unwanted and unnecessary project.

ODOT's passing lane plans would: Devalue the scenic quality of the area; increase dangerous speeding; increase severe accidents and serious injuries; result in more collisions with deer and wildlife; kill old growth ponderosa pine trees; harm wild bird habitat.

There are far better alternatives that uphold the cultural and natural values of our community - offering better solutions to real safety and traffic problems.

If you would like to see alternatives developed that address real traffic safety issues, preserve scenic values, protect old growth trees, retain the natural quality of the area, limit highway expansion and the development that inevitably seems to follow, etc. please attend the Sisters City Council meeting!

Asante Riverwind

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To the Editor:

I have written to the Forest Service to insist that competitive bidding be followed in any sale of the 80 acres to be sold in Sisters (see story, page 28).

Nearly 30 years in highway construction across the U.S. taught me the importance of avoiding restrictive bidding and the abuses it incurs. I cite the recent TV exposure of a Haliburton contract in Iraq which has cost the U.S. millons and many American lives.

I cite also the recent "Capitol Crime" issue of U.S. News & World Report - a non-bidding scandal which has left a U.S. Representative in jail, soon to be followed by the contractor - again involving millions.

Restrictive bidding on this 80 acres leaves us exposed to many other problems. For example, will this area have any room for a green belt, any park space? Will it have more of what is already in downtown Sisters? Do we need any more gift shops? More empty stores? (How many times have some of those stores changed owners in the last 10 or 11 years?)

What do all of us who chose this area to spend our retirement years want to look at in that 80 acres? Do we want it filled with 10-or-more-to-the-acre housing so some contractor can have more money in his time, regardless of what the rest of us have to live with for all of time?

Surely there is enough interest and talent among the nearly 10,000 caring citizens in this area to insist that proper layouts appear in The Nugget Newspaper and that public approval be sought before any bidding is proposed.

Then, whether the successful (highest) bidder is from Oregon, New Jersey or Alaska, he will be bidding with the same restrictions as any other bidder and the public (us) will be getting the most money for what is essentially "our" property.

Then and only then will you know who our public employees and U.S. Forest Service truly work for.

Russell B. Williams

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To the Editor:

In the Sisters community, growth and change may be happening more rapidly than many of us realize.

Our schools are rapidly becoming inadequate to provide needed space for our growing population. The Forest Service is selling 50 acres of its land at the west end of town with attendant questions on how it will be developed to fit and serve our community.

Numerous other circumstances affecting Sisters are at our doorstep or even already in our house. How do we want to live with all this?

Growth/change is inevitable; will it be by default or design? The answer to this question might well be found in the attendance and participation we have at this Saturday's Future Fair (October 7) at the high school, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

If you would like to join other participants for a full breakfast to wake-up/warm-up between 8 and 9 a.m. it would be very helpful to have your RSVP call at 549-3182.

Sisters' future needs you and your ideas this Saturday!

Emil Smith

CATS Vision Task Force Committee

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To the Editor:

Shame, shame shame! Shame on Gordon Smith, Greg Walden, President Bush and the U.S. Congress. Shame on us for not speaking up!

Do we remember the horror, disgust and shame we felt when video tapes of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib detention center were broadcast around the world? "That is not us," we said. "That is not what America stands for. We are a moral nation that doesn't abide torture or mistreatment of even our vilest enemies. We are a nation of laws and protections for individual rights, regardless of our feelings toward a particular individual."

We cried out for an investigation of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. We called for those who had committed acts of torture to be held accountable. Now the Bush administration and our U.S. Congress have dismissed our moral outrage and calls for investigations by simply legalizing torture.

Not only is torture morally repugnant in a civilized world, it has been proven time and again to be ineffectual. One of the reasons our laws prevent using forced confessions in a trial is that they are known to be unreliable. A person being mentally or physically tortured will say anything to get the torture to stop.

How does lowering ourselves to the level of terrorists and barbarians restore Americans' security or honor? I have naively thought that things couldn't get any worse. With the vote last week on legalizing torture and reneging on the tenets of the Geneva Convention, they just did!

Sadly,

Barbara Secrest