Polk County
Voices
A4
Polk County Itemizer-Observer • January 24, 2018
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Keep Gentle Woods
gentle for kids
Just say, “No.” Gentle
Woods Park, in Monmouth,
will not be taken away from
the families who cherish,
respect and enjoy it. Your
money creates, improves
and maintains municipal
parks. City ordinances are
clearly written and simple
to understand, yet they are
poorly enforced. Specifically,
Gentle Woods Park has been
overtaken by transients. For
more than a year, squatters
have been given license to
deposit unsanitary waste, drug
debris and have recently tried
to enter a home that borders
the grounds. I implore you to
immediately call, email, visit
or write to Monmouth city
officials. Clearly cite the num-
ber of children in your guard-
ianship; give our innocents a
voice. Please insist upon full
enforcement of ordinances
which prohibit unauthorized
camping plus retention of the
existing day-use-only status of
Gentle Woods Park. No action
by you means that you are in
full agreement with the even-
tuality of rendering all publicly
funded parks unsafe.
Kris Dalton
Monmouth
Monmouth should
be ‘pot city’
Monmouth should add
a green leaf to their city en-
trance signs. With five pot
stores, four of which are on
Highway 99W, newcomers’
first impressions might be
Monmouth is no place to
raise a family. I understand
cities sometimes have too
many restrictions, but not
Monmouth. It seems to have
no direction. Every few years,
the city manager encourages
a survey of its citizens to find
out what type of business they
should encourage to come. I
doubt if pot stores are even on
the list. As a Dallas resident, I
am glad our council had some
foresight and consideration
for their citizens. By the way, I
am not against having one or
two stores.
Debbie Allred
Dallas
Dallas charter
helps success
Dallas Community School
is a wonderful marriage be-
tween home-schooling and
the public school system. I
have home-schooled four
of my children for different
spans of time and indepen-
dent of the public school
system, except for one year
when we tried an online local
charter school. My youngest is
enrolled at DCS for the third
year in a row.
He only attended public
school for one year in second
grade. He was at the top of his
class, very intelligent, bright,
and observant. However, the
structure of a standard public
school classroom made him
very unhappy, so he chose to
come back to home-school-
ing.
When I heard about DCS,
I was trepidatious because
of our previous experience
with a public online charter
school, but I thought the idea
of marrying home-schooling
with public school support
and opportunities for enrich-
ment classes and field trips
was a brilliant next step in the
evolution of our educational
system, so we applied. It has
been a very positive experi-
ence for us.
If the school board decides
to close DCS, our family
would return to independent
home-schooling, but we
would miss the DCS commu-
nity and opportunities it pro-
vides; not only the classes, but
the field trips, our guide, with
their priceless support, and
the other staff members.
Our communities need
more educational choices
for children who don’t thrive
emotionally, academically, or
both, in a traditional school
setting.
DCS works. If there need
to be new rules or laws put in
place to help this new brand
of schooling opportunity to
thrive and succeed, then our
lawmakers should get to work
on that, because shutting DCS
down would be a mistake.
Cyndy Ross
Sheridan
Mass immigration
harms poor
On average, illegal immi-
grants without a high school
degree will impose a net cost
on taxpayers of $89,000 over
his or her lifetime. They do not
pay interest on that money
given to them tax-free. More
so, some illegal immigrants
work under the table.
If illegal immigrants are
granted amnesty, one study
estimates that it will cost at
least $2.5 trillion in retirement
expenditures, including Social
Security, Medicare, Medicaid
and Supplemental Security
Income.
Some estimate that illegal
immigrants cost taxpayers as
much as $113 billion annu-
ally. The worst-case scenario
showed federal, state and
local governments losing $296
billion annually. The gainers
are usually those with capital
that benefit from the influx
of workers. The same with
those using overseas labor, the
wealthy benefit.
Services jobs accounted
for more than 80 percent of
U.S. private-sector employ-
ment. The immigrants are
16.5 percent of labor that re-
duces the wages of natives by
$493.9 billion annually. If we
add net immigration to total
immigrant births during the
decade, it equals 75.7 percent
of population growth.
As a fact, the cost of hous-
ing has been sharply rising for
decades; the debt increasing
and children are living lon-
ger with their parents. About
1.56 million people, or about
0.5 percent of the U.S. pop-
ulation, used an emergency
shelter or a transitional hous-
ing program between Oct. 1,
2008, and Sept. 30, 2009. The
current U.S. population is 325
million or 326 million.
Rick Muller
Dallas
Govt. shutdown
serves no one
The government shutdown
is a joke and a charade. What
is a shutdown if it doesn’t save
us any money.
What is a shutdown if you
don’t even notice any differ-
ence? It’s not a shutdown if
everyone retroactively gets
paid — it’s a paid holiday, at
our expense.
