Letter to the Editor

Fire tax rates

Editor, the Journal,

Hi, Mason County Dist 17 residents,

I just wanted to provide some information on your tax rates and Brinnon Fire District 4 tax rates. These can be found by going to the assessors’ websites for Mason County and Jefferson counties. These are rates per $1,000 of assessed value:

Mason County District 17 EMS: $0.3670 Fire: $0.2499; Brinnon Jefferson County District 4 EMS: $0.3633 Fire: $0.9391 Fire bond (2019): $0.3384. That is a difference of $1.03 per thousand dollars assessed.

Just thought you should have that information.

Michelle Barnett, Lilliwaup

What say you, GOP?

Editor, the Journal,

Well now, Republicans, desperately clinging to any possible source of criticism of President Joseph Biden, are arguing we should have shot down the balloon sooner. They are fatuously presenting that as a major issue while they ignore or distort the real issues.

One of these is the economy. Andrew Makar recently presented a lucid and thorough discussion of this issue. However, certain aspects deserve constant repetition: the economy does better with Democrats in charge and the Republican mantra of tax cutting has been shown repeatedly to cause huge budget deficits. They blame the Democrats and spending. OK, Republicans, tell the people exactly what you propose to cut.

The book “Presimetrics,” a compendium of charts and graphs, illustrates the effects of the policies of these parties.

Another letter, from Scott Peterson, did an excellent job of laying out the history of the climate debate. Some time ago, a writer proposed that a barrier be placed across the Shelton waterfront to hold the water back. Who does he propose to have pay for this? The city of Venice and areas of Holland are erecting such barriers at enormous expense. Eventually coastal cities all over the world, such as New York City, will need to do similar things. In addition, we are seeing worldwide droughts and shortages of water. Does it make sense to say we can’t afford to do the things that we know can mitigate climate change?

Bob Clark, Shelton

Ballot procedures

Editor, the Journal,

Response to Craig Anderson’s letter on Feb. 2:

Dear Mr. Anderson,

While I talk a lot about election system vulnerabilities, I have never made accusations of fraud. It’s an important distinction. When it comes to our elections system, I want to share with voters (within the restraints of the law) what works well and where there are vulnerabilities.

What works well? In the short time I have been in office, I am happy to share that the Mason County elections team does an excellent job with ballot processing. I have witnessed firsthand the importance the team places on ballot security, chain of custody documentation and customer service. This team pays exceptional attention to detail.

My focus is on vulnerabilities with processes “upstream” from the elections office and with voting system machines. Our vote-by-mail system presents vulnerabilities resulting from the break in ballot chain of custody from the time ballots are mailed to voters until they arrive at the county elections office. Elections personnel trained in signature matching techniques mitigate this break in chain of custody by verifying that a voter’s signature on a ballot declaration is the same as that in the registration files (in accordance with the law) prior to processing a ballot through to tabulation. Even with training and experience, signature verification is subjective.

Post-election canvassing (which entails visiting a physical address and talking to residents to confirm that the individuals who voted from that address are legitimately registered there) can shed light on “upstream” processes fidelity and provide information to help keep voter rolls current and correct. We are not staffed at the elections office to do this type of canvassing, so this is where trained nonpartisan Voter Research Project volunteers can help. I anticipate that when the next round of canvassing activity is complete, the Voter Research Project will make the results public. I will be happy to summarize any resulting actions taken by the elections office.

As for voting system machines, we are working with our supplier (Clear Ballot) to understand how to improve machine security. We now have near-term plans to enhance the security of our machines in Mason County. We are also exploring auditing a greater number of paper ballots after election day and prior to certification in order to strengthen confidence that a paper ballot matches its scanned image and that the scanned image is correctly tabulated.

With all of that, we are expanding opportunities for election observers to monitor pieces of the process where they haven’t previously had access and make the system more transparent. If you would like to be involved in any of the canvassing or observer activities, please let me know.

Steve Duenkel , Mason County auditor

Levy clarity

Editor, the Journal,

Many voters in the Shelton School District want to support our students and we have. According to the Assessor’s Office in 2022, SSD had the highest taxes of any Mason County school district. Now we have a replacement levy request that increases funding by nearly 30% and little clarity in what to expect over the following three years.

