Letters to the editor for Aug. 28

Gun owners should be required to get insurance

As Ed Rampell from Tribune News Service writes, “Gun owners should be required to buy insurance.” I like to add, they should also be required to take classes on how to handle guns safely, store them, shoot them, load and unload and clean them before they are allowed to own a gun. It actually could save lives.

For a car, you have to learn how to drive, learn the rules of the road and pass the driving test before you get a license to drive. Then you have to update your license every few years to keep your license current.

Both of these are potential killing machines, therefore you should learn how to use them wisely and safely.

In this crucial Port of Olympia election, vote for Helen Wheatley

As citizens attentive to our Port of Olympia, it is clearly time for a change. Commissioners Downing and McGregor plan to keep raising our taxes, and continue an annual hemorrhage in the millions on useless cranes, unproductive real estate, and impractical Marine Terminal shipping — unless we vote them out.

Weyerhaeuser and others pocket profits from their dirty, clogging operation while we buy them log loaders, expensive cranes, and a $12 million failed stormwater system polluting Budd Inlet, putting the Port in final stage non-compliance with State Ecology.

We could have a vibrant, accessible waterfront. Instead, it’s polluting, ugly, and uncompetitive, with no chance of black ink on the ledger.

This week those same two, when requested by fellow Commissioner Zita to refrain from rushing into a formal statement regarding the Port of Tacoma’s land deal to bring thousands of trucking trips per day to a devastating mass-operation in Maytown next to our beloved Millersylvania State Park and habitat preserve, instead immediately issued this:

“The POO Commission respectfully declines to take a position regarding the reported potential development of the Maytown property and any associated land use applications.”

Who the respect is for is unclear — but it is not our citizens, farmers, or wildlife.

Joe Downing is central to these mounting failures, poor decision-making, and shadowy accounting. Dr. Helen Wheatley will bring transparency, an intelligent and skilled background, and a keen eye for ethics and honest bookkeeping. We deserve her superior qualifications. Vote for Helen.