Letters to the editor for Dec. 31
Don’t call occupying group ‘militia’
As a concerned citizen, I am asking you to stop using the term “militia” when referring to armed extremist gangs in our country. It is illegal to organize private militias. The only legal citizen militia is our National Guard.
At this moment, right-wing extremism is responsible for the greatest amount of terrorist violence in our country. Referring to them as “militias” legitimizes their behavior and aids them in recruiting members out of a distorted sense of patriotism that seeks to overthrow our government.
Ethical journalism is the bedrock of our country. Renaming these groups what they actually are, armed extremist gangs, will help make our country safer.
Jane Spencer, Cosmopolis
Fixing Missing Middle housing isn’t enough
Per Sunday’s excellent Brandon Block story, Thurston Regional Planning Council’s Housing Needs Assessment calls for “affordable housing for the lowest income bracket” because they are most likely to be cost burdened and slipping into homelessness.
We also need housing for those who are already homeless. As a volunteer at SideWalk, a non-profit that helps get homeless people housed, roughly half the clients I interview have Social Security income; a common figure after 2019’s massive 2.8% cost-of-living increase is $790 per month. Using the “above 30% of income” cost-burden formula, that’s $237 per month for rent.
A high percentage of those I meet would eagerly pay $350 per month to reside at Plum Street Village, Olympia’s very successful tiny house community intended as “transitional” housing.
For anyone moving from the street or a tent into a warm, dry, tiny house with a door that locks and a gate that is monitored, it is a life-changing transition. Being stable, some would find work and move on, but many are disabled and can’t work and would gratefully stay forever in a tiny house and cease to be among the “homeless” population said to cost between $30,000 and $45,000 per person in city and regional services.
When Plum Street Village was being discussed, both Lacey and Tumwater said if it was successful, they would duplicate it. It is passed due, and time for Olympia to build more, in addition to finding a safe, reliable place for the “living in their RVs” folks to live.
Warren Carlson, Olympia
Where’s the accountability for Employment Security?
Here’s something I don’t understand. When people make mistakes and cost a private company money, they are lucky if they just get fired. But when people working for a government agency make mistakes that cost taxpayers money, they never get fired and seldom even get disciplined.
Take the recent fiasco at the Employment Security Department where taxpayers lost a few hundred million dollars to fraudulent unemployment claims. Even though an audit has now shown that bad choices and mistakes enabled an awful lot of the fraud, nobody in the agency is losing their job, especially not Commissioner LeVine, who was in charge.
Look, the number one thing you try and teach kids, especially teenagers, is that actions have consequences. The reason is so they will understand it’s best to pay attention in life and do a good job or things might not go so well for you. But if there are no consequences, if things still go well even when you screw up, then the opposite is learned, where doing a job poorly has the same rewards as doing it well.
I’ve always felt this lack of accountability was the primary reason so many tens of millions of dollars are lost in lawsuits against the Department of Social and Health Services when workers don’t do their job right and children get harmed. I’ve never heard of anyone getting fired for doing something wrong in these lawsuits. It’s always just the taxpayers who literally end up paying the consequences.
Steve Shanewise, Olympia