Smiles were priceless
Sunday, January 4, 2009 12:15 AM PST
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E-mail this articleJan. 4 Letters to the Editor
Smiles were priceless
I would like to thank everyone at the Salvation Army. Their Christmas program where they help a lot of families around the Cowlitz County area is really great.
My family was blessed from the Salvation Army by one of the grateful families that adopted us for Christmas. My kids had tons of presents to open Christmas morning. I just want to thank the family; they were very nice and Santa and all his elves delivered the presents to my door. My kids were jumping with joy. The smiles Christmas morning were priceless.
Thank you, Salvation Army.
Tina Letteer
Longview
Council should reject cameras
I appreciate the push by city officials to install red-light cameras at various intersections. But if safety is their true goal, they might do well to follow the advice of Longview City Councilman Andy Busack and local citizen Mike Wallin.
During recent meetings, Busack has said that the cameras have more to do with raising revenue than promoting safety. If we are truly concerned about safety, Busack suggests altering traffic lights to delay the switch from red to green. An extra one- or two-second delay would protect people from those racing to beat yellow lights.
Wallin also has concerns. At a recent council meeting, Wallin presented two studies from the states of Virginia and Florida that found higher incidents of rear-end collisions resulted after camera installations. It seems people began slamming on their brakes to avoid running stop lights, but wound up instead with varying degrees of whiplash and back injuries.
I find red-light cameras intrusive and insulting. While driving Ocean Beach Highway in the recent winter conditions, I suddenly found myself in no-man’s land at the 30th Avenue and Pacific Way intersections. And I was only going 20 mph.
Instead of jeopardizing myself by hitting the brakes and sliding, I puttered through the intersections.
Dave Grumbois
Longview
Praise to the unsung heroes
I would like to take this time to send out a big thank you to The Daily News delivery people and mail carriers that service Kool Road in Kelso, and to the snow plow operators as well. There's about three feet of snow at the top of Kool Road and we have not missed a day of paper or mail delivery during this snow event. Even though that is their jobs, the going had to be very tough and extremely dangerous at times.
The snowplow operators had a tough go of it as well, sliding back down the hill by our home on several occasions. But they didn’t give up and kept trying until they made it.
Also, a big shout out to all of our neighbors who came out and pulled car after car out of the ditches. Watching that kind of kindness makes you realize that there are a lot of good people that live in this community.
Again, a big thanks.
Sharon Jewett
Kelso
Hard work is appreciated
I’d like to thank my husband and all of his co-workers at the city of Longview who worked hard to plow and sand the roads during our recent storm. They’ve taken a lot of criticism from drivers and have been blamed for poor sales by merchants, and I hope it doesn’t get them down.
I know they worked very long hours for two weeks straight, including Christmas Day, so that police, fire and PUD could respond to calls and driving conditions would be the safest possible. They can’t please everyone and most people are very appreciative of their efforts.
To those of you from towns that get a lot of snow with advice, those towns are equipped to deal with it because they need to be. Longview’s two plows were running 24 hours a day and crews at times shoveled driveways and sidewalks by hand and helped to free stuck cars to be helpful, not because it was their job. I think they did the best they could with the resources available. To those of you with complaints; these men and women worked away from their families, who missed them a lot, so that the roads could be safer for you to be with yours.
Jennifer Cockrill
Longview
Snow and the county
After today, I thought I would let everyone know what the county provides us with after having received our hard earned tax dollars. After having completely buried my mother’s driveway and mail boxes with snow from a plow truck, she called the shop on Ocean Beach Highway. She informed them of her age (85) and asked them to come and unblock her driveway. The woman at the county shop told her to “dig it out herself.“
How could you tell a 85-year-old woman that? These are the same people who rerouted a culvert pipe under the road onto my property, and dug a 350-foot ditch down the property line between my place and the neighbors. When the ditch filled in from erosion and swamped both of our yards, we each called and were both told that they don’t have to maintain the ditch, but we could go rent a backhoe and fix it ourselves.
Two summers ago they parked a grader in my driveway, and stood out there smoking and throwing their cigarette buts in my driveway. By the time I got dressed and went out there, they had moved down the road. I hopped in my car and drove down to where they were working and told the flagger I wanted to talk to the supervisor on site. Guess what? It was the same guy. Some supervisor. Maybe he was leading by example. I sure did enjoy making him pick up those cigarette butts.
John Grigsby
Longview
Enough with the questions
It never fails to amaze me, how I can find a nice quiet place to fish and people will find me just to ask stupid questions. “Yes, I’m fishing. Does this look like a pool stick?” I could cast out a line on Mars and someone would make an expensive trip up there to ask, “Whatcha catchin’?” or the “Got one yet?” I’ve had cops stop and ask me that. I know they have better things to do. There are no tricks or special bait, it’s how much time one wants to spend getting cold, wet and bored.
If you like fish — and I do because they “rarely” ask me these things — go out, spend $1,000 on gear and try it. At least that would be more productive than buggin’ the heck out of me. But it won’t be easy, because a fish won’t seek you out and ask you something stupid, just to start up a conversation. It’s just too bad I can’t catch and retain questions. I’d limit out a heck of a lot quicker. They jump at me from all directions.
John Carstensen
Kelso
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