Letters to the Editor

Carlson for the people

Editor, the Journal,

A vote for Mark Carlson is a vote for the people.

Mark Carlson cares about the people of Mason County. He will bring back town meetings and citizen input regarding our county. He wants to make sure that we the people have the opportunity to be involved in local government so our voices are being heard. He is an America-first, U.S. Marine veteran, retired, successful business owner who has lived in this community for 35 years and has raised a family here.

Mark wants to make sure our county is being run frugally and efficiently so that our tax dollars are not being wasted. He will expose and stomp out the corruption in order to do so. He has served on both private boards and public boards in the community to help us the taxpaying citizens save money and keep the public involved in county issues by gathering community input and reporting back to Mason County on our behalf.

Mark is a man of honesty and transparency. He is truly for the people and will always stand up for our constitutional rights above all else. Mark is a true statesman and will always be open and available to talk to the people in our community and answer questions. That is what he loves to do.

Mark Carlson for Mason County commissioner, District 3.

Rebecca Bechtolt, Shelton

Orange jumpsuits

Editor, the Journal,

My conservative friends think that the House should have a jury trial instead of a hearing on what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, to allow lawyers to cross-examine each witness to the insurrection by former President Donald Trump and his followers. They contend that they lied and the video that you see on your TV has been doctored up.

The citizens of this country should see what actually happened on Jan. 6 and should be shown the unvarnished truth of the insurrection supported by Trump and his followers.

I am looking forward to seeing the day Trump and his followers will be fitted for the orange jumpsuits that will be provided by Merrick Garland, attorney general of this United States.

Earl Mallinger, Shelton

Question for Shutty

Editor, the Journal,

What do you call an 8-million-dollar debt and a ride off into the sunset? A real Shutty move. As per a Freedom of Information Act request, the public records disclosure shows that in a letter dated April 4, 2022, Mason County Commissioner Chair Kevin Shutty has applied for an out-of-state job — director of federal relations in University Park, PA. My question/concern on this is, why is he planning to leave Mason County with two years left on his term just after voting for, along with Commissioner Sharon Trask, the Belfair Sewer Extension Project that will bring an $8 million dollar debt to the taxpayers of Mason County?

This financial burden is strapped to every taxpayer in Mason County as Belfair is not an incorporated city. If the sewer extension was such a worthwhile project, then why would Commissioner Kevin Shutty be wanting to leave Mason County before his term was up and before the first shovel of dirt on this sewer extension project was even turned? What other surprises are in our future from this 1-2 punch commission?

Curtis Fosdick, Shelton

Bait and switch

Editor, the Journal,

Mason County taxpayers should be getting very tired of paying for the Belfair sewer. A prior commission committed Mason County to build a 500,000-gallon per day plant, in the middle of one large undeveloped property, leaving $14,000,000 in debt with a few hundred customers. Currently, the Belfair Sewer Plant only receives approximately 50,000 gallons per day from the couple of hundred customers. The debt is currently being paid by customers, and the entire county is using REET (real estate excise tax) and 0.09 (sales tax) money.

Here we go again. Commissioner Kevin Shutty (District 2) and Sharon Trask (District 3) have voted to use the $8,000,000 loan from the Washington state Public Works Board to be spent putting sewer infrastructure onto one developer’s property that the property taxes are paid as “Designated Forest Land.” Happens to be the same property owner the Belfair sewer plant is built on. Belfair is in Commissioner Randy Neatherlin’s (District 1) district and adamantly opposed taking the loan. He was out-voted in his own district, 2 to 1.

The loan, PC20-96103-157, was signed by Trask on March 24, 2020. The loan was intended to connect the Port of Bremerton to the Belfair Sewer Plant and bring 100s of ERUs. The scope of the loan states “The project will construct two or three sewer lift stations, gravity sewer, and pressure main extending from the Belfair Waste Reuse Facility (WRF) to the Puget Sound Industrial Center (PCIC) at Lake Flora Road.” Bremerton decided against it. So, the money was switched. Switched to a nice little sewer project on the developer’s property with absolutely no guarantees for future hookups. Commissioner Randy Neatherlin fought for the entire county.

A few individuals attacked Commissioner Neatherlin for standing up for Mason County. Those same individuals will most likely criticize this letter. Pay attention because it is the same few people, the same names. Neatherlin had over 175 letters supporting his position not to obligate Mason County to a $8,000,000 loan. However, Shutty and Trask outvoted him.

