Letters to the editor — May 17

Schools make a huge difference in lives of kids

I am worried, worried, worried about the possibility of the North Thurston levy failing.

My son was able to earn a full scholarship to college thanks to the supportive and talented athletic department and North Thurston High School.

If it weren’t for the Rams football, wrestling and cheer coaches and programs, he very easily could have gone awry in the public school system. The dedication and competence of the teachers and staff at NTHS helped him to be successful.

With two daughters coming up behind him I worry that they won’t have choices for athletics, arts and other core classes that he did. It would be a sad blow to our entire community to lose the programs and teachers that truly enliven our community and help our children — our future.

I urge the North Thurston community to vote “Yes” and keep our children competitive for tomorrow’s world.

Kirsten Butler, Lacey

Hold protesters accountable

Enough already! For too long, Thurston County and cities here have been far too lenient on unruly young people and those who teach them to be unruly.

We need to get tough on protesters and rabble-rousers who trash our cities and spit in the face of our laws. No more a slap on the wrist as if they were merely being brats.

Those young people, if not taught to obey laws, will grow up to be unruly adults who care nothing about rules and laws. This leads to an uncivilized society. Is this what we want for our communities?

If we don’t obey laws, we are nothing but animals. Actually many animals are better behaved than these protesters. I don’t mean to malign animals.

Theodora Toompas, Olympia

Don’t focus on violence in city

The front page recently featured the anarchists who created significant violence and some damage in downtown. More than half of the front page consisted of pictures of these kids, scuffling with the police, breaking windows and hiding behind their masks, masks to make it hard for the police to identify the worst of them for possible prosecution.

The Olympian is doing exactly what they want — PUBLICITY!

AND who pays for the prosecution of these lawbreakers? We, the taxpayers, pay, not only for the police to try to maintain peaceful assembly and to prepare the reports about the lawbreakers, but we also pay for the prosecuting attorneys to prepare the cases to prosecute the lawbreakers and then we pay for the court- appointed attorneys to defend these thugs and also we pay for the overworked judges and court staffs.

All of these expenses are paid by us taxpayers.

When will The Olympian put the reports about the lawbreakers on the back page with little or no copy like you did for the National Day of Prayer rally that was held on the Capitol steps, that same day? That rally was made up of people who were praying that God would have mercy on our city, our state and our nation. The Olympian printed one small photo of a woman with a dog, totally misrepresenting the more than 200 people who were focusing on prayer, obeying the law, and who were orderly and conducting a respectful rally.

Bob Higley, Olympia

There are far worse crimes than shattered glass

My young children and I had the misfortune to walk right into the middle of the May Day march, walking from Browser’s Books to Radiance. I think everybody is overreacting. We were right there when they threw the rocks and the rest of the crowd desperately tried to stop it, and did stop them, almost immediately.

I feel sorry for those kids whose entire futures might be ruined over a few panes of glass. Is human life worth so little?

In our culture, it’s illegal to smoke in public but not illegal to make Tacoma unbreathable, it’s illegal to let your dog poop on the sidewalk but legal to destroy Hood Canal with septic wastes, illegal to commit murder but not war. It seems like nothing is a crime if you do it on a large enough scale! We are near-sighted, because we only see the petty crimes such as breaking windows, while ignoring the vast public crimes of corporations, who destroy thousands of lives worldwide.

Anna Gurol, Olympia

Congress turns a blind eye to corruption

In Iraq, there are several companies doing business. Among them are: Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, Titan and CACI. We are spending between $2 billion and $4 billion a week over there. Forty percent of that goes to these contractors.

Halliburton, for one, has been found guilty of overcharging by $1 billion. Their stock has gone up in value since the start of the war by 400 percent.

KBR, an affiliate of Halliburton, has a contract to do the laundry for all of the service people in Iraq. They are charging $99 to do one bag of laundry, when I could do it for under $5. When one considers that there are about 160,000 service men and women over there, their profits must be enormous.

All of the fraud and abuse is overlooked by Congress when its members know full well that it is going on. They have not passed one bill aimed at curbing these transgressions, nor have they done anything about the Pentagon letting contracts without bids. Could their lack of action have anything to do with why they haven’t impeached this arrogant moron?

Rich Boyd, Lacey

Lacey messes up again

I would like to thank the city of Lacey. They have wasted money on roundabouts, they have wasted money on ineffective camera systems and now they’ve topped it off by putting sidewalks in the middle of Sixth Avenue.

For someone that doesn’t drive through that part of Lacey often, I was shocked to see sidewalks sticking out with little warning.

After quickly maneuvering away from wrecking my car, I was absolutely overjoyed to have one of Lacey’s police officers pull me over for not signaling my lane change. “No, I didn’t really have time to think about that, officer.”

This City Council needs to be fired. It’s clear to me that none of them know what they are doing.

Justin Bennett, Lacey

Mariners need to take a swing

Why do nearly all of the Mariners get into the batters box then stand there and watch the first pitch be a called strike?

Seldom, if ever, do any of them swing at the first pitch. The opposing pitchers are aware of this and fire their first pitch down the pipe!

Check the tapes and you will see that this is correct. If you continually give up the first strike you reduce your chances of getting a hit by one-third or more.

Lorin Wilkinson, Olympia

Decrease city staff to hire police officers

So the city of Olympia wants to raise our property taxes to fund nine new police officers. I have a better idea to finance this plan.

The city issued only 85 building permits in 2007, down from 229 permits issued in 2006. Yet the city’s development services department had 22 employees in 2007, up slightly from 20 employees in 2006.

The city should reduce this department by nine or more staff and use the savings to add police officers. Even with the reduced staff, the development services staff will not be overwhelmed — each of the remaining staff will have to handle only seven permits per year. That’s less than one per month.

Jan Rohila, Olympia