Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891
Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891
Sorted by date Results 879 - 903 of 2569
To The Eagle: About 15 years ago, I met a fellow who was a retired school superintendent from Montana, visiting a mutual friend. During our conversation I asked him how tough it was to be a school superintendent. He said it was really pretty simple. He explained there is a huge database of information on schools nationwide. The data indicates that a school budget should be 80 percent for personnel and 20 percent for facilities or plant, as he described it. And, he said, if you deviate from this ratio very much for very long, it will lead to...
To The Eagle: I agree that our high school needs improvement and I’m all for giving the best for our students but I’m voting no on the school bond. The amount they’re proposing to improve is way too much. For that same amount it’s best to demolish the school and build a new one. This way it will be built right with up-to-date codes and technologies. After all, this is a small town and we are dealing with the total students, freshmen through seniors, probably less than 300 as compared to other schools that have the capacity of 300 or more st...
To The Eagle: An article in last week’s Eagle announced that Cowlitz County is the first 911 center in the state of Washington to have Text to 911. However, an important word was missing. It should have said that it was the first 911 center in the State of Washington to have “integrated” Text to 911 service, which means 911 texts are delivered through their 911 phone system. Wahkiakum County has had Text to 911 since July 2016 but uses a web browser-based system. Fourteen other 911 centers in the state of Washington use the same method as Wa...
To The Eagle: I support our children and our schools but not this time; this property tax burden increase is way too expensive. Local homeowners’ taxes will go up 30 to 50 percent if this passes, let me repeat that, 30 to 50 percent. That is just too much all at once for our limited number of property owners. The best advice I can give the school board is that if the buildings are in such bad shape why would you want to invest 28 million dollars plus into them? I understand new Pre-Fab Building techniques lower the cost of new buildings d...
To The Eagle: A message from Naselle School Board Chair: Chuck Hendrickson [Naselle school board chair] - Jan 25 7:09 PM “I’m school board chair at Naselle and have been following the discussion regarding your [Cathlamet] proposed renovation with great interest as we are also considering a renovation of one of our buildings. We have been advised by ESD112 [SW WA Education Svc District] to approximate construction costs at about $400 per square foot. I have been in contact with the superintendent of South Bend’s school district. They are buildin...
To The Eagle: The jackass party has done it [the Iowa fiasco] again. Blame the Russians, anyone? It proves that it has no claim or right to govern our nation. Go away sore losers, poseurs, fools. Take the pussy hats off and think for once. You bad-mouth your fellow citizens and its traditions. You deserve all the derision that your infantile behavior begets. One more; 34 million dollar price tag for a new high school? A fantasy. Who is going to be able to afford this nonsensical and onerous burden? 1700, 1800 property tax payers in this tiny...
To The Eagle: Do the math. If approved, your total property tax bill will swell from $7.92 per $1000 of assessed value to $11.29, a 42% increase. The percentage of your total tax bill paid to the school district jumps from 19% to 43%. Considering there are currently nine other taxing districts at a combined average of 9% it’s obvious something’s out of balance. In its first year alone the school bond would garner approximately $1.44 MILLION in revenue, a staggering amount increasing annually if the county’s appraised value continues its 11% g...
I think it's an admirable goal: If you're going to do something, do it right the first time. My coaches, Paul Spears and Terry Bonny drilled that into me during the seasons I was a Wahkiakum Mule football player, 1965-68, and I've honored it through the years since I graduated. Of course, expediency has its place--one step at a time when your ready and the time is right . . . but sometimes what you're trying to accomplish never gets quite completed in this way of working. Voters in the Wahkiakum School District now have a choice--expediency or...
To The Eagle: After reviewing long postponed and now essential repairs to Wahkiakum school buildings we reflected on everything that good school facilities mean to a community. Positives include increased property values as families and children stay in the area, federal and state payments in support of schools continuing to bring essential revenue that ripples throughout the county, community pride and quality of life reflected in youth activities and accomplishments, and encouragement of employment and job growth. Then we reflected on...
To The Eagle: How good it is to have a few weeks to decide if we want to buy a $28.75 million house with a no down payment 22 year mortgage? Depending on the interest the cost could double. Not only that but some investor is making a profit on the amount of property taxes we have to pay. This is my way of summarizing why I will vote no on the proposed bond issue. I hope everyone else will, too. Please join me in encouraging our school administrators to work for us in the most economical way possible by using levies instead of bonds. Working...
To The Eagle: I have been working on getting numbers for Wahkiakum School District 200 and after a bit of hair-pulling, I am ready to share them. The current taxable value of the district is $428.5M. This excludes $11.0M of value for properties subject to the senior exemption. There are 4,146 properties in the district owned by 2,147 people. 772 properties are exempt (government owned, etc.) There are 233 personal property accounts valued at $13.8M. Another 166 senior properties contribute $3.1M in value not exempt from taxation. The remaining...
To The Eagle: The Wahkiakum School Bond measure is coming up for a vote and there appears to be a fair amount of misinformation out and about. The current high school building reached its predicted end-of-life 20 years ago, and should have been renewed then, but wasn't. The last bond, 20-plus years ago, upgraded the elementary school to the bare minimum, leaving the school district to absorb ongoing maintenance and ongoing repair costs from money that could have gone into instruction. The predicted cost of this bond, based on the school...
To The Eagle: The Wahkiakum County Democratic Party voted at its general meeting January 11, 2020 to support the Wahkiakum School Bond after studying the facts. We urge everyone to educate themselves on facts and go on a scheduled tour of the high school Thursday and Friday for three weeks. Anyone can also call Brent Freeman at the high school and ask for a tour. Please vote yes for the school bond. The above was written as Vice Chairman of the Wahkiakum County Democratic Party. On a more personal note, for several past years I sent my...