So, I ask you: Using the REET and 0.09 money for the Belfair sewer, how does that help Shelton, Mason Lake, Spencer Lake, Kamilche, Dayton, Matlock, Skokomish Valley, Hoodsport, Lilliwaup, Eldon, Lake Cushman, Allyn, etc.? Fact is, it doesn’t.

With a 2 to 1 vote, the commission hurried to put the project out to bid. Bids were opened. The project has not been awarded yet. I would ask the commission to hold off on the awarding of the project. If this sewer project is such a great idea, if it creates a lot of development, then why can’t the developer pay for it?

Jack Johnson, Belfair

Dams, orcas, Times

Editor, the Journal,

Someday I’ll learn to resist the temptation to read The Seattle Times; it inevitably puts me into a confused state of mind attempting to parse fact and logic from emotion, innuendo, falsehood, and just plain determining their perspective on a subject. Overall, I think their objective is to convince the reader that planet Earth is spinning irrevocably toward chaos unless we the people have the sustained belief and conviction that the application of more government of the liberal/Democratic persuasion, combined with the belief of infinite governmental financial resources will prevent every catastrophe — but we have to act with alacrity and vote for the liberals. The Sunday, June 26 edition of the aforesaid publication led with the apparent tragedy of the Supreme Court’s ruling retracting Roe v. Wade — a careful reading and application of the United States Constitution by a strong majority of justices of little merit. I don’t have a pony in this race, however ambivalent — so I’ll hold my opinions to myself. 

The Seattle Times article which caused me the most confusion is the proposal that four dams on the Snake River be breached to allow for the unrestricted upstream migration of spawning salmon, food for me and the indigenous orca. The wonders of nature: I share a love for salmon (in a sandwich smothered in horseradish sauce) with the orca. Once the ancient M/V El Mistico crossed paths with a small pod on Oakland Bay (by god, those guys are big. The dorsal fin on the largest is as high as EM’s pilot house, and powerful.) They have – well – a unique odor. Not totally unpleasant, possibly best expressed as primitive.The fundamental gap in this Seattle Times article is the cost and replacement of the electrical power generated by these four damns. The Times article disclosed the gigawatts produced by these four dams, but they ignored how this power will be replaced in terms of technology and finance.We can’t make decisions without the numbers.

James Poirson, Shelton

Where are we headed?

Editor, the Journal,

Recently I participated in an automated phone poll. Automated, no chance to explain answers.

First question: “Do you think the country is going in the right direction or do you think the country is going in the wrong direction?”

I believe we are going in not just the wrong direction but a very dangerous direction.

Inflation — not just a U.S. problem, and wait for the profits.

Shrinkflation — they’ve been this for years.

High gas prices — many reasons, and wait for reported profits.

We will come through these things, we have before. Yes, I know what it is like to make sure my animals have feed, bedding, medicine and all else that they may need on a regular basis or emergency for a month before I do grocery shopping for the month.

We are going in a dangerous direction when:

Donald Trump has not yet been charged.

When so many people still believe Trump’s lies.

Violence in this country, Jan. 6, mass killings, daily killings all over this country.

States passing laws making it harder for some people to vote.

States passing laws so they can easily overturn an election.

States banning books. This has been done before, but not like this.

States passing laws against teaching our true, complete history.

The mindset that it is OK to threaten election workers and elected officials.

States passing anti-LGBTQIA laws.

If Trump, Giuliani, et. al. are not in prison, we will be headed for things from which we may never recover.

Yesterday the radical Supreme Court just made it easier to get and carry guns.

Today that same radical Supreme Court overturned a 50-year-old law. Which they all said during their confirmation hearings was settled law. They did what they were put in there to do. They finally had their chance. And Clarence Thomas opened the gates for other rights to be overturned. But notice he will not include interracial marriage because that would very directly affect him. Watch out, they will be coming for you.

We’re going in the wrong direction when we have wannabe leaders say they are 100% pro-life and yet pro-gun.

Anti-affordable health care, anti-paid family leave, early education, nutrition programs in schools, anti-tax credits for families, but sure want tax cuts for the rich and large corporations.

Definitely in the wrong direction.

