No Bad Days

It was a Bully day

By Don Nelson
Sometimes we are all little kids again for a few moments. That was me last week at the Backyard Ski Day, when Methow Valley Sport Trails Association executive director James DeSalvo gave me a ride around the Winthrop Town Trailhead parking lot in one the Pisten Bully trail grooming machines used to keep the valley’s Nordic trails in perfect order.

The machines go for upwards of $185,000 new and may top out at 25 mph, so they aren’t ideal for general travel. But you could go pretty much anywhere, I would think, with those big tank-like treads. MVSTA has five (plus snowmobiles that tow grooming devices in places where that is a more convenient method) with an experienced crew of eight paid drivers.

Although there is a steering wheel, much of the maneuvering is handled with a joy stick on the console next to the driver. I told DeSalvo I thought it looked like a video game control, and he said that the same kind of hand-eye coordination that makes you a good gamer can make you a good groomer (see the Valley Life page for a picture of what they look like). From the cab, you are definitely king of the trail.

The Pisten Bully (and that is the correct spelling), in a variety of models, is made by the German firm Kassbohrer, which has several manufacturing, sales and service locations in the United States. The company celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2009, by which time more than 17,000 vehicles had been sold in 66 countries. Our fleet was put to good use. It was a cold, clear day, with fast tracks, and a steady stream of skiers took advantage of the free trails at both ends of the valley. It was especially great to see all the kids, from tots to teens, stepping into their skis and heading off with a parent or two (looked like a lot of moms to me).

* * *
My Methow Moment of the week: I was driving home up West Chewuch Road after the big storm, and when I got to my driveway it had been solidly “bermed” in by a county plow (not a complaint, they do a great job). I didn’t think the Factfinder (my nickname for the Nissan Pathfinder I drive) was up to penetrating the snow wall, but parked right in front of my place was one of Tom Graves’ plowing crew, taking the chains off his truck. I told him my dilemma and he blew through the berm with a couple of quick swipes. A few minutes either way and I would have missed him. Seems like help is never far away if you believe in it.

I had my own personal avalanche Sunday when all of the snow on my roof – possibly loosened by the first wood stove fire in my new place – decided to thunder down in one massive dump that nearly took out the Factfinder. It was loud and impressive, leaving a glacial pile that I had to climb over Monday morning – which is better than digging out from under it.

* * *
You’d think a person would know where they were born. But in my “No Bad Days” column a couple of weeks ago, I managed to get it wrong. Instead of Bloomfield, Nebraska – the tiny town of my birth – I referred to Bloomington, which is a Minneapolis suburb where one of my brothers has lived for many years. So at least there is some cause for confusion (my brother was born in Bloomfield too). I hope I can remember to get the bloomin’ thing right next time. And yes, I have a birth certificate to prove it.

Don Nelson is the editor/publisher of the Methow Valley News.

Box 97: Letters to the editor

Thanks from fire victim
Dear Editor:
   I want to thank Okanogan County Fire Dist. #6 stations in Winthrop, Twisp and Carlton for responding to my house fire on Christmas Eve! Wow! What dedication. Many thanks. They were awesome. You could not find better volunteers anywhere.
   Also, thanks to the many people who voiced their concern for my loss – those who called and offered help and those I saw when I was out and about. Also to Greg and Allison of Mt. Gardner Inn, who gave me and my Christmas family rooms; Susie Gardner, who suggested a house to rent; Pat Sigler, who gave me clothes and a bed one night; Don, who took me and Karree in for a couple of weeks. She helped me get settled. You are all in my thoughts and prayers. Thanks also to my family, who arrived for Christmas, and we had a great Christmas with all who came. I am so thankful to God that no one was injured. (Martin, Julee and Eric would have been sleeping in the upstairs bedrooms.) To my family; I could not have coped without you all! God bless.
Frankie Waller
Winthrop
P.S. To the Cunninghams, my condolences for the loss of your home, and to the people at the house fire in Maughan’s addition, the same.

