Letters to the Editor 01/20/2010

To the Editor:

I want to clear up a misconception about Sisters Charter Academy of Fine Arts. It costs the residents of Sisters nothing. In fact, the academy has been a financial boon for the Sisters School District. Sisters schools receive 20 percent of the money the charter academy is paid by the Oregon Department of Education, simply by being its sponsor.

The children who attend the academy would be home-schooled or attend private school if the academy were to close, and this money would no longer be benefiting Sisters schools. In addition, the academy gave Sisters School District teachers 20 laptop computers and donated about 200 software licenses to district students, valued at over $100,000.

It also paid the salary of the high school gym teacher last year.

In all the dialogue from the Sisters School Board about the closing of Sisters Charter Academy, I have yet to hear mention of those affected most severely by its closing: the children who attend it. Currently there are 20 full-time students, and many others who use the building regularly for their studies.

Since the beginning of this year, only one school board member has even taken the time to come and visit the school.

As a parent of a child who attended the elementary school and is now at the charter academy, I have experienced firsthand how crucial it is to have educational choices in every community. There is no doubt that Sisters has good schools, but no matter how great the round holes are, there's just no way to fit square pegs into them. We need the charter academy with its square holes, so these children can continue to have a meaningful educational experience within our community.

The academy has and should continue to be an asset to the community. The school in Colorado upon which the Sisters Charter Academy is modeled is a private school with a $10,000-a-year price-tag and a waiting list. Here in Sisters it is being offered as a gift to the community at no cost.

The only effect of the closing of the charter academy will be to the children who wake up excited every morning to go to school and to the future square pegs who will have no choices in education.

Annemarie Crosier

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To the Editor:

Your editorial stance on Measure 66 & 67 is reprehensible and logically bankrupt.

By your logic, a position might not be created or a position might be terminated because a business had to pay $140 more in taxes in a year? We are only talking about those companies that are in a position to pay the minimum tax.

Are you telling us that companies that qualify to pay the minimum corporate tax are the backbone of our economy, the "... businesses that will generate the jobs so desperately needed if we are to get relief from this grinding economic downturn?" Actually Measure 67 is a bit more complicated than the public rhetoric surrounding it, but suffice it to say that one key provision is that the true small business, the sole proprietors are not impacted by this measure at all.

And lest you get too sentimental about all of those small corporations out there that will have to pay $140 more in tax, be aware that a corporation making $499,999 in net profit still only pays the $150 minimum tax.

As for Measure 66, you confuse tax rate with taxes paid. You claim that the two percent of the taxpaying public targeted by Measure 66 already pay more than 30 percent of all income tax in Oregon. So what? They are paying at exactly the same rate I am paying, no matter how much more they make than me, and I am sure they have much better accountants to keep their adjusted gross income as low as possible. The only change that measure 66 does is increase their tax rate above $250,000 of adjusted gross income. The measure adds two graduations above $250,000 (1.8 percent) and above $500,000 (2 percent).

If it is so difficult for them to pay the higher increment over $250,000, they should just stop working once their adjusted gross income reaches that point, or find a better tax accountant. I just wish I had their problem.

And Jim, if you are so concerned about the difficult economic times we are in, I have a suggestion for you. Why don't you reduce the advertising rates in The Nugget significantly and start charging readers for the paper. This will benefit all of those small businesses in Sisters you are so worried about that advertise with you. Since all of the costs for The Nugget are borne by the advertisers, why don't you find out what your rag is really worth.

I have asked the post office not to send me the junk mail that The Nugget represents but they tell me they can't do that. I think we readers should be allowed to vote on the value of The Nugget by paying you to write for us. That is truly free enterprise, the American Way.

I know how I would vote.

Dean Billing

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To the Editor:

Just 65 years ago, on January 16, 1945, my crew and I crashed in our B-24 bomber near a place called Nancy, France, after completing the 15th of 31 missions over Germany.

We all survived and there are still five of us alive to bear witness to the futility of what we and millions more young people gave parts or all of our lives to stop - WAR!

As I read daily about Iraq and Afghanistan, I keep reminding myself that Russia gave up on Afghanistan because it was bankrupting them in dollars and lives.

Today it is doing the same thing to America, only on borrowed money, and it is having no effect as far as I can see on the terrorism threat. We are pledging the lives and fortunes of untold generations of future young Americans and for what?

Someone has said, rightly I think, that if the 500 men in Washington who are waging the war would have to go there and fight it, it would be over! How about replacing them all? Could a new crew do any worse? I wonder how they would survive THEIR mission!

Russell B. Williams