Letters to the editor for May 12
Thanks to police and fire
Regarding the May 1 fire at our location, Glory House Foursquare Church, 620 Legion Way SE.
Our congregation wants to publicly thank the Olympia Police and Fire departments for their service to our church in the early morning hours of May 1.
The police officer was courteous and helpful. The firefighters were patient, kind, and professional. In our opinion, their rapid response saved the building and limited the damage.
We are so thankful for your efforts to keep all of us safe and secure, especially in this last year or two. Besides the “normal” things you do, you’ve had to deal with protests, politics, and COVID-19-related issues.
We have great respect for you. We stand with you in our prayers and we appreciation all you do for our community.
Dennis Teague, Pastor, Olympia
TVW preserving government transparency
Now that the dust has settled on the historic 2021 virtual legislative session, I wanted to take just a moment to reflect on the role TVW, Washington’s public affairs network, played in connecting citizens to their state government.
As the only point of access to the legislature, supreme court, and activities of the Governor’s Office during the 105-day legislative session, TVW produced more than 1,500 live events, and 1,045 of those were directly related to the work of the legislature. We also covered 90 press availabilities with legislative leaders and the Governor, all oral arguments before the Supreme Court and Washington’s three courts of appeals, as well as a variety of other government-related events. In all, viewers accessed just over 197,000 hours of content focused on the work of their state government — that’s more than 22-1/2 years (without bathroom breaks!).
As a private, non-profit organization, TVW has a contract with Washington state to provide this important service, but that contract only accounts for about 15 percent of TVW’s annual operating budget so it’s really the generous support of our programming sponsors and loyal viewers who keep our lights on and the cameras rolling. Thank you for your commitment to transparency in state government. We value your partnership and I encourage you to visit TVW.org to get a better understanding of all we do.
Renee Radcliff Sinclair, Olympia
The type of president Evergreen needs
As I write this letter, I am in the middle of writing my undergraduate capstone on The Evergreen State College’s first President, Charlie McCann (1968-1977). Between this draft of the first president and living through Evergreen’s last three years, I can only give an incomplete picture. Yet, I’ve been able to determine some characteristics and the type of person the college really needs.
What type of president Evergreen needs (from a student’s perspective, obviously):
▪ A leader, not a manager. Evergreen has lots of fires to put out. A manager would put out the fires and move on. A leader needs to consider where the fires are coming from.
▪ A visionary, who understands what makes Evergreen, Evergreen. There is an internal politics to Evergreen’s attachment to its pedagogical past and theoretical present. What we need now is someone who can consider new ideas without simply copying what other colleges are doing, while not throwing out what Evergreen does right.
▪ A decision maker. Evergreen is very capable of coming up with ideas for how it can do things better. However, it lacks a person to make decisions on those ideas.
▪ Someone who can translate Evergreen to the world and the legislature. This one’s pretty obvious. Evergreen is very bad at selling itself.
To conclude Evergreen needs someone like Denny Heck.
If you agree with my assessment, his office email is ltgov@ltgov.wa.gov and his office number is 360-786-7700.
What? Is Evergreen going to throw more money at it?
Robert Vanderpool, Olympia