Election
Our taxes are in their hands
Recently I read about 76 of my fellow Island County residents in the Island County Local Voters Pamphlet mailed to all registered voters in the county. These conscientious citizens are seeking a position on one of the 34 commissions, boards and councils that set policies, programs and budgets in the 69 various Island County taxing districts. Among these districts are school boards, city councils, the hospital, park and recreation, water, sewer, port, fire and rescue, cemetery and conservation. All are important in providing services we need and expect of government.
Although the Island County Board of Commission is thought of as the body responsible for the property tax rate, it only sets 19 percent of the total rate. Twenty-nine percent is set by the state for support of our public schools. The remaining 52 percent of the county’s tax rate are set by the various elected commissions, boards and councils.
When I vote, I want to be knowledgeable about those hoping to be elected to these commissions, boards and councils in the districts in which I reside.
I encourage all Island County voters to read the Local Voter’s Pamphlet as well as the State Voter’s Pamphlet before you cast your votes on Nov. 6..
Tom Baenen
Island County Assessor

Keep Howard on the board
Voters in the Coupeville School District have an opportunity to retain Mitchell Howard on the Coupeville School Board in the district’s only contested school board race in the upcoming election on Nov. 6. I enjoyed working with Mitchell years ago on the board of the Coupeville Elementary PTA when he began his leadership in the Coupeville School District.
Throughout Mitchell’s last term on the school board, he has proven himself to be an intelligent leader, a sensitive team player, and a person of solid integrity. He is a person willing and capable of “thinking out of the box” as the school district strives for academic excellence in a climate of financial challenges due to decreased enrollment.
Two dedicated school board members retire this year after many years of service and their replacements are running unopposed. A vote for Mitchell Howard will insure that the school board will move forward with three out of five continuing board members. Please join me in my support for Mitchell Howard for the Couepville School Board, District 2 position, on Nov. 6.
Karen Bishop
Coupeville

Give Wallin another term
As a member of the Oak Harbor School Board, I know Gary Wallin and have had the opportunity to work with him and see him in action on numerous occasions around the district, including the past year on the school board. He is an important member of the board and has contributed greatly to a harmonious and effective working environment.
Gary has been instrumental in helping the school district run in a business-like fashion. Our annual budgets are dissected, and questioned all the way to adoption. The State Superintendent of Public Instruction, to ensure quality budgeting and spending practices, conducts annual audits. The Oak Harbor School District passes these audits every year with flying colors.
The purchase of the former Alaska Federal Credit Union building was a bargain and a particularly excellent opportunity to consolidate school district activities that were scattered throughout at least seven other locations at an annual cost of $100,000. We gained excess space that is currently being rented out at an annual profit of $25,000. These savings will pay for the purchase price of the building in 14 years. The purchase of the building saved the district and taxpayers of Oak Harbor at least $1.2 million over the cost of new construction, including design, site preparation, permits and taxes.
Gary Wallin has been an asset to the Oak Harbor School Board. He is an intelligent, informed, energetic and effective leader. His active participation in our schools for the past 20 years has proven his abilities and qualifications to be elected to his present position on the board. I strongly urge you to support Gary Wallin in the upcoming election on Nov. 6.
Vicki Harring
Oak Harbor

Festival shows she’s qualified
For the last two years, and again this year, Roxallanne Medley is in charge of planning at the Penn Cove Water Festival. In this position, she meets with a committee and is responsible for initiating and overseeing the process of putting together and financing a Water Festival which functions smoothly. Some of the festival highlights include the Indian canoe races, the music, artwork, environmental displays, town displays, and food selections.
Roxallanne has demonstrated that she can talk to people and work with people to produce an activity that is good for town business and that everyone can enjoy. Please consider Roxallanne when you vote for Position 5 on the Town Council.
Will Jones
Coupeville

Feedback
I-747 article not balanced
I always believed that a good newspaper should gather the facts and in a balanced way present both sides of an argument. Your article on I-747 (News-Times, Oct. 27) by Rick Levin, was not only biased against the issue, but was enhanced by a very dramatic picture. I would expect this if it were an editorial or an advertisement.
Why is it that most newspapers take the side of the tax recipient and never the tax payer? Not only is it a totally lopsided article, but it is filled with words like “possible passage,” “may be facing,” and “potential loss.”
As I read the initiative, it doesn’t create a loss, it simply limits increases to 1 percent per year without a vote of the people. If you were expecting to lose $4.5 million over the next six years, I guess you were planning on raising our property taxes by quite a bit.
Joan McCollum
Coupeville

Americanism
Thank God we’re rugged
Thank God for all the rugged individualists this country has to offer. These are American heroes in everyday people. People that get up and work each day. Each after their own purpose. Each one after the pursuit of happiness that includes the three pillars of a free society, life, liberty and property. No pillar can crumble without bringing down the other two. It’s the people able to work who do work, or the people unable to work who sustain the country through their voices and prayers that make this country what it is.
It’s what President Reagan called “The Last Greatest Hope,” “The Shimmering City on a Hill.”
As long as this is a sovereign country, with a rugged people, no one will be able to triumph over us. We will be here as that shining beacon of hope and example for the rest of the world. If we lose our sovereignty to a one world government, or collapse into communism from within, then the whole world will fall to tyranny. Adversity and foreign enemies cannot defeat us because we have so much to fight for. Thank God for our rugged people.
Scott Vanderlinden
Oak Harbor

