Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891
Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891
Sorted by date Results 2055 - 2079 of 2581
To The Eagle: To say that I have been overwhelmed by the positive response I have received about naming the new ferry the “Oscar B.” would be an understatement. Those who knew my father know that his name and the ferry were synonymous. For those that did not know him, I hope that they will realize what a big part he played in keeping the ferry service in Wahkiakum County. I can’t thank the county commissioners enough for this honor of keeping his name connected with that of the Puget Island ferry. I hope that the feedback that the commi...
To The Eagle: We in Wahkiakum County have an excellent lesson on how to save large sums of public money. That is the Wahkiakum Sheriff’s office. Our Sheriff, Mark Howie, has expanded the practice of hiring deputies with experience needed in our county. Examples as follow. Our new undersheriff, Steve Marshall, who is a certified rescue diver, certified swift water rescue diver, certified collision investigator and vehicle assault, command search and rescue investigations. He has 32 years experience in various phases of law enforcement in King a...
To The Eagle, With respect to Craig Brown’s letter in support of the Food Bank in Erickson Park, I don’t understand the need for an ad hominem attack when his case can be made objectively. I haven’t found that personal comments add to any civil discourse. Bur for the record, I am not from Houston unless having lived there periodically when rotated back to the United States qualifies. Mr. Brown could have easily called me a Frog, a Limey, a Libyan or a Tunisian (or, I suppose, a Red, a subversive or a Planning Commissioner). I don’t conside...
To The Eagle: While I realize that coming from Houston might incline James Reed to shoot from the hip (“Town needs care in entering contracts” / March 7, 2013), now that he has settled in Cathlamet it might behoove him to get his facts straight before ‘firing off’ a letter To The Eagle. After scourging the Town Council for a contract that they haven’t even entered into, Mr. Reed goes on to lecture us on how a contract should be constructed to be in the best public interest. Unfortunately, town attorney Heidi Heywood is still drafting a land le...
To The Eagle: I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the partners of Drop Anchor Brewery and encourage Port District No. 1 and the community to support the proposed brewery at the marina. Mr. Erickson and his team, if successful, will be laying the foundation for further economic development in our community. In 1965, as a teenager, I had the good fortune to witness the construction of a distillery in Plainfield, Illinois. The company, in 1965, was known as the Distillers Company Limited. Today it is known as Diageo. You can...
It all started way back in time when someone got tired of packing around items to trade for what they needed. Things they did not have and could not grow or make themselves. Along comes some over-achiever (who shall remain nameless) with the bright idea to get everyone in their area to agree that something small and easy to carry represented the goods they were tired of packing around. From then on life became easier and the basic idea of money was established. Money was and is an agreed upon medium of exchange. A problem entered...
I suppose I am one of the citizens that Councilman McNicholas was referring to when he noted that there may be some adverse public reaction to a food bank in Erickson Park. I don’t want a food bank in Erickson Park. I do not belive that it furthers any of the park’s purposes. It is a mystery to me why the food bank cannot be established on private property (unless it expects some form of special deal or support from the town). But perhaps that debate is over. Living here for the last eight years, I find that the Town seems to reg...
The Wahkiakum PTO is organizing a food drive to benefit GAP (Giving Action Plan Program) for the week of March 11-15. This will be a class competition to see which class can bring in the most food listed below. There will be a winning class from each elementary and middle school that will get an ice cream party sponsored by the PTO. There will also be a drop box outside the office for community members who wish to donate food to GAP. Below is a list of items that work well for GAP when preparing food bags for kids....
To the Eagle: February is National Teen Dating Violence Prevention and Awareness Month. It is critical that we take this time to remember that domestic violence is not just a problem for adults. One in three adolescents in the United States will be a victim of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse from a dating partner. Nearly 80% of girls who have been physically abused in their relationships continue to date their abuser. Two-thirds of teens who are in an abusive relationship do not report the abuse. A recent study by the Centers for...
To The Eagle: In last week’s Eagle, PUD Commissioner Bob Jungers maligned Cathlamet’s water system. He said: “One of the reasons they are in financial difficulty with their system is because their infrastructure has decayed to the point that their water losses are so high that they are manufacturing a lot of water that they’re not selling.” Respectfully, Mr. Jungers lives in a glass house. In Cathlamet’s most recent Annual Performance Report submitted to the Dept. of Health, our 3-year loss rate (2009-11) was 17.4 percent. In the PUD’s Annua...
To The Eagle: Looks like we might get a second chance! After the huge disappointment that the Naselle-Grays River Valley school bond didn't pass, I wanted to take this opportunity to plea for the no voters to give it more thought and perhaps choose to be supportive. I'm not sure of the demographics (other than west end Wahkiakum county soundly voting no), but I would imagine locals with kids and grandkids in our schools would generally be positive. They see first hand how an area that gets over 100 inches of rain a year might need more room...
To The Eagle: I’m engaged in an effort to convince our state Legislature to exempt rural school districts from high-cost state prevailing wage requirements. Such an exemption would save our school district $2 million (or more) on an $8 million construction program. On February 13 I testified in Olympia before a Senate committee hearing in favor of proposed bill SB 5508 for that purpose. FYI: Ohio exempts all school construction. First, I’d like to publicly thank Sen. Hatfield for agreeing to sponsor this bill as a result of a cam...
To The Eagle: The volunteers and officers of Grays River Valley Fire and Rescue District #3 would like to thank Wahkiakum West for its generous donation of funds to purchase audiovisual equipment for the new Grays River Fire Hall. As many of you know, the Grays River hall was damaged in flooding six years ago and was deemed unsafe and beyond repair. It has taken several years to acquire the funds and property necessary to build the new hall on high ground in Grays River. That new facility should be completed in the coming weeks. We needed...
