Letters to the Editor: March 21-27

Posted

The Editor:

The primary election for the Blaine City Council will be in August and the general election for the council will be in November.

The primary election allows the voters in a particular ward to determine the candidates who will be on the ballot for the general election. The ward boundaries are based on having the number of residents in each ward as equal as possible. The ward boundaries can and have been adjusted based on the most recent census. The concept of the ward is to allow each of the ward’s voters to elect representatives for their ward to the council. This is the concept that each person has one vote.

The general election has district wide voting, meaning the candidates in each ward are elected by all of the voters of the city. This negates, it would seem, the concept of one person one vote. What can happen and has happened is a candidate in a specific ward may have a majority of votes within the ward but lose the election because of votes cast for his opponent by voters outside of the ward. This is considered “vote dilution” since two-thirds of the vote for a candidate in a specific ward could be from outside the ward.

There is an apparent solution to this problem now that the state legislature in 2018 passed the Washington Voter Rights Act. The act appears to give the Blaine City Council authority to change from district wide voting to district only voting in the general election. The result would be that each ward would elect their representatives on the city council.

If you believe that this change should be made prior to the upcoming elections for council members, contact your present council representatives and any other council members requesting that this change is needed.

Dennis M. Olason

Blaine

The Editor:

In response to a letter to the editor in last week’s issue of The Northern Light regarding a “conservative” movement called “walkaway campaign,” I found it rich that the author denigrates the First Amendment right to freedom of the press while complaining about not having enough free speech for conservatives. This, after just last week there was a CPAC convention spewing vile anti-American rhetoric, under the guise of conservatism, freely and publicly on CSPAN, as well as a 24-hour network connected to the President, Fox propaganda state TV. The author repeats the talking points of autocrats claiming that the free press is “biased and spreading misinformation,” which has put journalists in danger of being attacked by nuts.

Further research reveals that “walkaway” is a Kremlin-linked bots propaganda campaign (according to The Alliance for Securing Democracy) released before the 2018 midterms and is supported by both Breitbart and Infowars. Questionable credentials to say the least. There is also evidence of grifting, while organizers charge hundreds of dollars to provide a dinner for participants.

A true conservative value is to conserve democracy, not try to destroy it while blindly following and believing a leader with authoritarian tendencies who calls the free press “the enemy of the people” just like Stalin, Hitler and Putin. We are lucky as Americans to have a press that is free to criticize and hold our leaders accountable.

In these times of corruption at the highest levels of government, we must stand together as Americans, be glad for the free press and not walk away from common decency and indeed from democracy itself.

Susan Medina

Birch Bay

The Editor:

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr. Cranky in Cascadia Weekly for writing about the terrible effects of measles.

All of the news has been about getting the MMR shots and not spreading the disease, but nothing about the problems suffered. At age five, I relapsed from measles to encephalitis. We were fortunate enough to have a young doctor who recognized the symptoms and when my temperature reached 105 degrees, she said to rush me to the Children’s Hospital in LA.

My dad, speeding through the city, was pulled over by an officer who took one look at me and had us follow him, his siren screaming, to the hospital where a spinal tap released pressure on my brain. After several months out of school, I recovered.

The daughter of the man my father worked for was not so lucky. His daughter, at age 10, got measles/encephalitis.  Her doctor in Texas told the family to get her to California as soon as possible. Her fever “cooked” her brain during the train trip, and she needed constant care until her death as a young adult.

Measles is to be feared, not spread among school and church children, let alone family members!

Donna Starr

Birch Bay

The Editor:

In response to the comment from Kay Burrough “Climate is not a political issue” from the March 7-13 instalment of The Northern Light. We must understand the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is political and produces reports that contribute to the UNFCCC. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) objective, is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations. The majority of climate information we receive from mainstream media outlets and activist groups come from the IPCC; which is a body created to substantiate the desires of the group that chartered them (UNFCCC).

In the March 14-20 instalment, Jeff Sterling mentions those “who know” and in doing so misses a larger point. We shouldn’t believe or disbelieve; as concerned citizens, we should remain skeptical. Corruption extends beyond the IPCC; the replication and peer review processes in the scientific/academic communities are also facing their own criticisms of confirmation bias and corruption.

As we seek to “act now and act quickly” the way that Jeff recommends, we should do so with a heightened awareness for the political influences that corrupt the sciences and academia, as well as the corruption of those who fund climate science, and the political and bureaucratic policy makers.

I’m skeptical that science can measure global average temperatures within fractions of a tenth of a degree, or that we can accurately measure hundredths of an inch of annual sea level rise, or the difference between life on earth as we know it and an earth overcome by apocalyptic chaos, is 1.5 degrees, or that we only have 12 years to fix everything.

However, no level of skepticism is an excuse for us to avoid a conservation-minded approach to life; we should, regardless of science, academic or government pressure, live life with respect for others and our earth (it’s the prudent and respectful way to exist). We should also do so with an understanding that many entities operate with the problem, reaction, solution, approach to structural change. Moreover, they can and will use the possibility of anthropogenic climate change for personal gain at our expense.

Frank J. Parenti

Birch Bay

Correction: In her March 7 article “Pinky Vargas launches campaign for Bellingham mayoral race,” Gwen Roley wrote that Bellingham mayoral candidate April Barker’s goals include “local immigration enforcement over federal regulations.” The Barker campaign wishes to clarify that Barker’s goals instead include “focusing law enforcement resources on local needs, rather than enforcing federal immigration law.”

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