Letters to the Editor 08/06/2008

To the Editor:

Thank you Lon Kellstrom! Lon Kellstrom seems to be the only City Council member who is looking out for the business and families of this town.

The important subject that I am referring to is the city wanting to give up our trash collecting to HCD (High Country Disposal). By the City of Sisters collecting our own garbage, we make a lucrative income. By giving it to HCD, then HCD is the profiteer.

It makes no sense that the city would even give this much thought.

I can tell you who has given this a lot of thought and it's HCD. There were five or so of their representatives at one of the city workshops to try and woo our City Council members into granting them the franchise for our garbage collection.

So why would the city want to give up a system that provides affordable garbage service and generates income to cover additional expenses of the city? It is because they don't want to deal with the problems of it. They would just as soon take the easy way out and give it away.

If HCD gets this franchise, most likely the garbage rates will go up just as they did when they acquired Redmond and Bend. Not to mention, the city just spent over $1 million of our tax money on the new recycling center in he industrial park. HCD has their own curbside little baskets for recycle pick-up.

So the industrial park site would be a million dollar waste?

If you are as concerned as I am about the rest of the City Council, please call them or stop them in the street and tell them not go give away our profits simply because they don't want to "deal" with the hassle of this avenue of income.

Curt Kallberg

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To the Editor:

My hope is that our very wise Sisters community will keep a close eye on the trash hauling issue. Our family is in complete support of Lon Kellstrom's view. We have quality service and a successful profit center that provides jobs and economic benefit to our community. If we need to buy additional equipment or provide additional services, this can be done profitably and successfully using community-based resources.

The fact that HCD "sweetened" their proposal is irrelevant. It would be a "sour" loss of economic benefit for our community.

Bill & Zoe Willitts

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To the Editor:

Get the facts straight!

The Stitchin' Post, as a business, does not put on the quilt show and never has! Being passionate about quilting, I founded the quilt show and am very proud to have helped put on every single show for 33 years. The East of the Cascades Quilters Quilt Guild organized the show; when it outgrew that group a non-profit organization was formed.

The Stitchin' Post is one of more than 100 sponsors that help to fund the event.

Vendor fees are paid to the City of Sisters, not the quilt show event. None of these fees come back to the event to help support it. Some vendors also pay fees to individual businesses and/or landlords.

The Quilt Show event pays for garbage pick-up, policemen, traffic control, portable toilets, etc. The sponsorship fees help to defray these costs but NO money from vendor fees helps with these costs.

Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, track team, cheerleader squad, band, Nordic club, jazz band, and foreign language clubs are all able to raise funds to support their programs.

All quilt shows have rules. Rules are necessary because of the spaces that are available to hang quilts on and they change from year to year.

When I originally started the quilt show, with 12 quilts, it was meant to be a "show and tell" event for my quilting students. Over the years the show has grown to 1,250, quilts but we still try to maintain the "sharing, show and tell" theme.

With this substantial growth the show has attracted visitors worldwide and people see an opportunity to sell their wares. Vendors are inevitable with the rules as they are. It is unfortunate that they do not pay some sort of fee to help with the actual costs of the event, as most would not be in Sisters on the second Saturday of July if we did not have a quilt show.

Jean Wells Keenan

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To the Editor:

I read Myrna Dow's letter in The Nugget about the vendors in town this past quilt show. I agree with Myrna. The excess of vendors this year took away from the quality of the show. It looked like a circus.

I do not think that vendors should be allowed on quilt show day. I do not have a problem with them setting up in the park any other time of the year.

As a store owner in town, I pay a fee to be a sponsor, I pay the city for a license to do business all year long, I pay for parking, and I pay a lot of rent to have my business in Sisters.

With the economy the way it is, the businesses in town deserve to make some needed funds on quilt show day. These funds usually carry us through the winter months. Due to the huge amount of vendors that showed up this year and paid (or did not pay) for a one-day spot, this reduced the money to keep the stores in this town going.

The vendors show up, take from the town and disappear.

Kate Janicki (Editor's note: Kate Janicki is the owner of Kate Aspen Studios).