The problem here is that we really don’t know what the impact is based on information that’s been provided. So far, we’ve been told that the levy rate will be held to $2.09 per $1,000 assessed property value and that the levy amount over the three-year period (2024 through 2026) is estimated to be $22.9 million. Compare this to the current levy which for 2021 through 2023 provided $16.5 million. This is a near 30% increase.

According to the Mason County Assessor’s Office, the decision process for what we will ultimately pay is quite complicated. Simply put, the amount we pay to the SSD for this levy is the lesser of the following three limitations. First, it could be $22.9 million. Or it could be $2.50 per $1,000 assessed value. Or it could be some number the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction provides based on pupil count. We need full disclosure on how a “yes” vote will further impact our property tax bill in 2024 through 2026. Further, we need to know why the superintendent and school board are planning on a near 30% increase to this levy. SSD provided the pre-ballot plan which included this whopping increase to OSPI on Dec 6. This increase cannot be explained by inflation alone. We might as well ignore the $2.09 per $1,000 advertisements. These messages are meaningless and misleading. The levy rate for 2023 is $1.75 per $1,000 providing $5.5 million to the district per the assessor. Property values have gone up while levy rates have gone down, as we all know. Conclusion: SSD led us to believe there would be no increase in taxes associated with this levy. That does not appear to be true.

Brenda Hirschi, Shelton

Thank you, schools

Editor, the Journal,

The Feb. 2 edition of the Journal included a letter and an article on Mason County schools.

The letter, titled “From the handbook,” quoted the Shelton High School Handbook policy on “Gender inclusive schools.” Thank you to the letter writer for bringing this to our attention. (No personal opinion was given).

I’d like to thank the school for this policy of inclusion, acceptance, empathy, mindfulness for people who are too often vilified for simply being who they are. People trying to find who they are, who just want to be their true selves.

Thank you for giving kids the freedom of life. Thank you for giving kids a safe place they need, especially in this political climate of politicians trying so hard to deny their very existence.

This handbook was for the high school, I hope this policy also applies in all grades.

In this same edition, the Belfair Herald had an article on the Sand Hill Elementary School, “Vision of inclusion.”

“This school works to include all kids of different abilities in all classes and activities. The progress kids make in such an environment can be life changing. Just as the understanding and empathy all kids learn can help change this world.”

The policies of these schools help develop mentally and emotionally healthy human beings. These schools give me hope for the future of these kids, the future of this county and this country.

Thank you to the teachers, administrators, students and parents for supporting kids in living their best lives.

Donna Holliday, Shelton

Finally, the truth

Editor, the Journal,

The letters section of the Feb. 2 edition provided me with an unexpected surprise. This week I completely agree with a declaration made by a certain frequent writer. I generally avoid reading letters from some serial contributors, as I choose not to waste my time on bombastic rhetoric, intellectually lazy, warmed-over Fox “News” talking points, ignorant supremacist propaganda and outright lies.

For whatever reason, I read a letter from a person well-known in the community for inflaming division and sowing discord. Perhaps it was the same impulse which causes people to look at a train wreck, against better judgment.

The contributor offered a statement which is, for once, absolutely true. In a rare instance of providing documentation, the contributor backs up this statement with undeniable, irrefutable evidence.

The contributor wrote, “People have the right to be stupid.” We have years’ worth of letters from this contributor to prove this statement to be true.

Theresa Jacobson, Agate

Equity myths

Editor, the Journal,

There has been enough nonsense poured out by the GOP regarding equity to make anyone sick. The problem is that they always misstate the case. They always frame the goal as equal outcomes. What they fail to deal with is the fact that no society, including this society, gives truly equal opportunities. We know that. So let us look at this in another light, shall we?

The current whipping boys of the right wing is critical race theory and “socialism.” In each case, the proponents set up a straw man argument and then put it forth as reality. We see this every week. It would be one thing if they put forth something that approached an original thought. But what we are treated with is the exact same drivel one can get from political demagogues and dishonest people like Tucker Carlson. (Let’s not dispute Tucker’s integrity. The man’s employer defended him in court by claiming he was not stating facts but making nonliteral commentary. Or were they misleading a tribunal?)

The House had an idiotic vote on socialism. What is socialism in their view? Who knows? From what I can gather it is anything that benefits the bottom 90% of the population and costs the top 1% a single penny. Your Social Security and Medicare is socialism by that definition.