Donna Holliday, Shelton

Out of our bedrooms

Editor, the Journal,

Years ago, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the most liberal judges on the Supreme Court, expressed concern regarding Roe v. Wade. Abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution; there is no constitutional right to it no matter how you spin it with amendment interpretation, therefore not unconstitutional to ban it. (However, the Second Amendment is, and protected, Pelosi. Correct SCOTUS decision there as well.)

The Supreme Court has been maliciously maligned and persecuted and threatened for doing its job, overturning a case it never should have ruled on in the first place. The court is supposed to be apolitical. They do not rule on personal opinion or party leanings, they choke down their personal feelings and rule by constitutional law. The justices did not ban abortion, they simply voted to return the issue over to the states where it should be; a governing of the people, by the people and for the people. Isn’t this what everyone wanted? To keep government out of our bedrooms?

Well, the Supreme Court just did that. If you don’t like the laws of the state you are in, work to change them by voting, or move to another state. Our Constitution at work as it should.Instead of respecting our Supreme Court and Constitution, our legislators, who swore an oath of office to honor and defend the Constitution, are raising their fists in anger, urging unpeaceful protest against it and the court. I have heard more incitement of violence coming out of the mouths of our “leaders” Friday than ever from the mouth of our previous president, impeached and hung out to dry by a one-sided hearing as corrupt as the election they discuss. Shame on them. They practice the very thing they accuse of conservatives.

The masses of pro-abortion advocates and protesters we are seeing don’t care about the health or choice of women. We are seeing violence against women who choose to keep their babies. “Jane’s Revenge” has bombed, vandalized and destroyed faith-based groups whose sole intent is supporting the girls and woman who chose life for their babies but need some help. Family Planning, a misnomer, does nothing for the pregnant girl who chooses life and needs help.

How did we get to a point in our world where hundreds of thousands are screaming for their right to kill a human life? At what point did we declare ourselves God, to decide who should live and who shouldn’t? Sixty-three million children exterminated since Roe.

Just a comment on last week’s letters: John, by your definition of “insurrection,” the riots of 2020 on several major Democratic-led cities was a far larger, deadlier, longer, more destructive “insurrection” than Jan. 6 ever was.

Janet, for calling the Journal “appalling and disgraceful” for publishing a business ad, already paid and planned for, for Verle’s gun shop, this is what newspapers do. I would never subscribe to a newspaper where freedom of press and ads are decided by biased public.

Katie Groves, Shelton

What about them?

Editor, the Journal,

From the news reports I’ve seen, the Jan. 6 riot had the right-wing involved. All who broke the law should be prosecuted. But the made-for-TV trial going on in Congress is a disgrace. Democrats want to prosecute the Jan. 6 rioters, but frantically ignore hundreds of other riots destroying millions of dollars of property, as documented by Wikipedia, with many deaths during the Summer of Love.

Three murders in the CHOP district in Seattle. One murder in Portland and rioters tried to burn a federal building with staff inside it. There were no Democrat demands that BLM and antifa stand trial; no prosecution for cops killed but demands to defund the police. Democrats insist on trials for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists; no one else. An honest person would want all rioters tried as enthusiastically as the Jan. 6 group; else you have attacks on the right and forgiveness for the left. That’s political justice, Soviet-style.

The Jan. 6 congressional hearings are a witch hunt. Normal committee hearings are managed by the majority party but the minority party got to name their own committee members. This didn’t happen at the Jan. 6 hearings; three friendly Republicans joined with Democrats and represented the minority party; a stacked deck. The June 23 edition of the Journal had three letters. I don’t believe the statistics given by John Price; they were dramatized, biased and not documented. Price said hundreds of law enforcement personnel were traumatized by these attacks but gave no psychological reports by reputable doctors. This “fact” is hyperbole. Were the four cop suicides a result of this trauma, incidental to it, or even real? He embellished so much I don’t believe anything he wrote. Lying or exaggeration does nothing for credibility. His sources ranged from biased to nonexistent. Pieter Booth and Katherine Price took a more reasoned course but still embraced the made-for-TV soap opera. With this stacked deck, the cases will likely be rejected politically and may very well damage the cases judicially. The right-wing jokers broke the law, but the left-wing yahoos stacked the deck. Will justice prevail in all the cities attacked by antifa and BLM?

Ardean Anvik, Shelton