Letters to the editor - Feb. 16

• Published February 16, 2009

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Sen. Karen Fraser should tend to state business

How embarrassing to see our state senator bigfooting our City Council with legislation to undo the council's decision on building heights.

How sad to see this former mayor and county commissioner show so little regard for local land use planning and decision-making under state laws she helped write.

Now that Sen. Karen Fraser and her colleagues have declared their devotion to the isthmus and its views, I look forward to their decisions about acquiring and demolishing the nine-story eyesore that has sat there for four decades, and the boathouses that block street-level views.

I look forward to their plans to expand Heritage Park north. And I look forward to their proposals to solve downtown Olympia's problems of inadequate housing, retail distress and vandalism.

I just hope they can find some time off from their municipal duties to deal with the state's fiscal crisis, education reform, transportation and the other issues we elected them to handle.

Having grown up in the District of Columbia, I know how it feels to have one's local government subject to legislators from elsewhere.

Our senator might want to think about the precedent she's setting for state second-guessing local decisions. It's often more fun to play at doing someone else's job, but it's more useful and responsible to do one's own.

Richard Van Wagenen, Olympia

We're in a world of hurt

WOW. Now I do have a question.

The headlines read that the Treasury Department has to borrow $493 billion to make ends meet. Now add this to the $569 billion that they borrowed three months ago, we now have $1,062 billion being borrowed from some other branch of government just to keep the Treasury Department in business.

Doesn't the treasury issue all of the money that we, the general public, spend?

If Treasury is borrowing money from Peter to pay Paul and we don't know where Peter is getting all of this money, I would say that we, the general public, are in a world of hurt.

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