The ‘Occupy’ manifesto
Dear Editor:
   “Survival of the fittest” is Occupy’s creed. God is dead. Our new God according to academia is now settled – it’s Darwin – the father of “survival of the fittest.” Marxism is our Constitution. It mandates our survival at the expense of the less fit. Obama is our chief Marxist and enforcer.
We “Occupiers” and demanders call the shots now. We make demands – not requests! So you will meet our demands and provide for us, or you will die.
   Your “normalcy” is not for us. Your middle-American “work-ethic” is so “yesterday.” Your “families” are just “a ball and chain.” Your churches are irrelevant. We are dumping your burdens of Christianity, morality and conformity. Darwinism-Marxism and Obamanomics are giving us the future we want. Gays and bisexuals are our cutting edge for “Occupy.” Monogamy marriage is dead. Promiscuity rules.
   Yes, we’re going to take the “lion’s share” of your production in redistribution. We’ve got “the say” now. We are not going to live on just the crumbs dropped from your labors and productivity. “That doesn’t get it for us” anymore. We’ll take all that we need right now or else! Better evolve with us (the fittest), or you will die!
   (Just reporting on the voice from the Occupied Streets, right or wrong? George Soros expects bloodshed.)
Ward Hartzell
Twisp

Why Ron Paul?
Editor:
   Ron Paul, a veteran, never voted for a tax increase or unbalanced budget in 12 terms in Congress, never accused of corruption, always acknowledged as a consistent constitutionalist and true conservative, always pro-life (Dr. Paul delivered over 4,000 babies as a OB/GYN), and for family values.
   Ron Paul would cut $l trillion in spending his first year, while still protecting Medicare and Social Security and strengthening veterans' benefits. He wants to eliminate the Patriot Act and the NDAA (detainment of American citizens without a lawyer or jury trial), audit the Federal Reserve, and lower taxes.
   Dr. Paul believes that the United States should have the strongest national defense on Earth but not be the policemen of the world. After the 9/11 attacks, he voted to authorize military force to hunt down Osama bin Laden. Ron Paul has said that if there were a need to go to war, he would take it to the U.S. Congress (as the Constitution demands), we’d decide, we’d declare war, we’d win it, and then we’d get out.
   Tom Davis, a senator in South Carolina whose endorsement has been sought after, said, “I’m endorsing him [Ron Paul] because unlike what the pundits have led you to believe, he is the candidate who gives the Republican Party the best chance to beat Barack Obama in November. We have a choice: We can keep electing candidates who talk about change only during political campaigns as a way to get elected, or we can finally elect a candidate who will walk the walk and make that change a reality – restoring our bottom line, our individual liberties and our national pride in the process.”
Darlene DeLano
Okanogan
 

Hello?

A constitutional collision

By Solveig Torvik
Gov. Chris Gregoire wants you to vote for a temporary half-penny sales tax increase. Before you run screaming for the exits, though, consider this: Our state is broke.

And this: We are among the few states without a personal state income tax. So we rely heavily on the sales tax to pay our bills. Yes, it’s regressive; it penalizes the poorest among us. But we voters twice have made it clear that we like it that way. We’ve opted for a tax system which ensures that when we stop buying things, the state’s coffers quickly dry up. That’s part – but by no means all – of the reason that the Legislature now is trying to figure out how to plug a $1.4 billion deficit hole.

“I’m not a person who says ‘I told you so,’ but when it comes to tax reform, I told you so,” former Republican Gov. Daniel J. Evans said in an interview last week. In 1970, voters rejected his first proposal to enact a 3.5 percent state income tax and lower the sales tax to 3.5 percent. “I’m convinced that if we’d enacted the tax reform we’d be in way better shape than we are now.”

Gregoire’s half-penny proposal is not meant to address the structural flaws in our tax system that have helped pave our way to this miserable pass. Instead, our elected representatives once again are looking for solutions to our tax woes by making more cuts in education.

