02/10/12 Letters to the Editor

Dairy practices: Start over

To the editor -- Recently, I received a phone call about liquid manure being dumped on fields. I also had a call about liquid cow manure being sprayed by a large sprinkler near West Wapato Road. Citizens were asking if these practices were legal.

According to dairy Best Management Practices, these practices are legal. In a recent federal court case against Farias Dairy, the judge stated these BMPs contribute to pollution. Now the Yakima Regional Clean Air Authority, with a $30,000 grant from the dairy industry processed through Washington State University, has created a biased scorecard using eyesight as a measurement device. This dairy air scorecard is suppose to improve our air quality. Local citizen environmental groups were not represented on the task force.

Everyone should be entitled access to clean air and water. Those of you living in the Yakima Valley can help by supporting those of us who are overwhelmed by the dairy/feedlot pollution in the Lower Valley.

Help us get the message to YRCAA this dairy air scorecard was bought and paid for by the polluting industry causing the pollution problems and should start over with genuine citizen input.

JAN WHITEFOOT

Harrah

GOP's fantasy

To the editor -- The Republican economic fantasy machine is now in high gear. From the very top, the presidential candidates, to our very own Doc Hastings, the message is the same.

The message? We can have the strongest (most expensive) military in the world, leave Medicare and Social Security alone, cut spending to balance the budget, and they recently added a moon base to the mix (Newt Gingrich).

The only problem the country has according to the Republicans is the Obama administration. Just get rid of the new health care law, consumer protections, environmental safeguards and regulations on the banking industry. (Remember them in 2007?) And all will be well.

As an economics major in college and with a 38-year career in aviation, I can say that the Rebublican "vision" of the future is pure bunk. When we filed a flight plan, we had to make sure it was a real plan, fuel, route, etc. Personal safety and company profit depended on that. It had to make sense. Ask yourself if any ot the plans the Republican party have proposed are reality based.

We, as a country, need to make some difficult changes in how we do business, and fantasy economics of the Republican Party will not get us there.

The government needs a mix of cuts to spending and an increase in taxes, as proposed by the Democratic Party, to satisfy the needs of our country for now and into a most challenging future.

RALPH CALL

Yakima

Telling us what to think

To the editor -- After reading George Will's Jan. 30 column, I am really impressed with the President Obama's supporters. They are saying that it is wonderful to have only President Obama tell all Americans what to do and think, and if they don't then military discipline occurs with the president being the fountain of wisdom that all must obey no matter what. What a wonderful fundamental change that would be for America!

I can see it all now in that all Americans loving President Obama so much that they will just obey him no matter what and anyone who doesn't is disloyal to America itself. Forget the Constitution! Forget freedom! Just remember only what President Obama has to tell all of us Americans what to think and do!

What Americans will do to create a political environment of pain for all who are merely thought to be different from the correct political think of the day and to be able to endure such pain must send feelings of joy throughout most Americans in this wonderful land of America.

This would make all days wonderful for all Americans. So have a good day you all.

ROBERT LOCKHART

Yakima

Keep students in Union Gap

To the editor -- Yakima, get out of Union Gap.

Setting at my desk, opening the ballot for school levy, I wondered, why am I paying the Yakima School District to educate Yakima children when I live in Union Gap and should be paying to educate Union Gap children?

Around 1995, we were annexed to Union Gap from the county. At that time, it seems like the school boundary should have been changed, but wasn't.

The Yakima School District is building a new school to replace Stanton Academy, which is in Union Gap. Instead of tearing down the old school, give it to Union Gap for a high school and for Yakima to get out of Union Gap so our tax dollars can help Union Gap schools instead of paying for new schools that Yakima seems to think they need.

Union Gap high school students must be bused to Yakima at a great expense and extra time.

This makes sense to me. How about you?

All of our children are out of school as well as our grandchildren, so we get nothing for our tax dollars except for one great-grandchild.

ALBERT D. LANTRIP

Union Gap

Highland taxes too high

To the editor -- I, for one, living in Cowiche, am fed up with the politics of the Highland School District begging us for more tax money, monies we all out here, as well as everywhere else, cannot afford. This little community does not need a Rolls Royce school! Our property taxes are high enough as it is for that school.

We are landowners, and we need not to keep using the school kids to dig deeper into our wallets, using them as scapegoats, in order to pay more for basically sports complexes.

If you all think that voting yes is the right solution, think again. We need this to stop or we will all end up on 40th and River Road with a sign "HELP!"

BERNARD LIND

Cowiche

Don't call me again

To the editor -- Since I don't start my day off at night if I don't have to, I did not appreciate the 5:30 a.m.-ish call on Feb. 1, with an allegedly "urgent message about marriage in Washington state," or something like that. If this is about what I think it is -- same-sex marriage -- I don't find it urgent enough for me to lose sleep over, as this call caused me to do.

I hope this is not a preview of coming attractions, or should I say distractions. Not knowing how to tell a recorded message not to call back, I just hung up and didn't go back to sleep.

ROBERT OWEN

Yakima