I’ve read CRT materials. It isn’t Marxism. It isn’t some crazy idea. When you come right down to it, it makes an unremarkable observation. When you create institutions, write laws and pursue public policies that are explicitly designed to marginalize a population economically, politically and socially, then you will have lasting impacts on that population that simply won’t disappear by passing a law. Heck, we proved it won’t go away by passing constitutional amendments. Jim Crow flourished after we had three amendments to address the status of Black people in this society. They didn’t stop anything because we weren’t willing to live up to our commitments.

Why do these issues get demagogued? It’s the same reason that Thomas Jefferson could write that all men are created equal and then persist in owning slaves. It is good old personal self-interest. This isn’t an un-American observation. It isn’t even a new observation. In fact, it was an observation of both John and Abigail Adams. So it is an observation that has been with us since the beginning.

You see, there are social problems. But the people that demagogue the issue by throwing around charged language do it because they don’t want to deal with it. Dealing with it is perceived to be not in their personal best interests. The fact that it has persistent negative impacts on American society is irrelevant. It’s always “those people’s” problem. And yet, somehow, putting oneself above the good of the nation is somehow portrayed as patriotism. Or worse, Christian.

Andrew Makar, Hoodsport

Well-written letter

Editor, the Journal,

Dean Remillard has written the most poignant letter to the editor — brief, concise, accurate — questioning the interaction between the church and state.

Mr. Remillard provides the full text taken directly from the “Shelton High School Student/Family Handbook 2022-2023: Gender-inclusive Schools” commencing, “All students are entitled to an educational environment that is safe and free of discrimination, regardless of their gender expression or gender identity ...”

By simply quoting the handbook, Mr. Remillard allows the reader to form his own opinion, examining and questioning his personal beliefs on this controversial “woke” subject: Should the school board decide your personal opinion regarding a student’s sexual orientation? Or is the quote more about your behavior when encountering a person of expansive gender identity?

One reading – respect the personal self-identity of all students — encompasses the biblical tenet: “Judge not lest ye be judged yourself.”

Another reading – from the United States Bill of Rights – Article the third:“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The high quality of this letter resides in the fact that Mr. Remillard respects the reader to question and form his personal opinion in this controversial subject.

James Poirson, Shelton

Duenkel should quit

Editor, the Journal,

Republicans are bad. If Mason County Auditor Steve Duenkel wants to weed out election fraud he should resign because of his fraudulently run campaign!

He used what the ad industry calls subliminal seduction to mislead you. In other words, something is planted to fool you to mislead you into thinking something is not what you think it is. Let’s call it a decoy.

He fooled you into thinking he was a Democrat by his political posters. All his signs he posted everywhere were using the Democratic color and ad format without stating he was a Republic-Con. That is the subliminal con he knowingly used to trick voters. He wraps flags on his posters, but he is not a patriot, he is an election denier, a Republic-Con artist.

Duenkel started to mislead voters from the very beginning.The voters do watch, and know the only fraud that has been committed nationwide is by ex-President Donald Trump and the MAGA Republican co-conspirators and local election deniers who tried to overthrow our government on Republican treason day, Jan. 6, 2021.

The nuthouse of Republic-con oath breakers who took the oath to protect the Constitution broke it. The Republic-con nuthouse of representatives voted against the election certification. Many begged defendant Trump for pardons because they knew they are guilty of seditious acts. As you read this, they are in the process of trying to weaponize the nuthouse of insurrectionists to save themselves from the Department of Justice.

You can always tell what underhanded act they are doing — they accuse the Democrats of what they are currently doing. They want representatives to take the oath of allegiance to the flag in the nuthouse, and half of them broke their oath to the Constitution. They then went begging to defendant Trump for pardons. What a crock of stinky cheese. The first act they passed was tax breaks for the billionaires, who do not pay taxes anyway; so we get our taxes raised to pay for them.

I am worried about Duenkel, Shelton’s own Republic-con lying Santos example, and what he intends to do to our free and fair elections we have here in Washington and Mason County. There are all sorts of land mines he can and will create to interfere with our elections. It’s always lies, hate, fear and revenge. Nothing about governing — just Q and MAGA crap. Believe only your eyes and not the voices of others. There is a fox in the hen house! Turn the voters loose. Recall the radical Republic-con Duenkel.

Roderic Whittaker, Shelton