To The Eagle: Hello. My name is Sam Okawa (get it?) and I'm an elderly Anatolian shepherd (dog) who moved here about four years ago. I read with interest Kay Chamberlain's piece in last Thursday's Eagle because my home and Ursula (my "person") were mentioned in it. It appears that someone was concerned that the eight rescued cows living here after they were taken, almost dead from starvation, from an abandoned farm, were not being fed and that good Samaritan felt intervention was necessary to "save" them. How that person saved the bovines is a...
To The Eagle: Recently there has been quite a bit of discussion in the area of gun control and assorted other political footballs. One thing I have been observing is that those who are opposed to things like the Bill of Rights and Constitution are fond of using statements about what might happen rather than sticking to facts, statistics and matters of record. I am not going to get into any of that debate here. I will say I support the Bill of Rights and Constitution and do my best to live up to those standards. So what is my point? Glad you...
To: Council Members; from: Mayor George Wehrfritz Subject: State of the Town Report, February 11, 2013 As required by state law, I submit the following State of the Town report for Council review. Main Street, Cathlamet My focus in this annual report is our principal commercial thoroughfare, Main Street. It is where Wahkiakum County has gathered to shop, socialize, dine and celebrate for more than a century. Historical photos reveal that it once was a happening place; today’s imagery stands in contrast to the bygone vibrancy and optimism &...
To The Eagle: Due to the uncertainties in regulations of the sturgeon sport fishery, Wahkiakum Dollars for Scholars is making changes to its annual fundraising event. This year we will be having just one event, the 8th Annual Rods and Reels Rod Run car show. With the single event all proceeds will go to Wahkiakum High School seniors for college scholarships. The format for the car show will be similar to the past, including the salmon BBQ lunch, trout pond for the kids, great raffle tables, dart game, DJ, many door prizes and over 60 trophies...
To The Eagle: The Roman Empire lasted for 503 years, 17 hours and 23 minutes. There is a lot of scholarly debate about the decline and fall but it apparently went on for about the last 400 years. Along the way it got split in two and the western half was hassled a lot by Germanic tribes like the Visigoths and Huns. The eastern part lasted a little longer, but got torn up by the Persians and then scuttled by the Muslims. The whole mess started when they quit being a republic and became an autocracy, ruled by executive order and incompetent...
To The Eagle: There is a solution to the mess this country and the world is in. Is it going to be easy to do? Does it provide instant gratification? No! I will say it again. What if people started to take full responsibility for their lives, their families, their town, their state and so on? We have elected officials who are, let’s just say, not taking care of the folks back home. What can anyone do? Do not wait for the various agencies to hand you a living, food, clothing, a job or anything else. Create your own job; grow a garden, people h...
To The Eagle: I have been trying to follow the current wrangle over the responsibility for dealing with the Steamboat Slough dike failure. It seems to me that the problem has a fairly straightforward solution. It starts with insisting that both the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Corps of Engineers be forbidden from using bureaucratic wiggle words to avoid their responsibilities, that they be forced to deal in facts, and that they recognize, as my Granny used to say, “Can’t never did nothing.” Over a number of years, the Corps of Engin...
To The Eagle: In a 1942 Grays River Builder newspaper, a short article focused on the latest school district election. It read, "The voters tried out the new method of elections on Saturday when the elections were held in each of the component parts of the consolidated district." "Locally our issues were the election of one director and a 5-mill tax levy. The director elected was William Whitten of Altoona, succeeding Mayme Johnson. The tax levy, however, failed to carry as there was an insufficient number of votes cast to legalize a tax levy....
To The Eagle: As I travel Puget Island to the ferry tonight, I saw more white-tail deer than I’ve ever seen in all my trips to the refuge. So the government thinks it needs to save the deer. They buy a lot of working farms, tear down the houses and barns, build massive fences, and spend $28 million to make it the way they want. Along comes another government agency and dredges the river deeper and destroys the public road and dike protecting their investment. The Corps says it has money to build a new “setback dike,” but no money to fix the o...
To The Eagle: We have miles of beautiful dikes in the Steamboat Slough area with the exception of two hundred yards. The area in question gets heavy wakes from ever- and ever-bigger ships. This area is a long, sweeping turn and if you watch outgoing ships doing fifteen or better knots, you’ll see what’s going on with the area of our dike. This area is one of our remaining assets and has been a showplace for visitors. If the Corps wants to help, they could hire local contractors to repair the area for a pittance. The Corps of Engineers’ plan...
To The Eagle: The population in Wahkiakum County is aging rapidly. From 2010 to 2030 people aged 65 and over will increase from 25.5 percent to more than 42 percent. At the recent Aging Well – Living Well forum at Lower Columbia College, local experts addressed the impact this change is likely to have on our housing, transportation, health and wellness, workforce development, and community engagement. The keynote speaker, Bob Blancato, of Washington, D.C., national coordinator of the Elder Justice Coalition and director of the National...
To The Eagle: "For the government to permit banks to issue money, borrow that money, and pay interest on it is idiotic!" --Bill Hixon. Requiring commercial gillnet fishermen to try to fish in a little puddle is idiotic! It would be something akin to requiring that sport fishermen only be allowed to fish from port district docks, not floats, docks where ships tie up. That, too, would be idiotic! Giving the Army Corps of Engineers a pass on dealing with the increased erosion on the Steamboat Slough dike caused by their projects and actions is...