Election
Eyman could fix everything
I see that Tim Eyman is at it again with I-747 coming up for a vote Nov. 6.
Eyman has great ideas on how a government, with its many agencies, can serve the public without funds to do the job. Eyman appears to think the government has its own printing machine ready to print up a new set of dollar bills to meet each new project and payroll. The firefighter, police and all those people that give us protection and service are paid from this magic machine. Tax money covers it all.
But Mr. Eyman thinks the state, county and city can operate at 100 percent capability with zero percent funding. I don’t believe it can operate that way. So I propose we draft Mr. Eyman to be our next city mayor, county commissioner and state governor, all rolled into one job. He can then show us how all elements of the government can provide us with 100 percent services and zero funding.
I would like to take one of Eyman’s training courses in money management so I could improve on my home budget. However, I am willing to give up my personal financial goals to see Governor Eyman turn Washington State into the great Utopia of the Northwest and a model for all the other 49 states to follow. A fully staffed fire department. A fully staffed police department. Not a pot-hole in any of our roads. Health care for all. Our state legislature completing all business on time so the taxpayers do not have to foot the bill for overtime sessions.
Vote for Tim Eyman for governor.
Robert D. Brown
Oak Harbor

Voters should decide costs
Your articles on I-747 (Whidbey News-Times, Oct. 27) clearly support the initiative and, in distrusting it, you give it credence!
How can the readers entrust the process of raising taxes to arrogant public officials who will pass any new tax, or who will accept a $4,000 pay increase, or give an old crony a $65,000 per year directorship?
The readers are not stupid! The initiative does not change levels of public income, it just puts the question of “How much?” where it belongs — before the voters.
Joel Douglas
Oak Harbor

Candidate firmly planted
We would like to go on record as endorsing Phil Williamson’s candidacy for re-election to the Coupeville Town Council. He has been an effective member of the council and we appreciate his efforts to maintain fiscal responsibility in their decisions.
He is willing to listen to both sides of an argument and has, upon occasion, changed his opinion when presented with cogent arguments in opposition to his original decision. He has been effective in checking “pie in the sky” schemes with a down-to-earth “can we really afford it?” attitude.
While we are in need of dreamers and visionaries, we also need the representatives who keep our feet firmly planted on the ground. Phil is one of these.
Janet and George Enzmann
Coupeville

Members back the incumbent
As outgoing members of the Coupeville School Board, we have worked with Mitchell Howard for the last four years. Mitchell is a dedicated, hard working and committed school board member. He has served on numerous district committees and work groups and for the last two years has been an active member of the statewide Small Schools Committee.
The school district will be facing many challenges over the next few years and Mitchell Howard has the experience and knowledge to help make the tough decisions that will have to be made. We believe the Coupeville School District will be best served by retaining Mitchell Howard on the school board.
Cec Stuurmans
Coupeville
Jackie Henderson
Greenbank

Christianity
Free choice is not a danger
The arguments of moral equivalency by Ms. Byng in her recent letter are bogus. To imply or infer that terrorist actions are no different than the actions of observant Christians is illogical. To utilize her twisted logic is to suggest that the unabomber was an environmentalist. The unabomber was a murderer. Hence all environmentalists are murderers. This illogical syllogism (from Logic 101) can go on ad infinitum.
Another flawed premise of Ms. Byng’s diatribe is that there is some great and grand harm in people quoting the Bible. Apparently she did not study American history. Every president since Washington has done so — it must be a part of some vast right wing conspiracy. I suppose that she does not realize that we live in a pluralistic culture that, gasp, believes in free speech. Moreover had she delved into American history she would discover that one of the central tenets of our constitutional republic is the exercise of freedom OF religion, not the freedom FROM religion. A little discernment goes a long way here, Carolyn.
While on the issue of discernment let us consider her mention of vouchers. First if the taxpayers provide the money to a representative government, whose money is it? Big clue — it’s the people’s money, not the government’s. Moreover we have had a successful (and huge) government voucher program in place since 1945, it’s called the GI bill. And amazingly it has allowed taxpayers to utilize their tax dollars to choose between a plethora of educational options that has created the most sophisticated and desirable advanced education system in the world. This, freedom of choice, must be a grave danger to the free world but I can’t seem to understand why.
TAD GORDON
Oak Harbor

Crash scene help lauded
Thank you to all who helped at the car crash on Crescent Harbor Road on Oct. 22.
I wish I could have met you! You are very special people who came to me in my hour of need. I hardly remembered anything about the crash, but I do remember a lovely woman who called 911 and my wife, and one courageous man who stayed with me in the rain and mud and comforted me while we waited for the EMTs to arrive.
I wish I could do more to thank all of you. It is people like you that God has put on this earth to make it a better place to live. God bless you all!
Todd Melnick
Oak Harbor