PUBLIC AGENDA
Public Agenda is a listing of upcoming meetings for gov-
ernmental and nongovernmental agencies in Polk County. To
submit a meeting, send it at least two weeks before the actual
meeting date to the Itemizer-Observer via email (ionews@
polkio.com).
—
Wednesday, Jan. 24
• Polk County Board of Commissioners — 9 a.m., Polk County
Courthouse, first floor conference room, 850 Main St., Dallas. 503-
623-8173.
Thursday, Jan. 25
• Monmouth-Independence Networks Board of Directors
— 7:30 a.m., Henry Hill Education Support Center, 750 S. Fifth St.,
Independence. 503-837-0700.
Why don’t government
employees just keep working
if we all know they will just
get paid anyway. What is a
shutdown worth if nothing
changes, no reflection on
deficit spending, no cuts in
programs, no elimination of
waste, no redirection of pur-
pose, no reduction in BS. It’s a
meaningless political tantrum.
I say throw the whole bunch
out, Congress and the White
House, and start over from
scratch. That would be a shut-
down, and a worthwhile one.
new building, money should
have been spent on training
employees to simply fulfill the
requirements of their job and
perhaps a course on common
courtesy. I have no Idea how
this system has avoided a law-
suit and continues to function.
Thank you. Appalled in Polk
County.
Charles Krogman
Dallas
Education doesn’t only
happen in a traditional class-
room. It happens at the gro-
cery store, the doctor’s office,
at the park, in the car, etc.
A parent is constantly
providing education for their
child. Why shouldn’t we be al-
lowed to help them with their
formal schooling?
At Dallas Community
School, parents consistently
meet individually with an
assigned Guide, a licensed
teacher with years of experi-
ence, where we discuss a stan-
dards-based Personal Learn-
ing Plan, testing, our strengths
and weaknesses, and what we
can do to excel before the next
meeting. We provide work
samples and often have our
child with so that the guide is
able to observe them working.
Our child’s instructional
time is being carefully moni-
tored and evaluated on a very
individual basis.
Many families, like ours,
also sign their child up for
the available morning classes
onsite at DCS, which include
core subjects and enrichment
classes, offering families a
wide variety of class selections
to nourish the interests and
subjects that their child has a
great desire to explore.
D.A.’s office lacks
‘customer’ service
I am concerned with the
customer service and assis-
tance Polk County citizens
receive when dealing with the
D.A.’s office, but especially
the probation office in Dallas.
I unfortunately have to deal
with this system and am ap-
palled by the treatment and
lack of cooperation I receive in
an attempt to complete my re-
quirements set forth from the
D.A.’s office. I cannot get any-
one to answer my questions.
When I call or physically go
where I am told, it is a contin-
ual loop of sending me from
one office to the next and no
one really doing their job.
I continually get transferred
back and forth from probation
office to the D.A.’s office to no
avail without ever being able
to talk to anyone, just being
sent back to where I just came
from.
It is the most unorganized
and inefficient system I have
ever encountered. The left
hand has no idea what the
right had is doing. Instead
of spending tax dollars on a
Jane Cotnam
Dallas
Kids learn in real
world situations
Dallas Community School
also offers wonderful opportu-
nities for children to truly ex-
plore the world around them.
We visited the Oregon Gar-
den, the Rickreall Dairy, the
Willamette Heritage Museum
and many others, this school
year alone.
What better way is there of
educating our children than
by taking them into the world
that we wish for them to thrive
in, and let them see it, feel it
and understand it, while at
the same time, teaching them
about reading, writing and
arithmetic.
There is no shortage of in-
terest in the school. The peo-
ple of this community want
this school. Thank you, Dallas
School District, for believing
in our school and our children
and for giving us a chance to
prove that we can thrive in our
community.
Sarah Lockwood
Independence
Get involved in
local issues
Oregon’s U.S. Senator, Ron
Wyden, spoke recently in
Monmouth (IO article Jan.
17) and, in response to the
question, “What can I do?”
suggested that citizens com-
municate to their leaders via
phone calls, letters, marches
and rallies.
All of these activities make
a difference.
I would add other import-
ant things that citizens can do.
Take an active, regular part
in government, especially in
local and county government.
For example, join a com-
mittee or run for a council or a
commissioner position.
If you can’t make time for
meetings, make time to learn
“how things work.” You can
read minutes and resolutions
or get copies of budgets —
often available online — and
ask questions of your leaders.
If you are already in a posi-
tion to make decisions at any
level, then take time before
your meeting to read the staff
report or the resolution or the
budget; don’t look at these the
first time when you sit down
to meet.
Your presence is appreci-
ated, but your active intellect
to genuinely review and prob-
lem-solve means that you are
not just a willing “warm body.”
It means you’re a leader.
Nannette Willis
Monmouth
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—
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Vol. 143, No. 4
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