To The Eagle: Haven't written in a while which another person mentioned to me the other day. It's not that I have nothing to say, it's more like no matter what I say it makes no difference. Preaching to the choir is just that and I find myself better able to be friends, good friends, with folks that are diametrically different in thought, philosophy and practice if I keep my thoughts to myself. Given that, I still find it just amazing what is going on in our once great nation. I find it difficult to think that America has been made great by...
Vote no on school bond issue To The Eagle: After reading the very informative article about the needed repairs to our school in last week’s Eagle I had only one thought: How much was this going to cost me? The article cleverly never mentioned the cost to the taxpayer but it did mention that repairs would run about $35,000,000, which, to me, seemed high. In fact I just learned that Elon Musk’s new 600 acre Tesla factory in Germany will run about $45,000,000. So one can see the absurdity of their initial bid for repairs. I have also learned tha...
To The Eagle: Vote Yes for the Wahkiakum School Bond. It’s the necessary and right thing to do. Built in the early ‘60s, the high school was built with pride to last. But it wasn’t built to last forever. The high school has stood nearly 60 years without any significant updates, remodels or repairs. That’s 20 years past the predicted life expectancy and something needs to be done now. Here are some of the reasons why: • There is no sprinkler or other fire suppression system at the HS. • The existing fire alarms do not function properly. • Sch...
To The Eagle: It is no secret that the state of Washington has botched up school finances, the most recent example being the court-ordered enhancement of school funding which our legislature distributed in such a way as to penalize small rural school districts like ours at the expense of larger urban districts. In our local history, a decade-and-a-half ago we defeated a couple of bond issues to replace the J.A.Wendt elementary school for over seven million bucks and ended up with a remodel job for under three, and then-superintendent Bob...
To The Eagle: Silence allowed many dictators to continue their brutal regimes. Since we are allowed to have free speech and opinions in this country, thank God, we are also allowed to point out, what we deem to be bad policy and bad behavior. We have a leader, who has a Senate, Attorney General, Supreme Court and ‘personal’ media outlet. This is hopefully as close as it will get to a dictatorship. The Republican states have done their utmost to quell the votes of those they deem to be voting for Democrats. It is paramount to get out the vot...
To The Eagle: The impeachment crisis is ridiculous. Our legislators can’t see themselves that they, too, are liars and abusers of power. The moment Trump became president, they’ve wasted taxpayers’ dollars yearly hunting for excuses when they should be a team working to MAGA. Our past presidents spent billions of taxpayers’ dollars to other countries. Have those countries paid us back? For example: Former President Obama sent billions to Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia for weapons, $225M to Palestine for humanitarian aid and climate change....
To The Eagle: Vote no on school bonds, or you’ll be signing a blank check for unknown costs. The Eagle reports these improvements will cost ‘about’ $35.4M. Ever had a remodel done to your home with an ‘about’ estimate and it actually cost 50 percent more? When you bought your home the bank charged you fees and a loan interest rate based on your credit. By the time you pay off your home you will have paid back more than double/triple the loan amount – same goes for a bond issue. Our county does not have AAA credit rating – so our interest will...
Fact checking: It seems most major newspapers now have fact checkers; The Eagle isn't a major newspsper, so we rely on trusted outside sources, notable the Associated Press. Here are links to others: https://www.snopes.com/, https://www.politifact.com/, and https://www.factcheck.org/. Additionally Wikipedia articles usually include footnotes referring readers to sources. And as stated in last week's column, if one doesn't want to trust Wikipedia's articles regarding climate change, one can find plenty of scientifically based sources at the...
To The Eagle: I feel fortunate that I was able to attend Wahkiakum High School just a few years after it was built. The building looked shiny and new, the teachers were great, our teams exceled, and it was a fun place to learn. This has not changed except the building is no longer shiny and new. It is nearly a 60 year old building that shows its age. Most of its basic infrastructure (electric, plumbing, HVAC and safety equipment) are well past their intended life of service. And it does not meet what our students need to be successful today....
To The Eagle: First, I would like to thank the editor for responding to my question about incorrect information in a recent letter published in The Eagle. I was delayed in getting my response into the paper and as it turned out the editor did a much more thorough job than I would have. My delay was a result of thinking about the issue of incorrect information being published in any of the many venues that have become available to use in this electronic age. Over the next 10 months we are all going to be exposed to information that may not be...
To The Eagle: There’s a bright future because of the positive efforts by Jaime Herrera-Beutler: HR19 Lower Costs, More Cures- bipartisan law to lower prescription drug prices and protect access to new therapy. HR4996 Helping MOMS-combat maternal mortality crisis. HR4995 - Maternal Health Quality Improvement Act of 2019-Improving quality of maternal health for moms in rural areas. $875,000 in local grants to prevent youth substance use. Jaime was awarded the prestigious 2019 Public Service Award by the American College of Obstetricians and G...
To The Eagle: Kudos to Editor Rick Nelson for his fine selective research used to slam my reference to the Petition Project in these pages a fortnight past. He used Wikipedia, which is the absolute gold standard for denigrating commentary on conservative people, institutions, or ideas. And there was much actual fact included, though it arrived in somewhat bent and battered form. The project was indeed initiated by Dr. Art Robinson of OISM and submitted to the U.S. Senate, who responded by refusing to ratify (by a vote of 95-0) the 1997 Kyoto...