But the Washington State Supreme Court on Jan. 5 reminded lawmakers that they’re in violation of the state’s “paramount duty” under the state constitution to “amply” fund basic K-12 education. The state pays less than half the cost of utilities for each student, for example, and provides only enough money to update curriculum every 18 years.

It is unconstitutional, the court said in effect, for the Methow Valley School District to have to rely on voter approval of levies to fund its cost of providing basic education to students. That’s because levies are not regular, stable sources of funding. Nonetheless, two local district levies will be on the ballot this spring because the court generously gave lawmakers until 2018 to comply with the constitution. Levies now provide 25 percent of our school district’s operating budget and pay for such things as textbooks and technology.

Most of Gregoire’s half-penny tax increase, expected to raise $494 million, would go to education. Even so, she proposes to shorten the K-12 school year by four days, saving $99 million, and to reduce support for poor school districts – not ours, which doesn’t qualify as poor due to its high property values – by $150 million. Some $340 million also would be saved by a bookkeeping maneuver, delaying a major payment to school districts until the next two-year budget cycle.

Higher education would take a $160 million hit – a 17 percent reduction. Cuts to higher education have resulted in nearly doubling student tuition just during the eight years Gregoire has been in office. Because the lawmakers stopped pretending that they’re adequately funding our universities and colleges, the Legislature gave them authority to set their own tuition rates. Thus responsibility for providing funds for education was shifted from the people whose business it is – our lawmakers – to people whose business it isn’t – regents, trustees and educators.

So today it costs an undergraduate student $10,574 in tuition and fees for an academic year at the University of Washington and $224 more to attend Washington State University. Students are paying 70 percent of the cost of their education whereas they used to pay 20 percent. At the UW, the Legislature since 2009 has cut the state’s investment in that institution by 50 percent, according to UW officials.

Many people rightly fear that the Legislature is, in effect, privatizing public higher education in this state. “It’s terrible, just terrible,” says Evans of the state’s disinvestment in higher education. “I call it eating our seed corn,” adds the former president of The Evergreen State College.

This funding debacle is why our state’s top political leaders were roundly criticized this month for a “policy leadership vacuum” on education by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.

Washington is “undereducated,” the researchers found, so employers are forced to go out of state to hire workers.  By 2018, about 67 percent of all jobs in our state will require workers who have some post-secondary education. This means the annual production of associate and bachelor's degrees must increase at a rate of 6.2 percent a year, they said. Yet only 40 of every 100 Washington students who start ninth grade enter college on time, the researchers found.

Meanwhile, despite state supreme court prodding that began in 1978, the Legislature has been cutting, not increasing, K-12 education funding, with mind-boggling results. Senate Ways and Means chairman Ed Murray, D-Seattle, told the Seattle Times that even if the Legislature hadn’t cut funding this year or last, the state still would have to find between $6 billion and $9 billion to provide the full funding for K-12 education that the constitution requires.

Short of such drastic measures as closing down some community colleges or failing to honor pension obligations, said Murray, “I don't know where that money would come from.”  

“I understand their predicament,” said attorney Tom Ahearne, who represented plaintiffs in the K-12 funding case. “But not having the money to follow the constitution isn’t an excuse for not following the constitution.”

Does it strike you that we’ve set ourselves up for a fiscal-constitutional collision here, people? Hello?

Solveig Torvik, a former teacher, reported on education for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the San Francisco Chronicle. She lives in Winthrop.

Corrections

An article about the family planning clinic at Room One in the Jan. 25 Methow Valley News incorrectly identified Dotti Wilson, who works as a receptionist and nurse at the clinic. The News regrets the error.

Because of incorrect information, the Jan. 25 issue incorrectly reported that Sharon Bishop did not finish the Methow Valley Pursuit. Bishop, of Winthrop, did complete the 30K Citizen Skate from Mazama to Winthrop, winning her age group of 70-plus.

Feb. 1, 2012