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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 29, 2018)
18 Wednesday, August 29, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon LETTERS Continued from page 2 taking Global Warming seriously, this situation will only get worse, until the smoke is choking us almost year-round and homes are threatened every year. Our primary defense and pre- vention tactic is to regulate the main cause of these wildfires: people behaving irresponsibly. Steve Nugent s s s To the Editor: Thank you for your articles “Firefighters need a fighting chance” and “Being prepared for evacuation.” As a resident of the area affected by recent fires I found your articles to be timely and informative. As our fire officials have noted, the importance of maintain- ing defensible space and property access is a property-owner responsibility and key to safety for residents and emergency responders. I found the link firefree.org to be a great resource for property owners to do their part to protect their families and property from fire. Additionally, it makes very good sense to be prepared for evacuation each summer with the information outlined in the article. We’ve been evacuated twice in the past few years and some pre-planning and simple precautions will help all residents evacuate safely. A special thanks to all the emergency responders for their efforts in this recent fire and great follow-up on informing the public regarding these measures to help keep us all safe. Greg Vandehey s s s To the Editor: It’s time for Representative Greg Walden to step down. I received a letter from the office of Greg Walden in which he assures me he remains fully committed to protecting Social Security and Medicare. As chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Walden led the efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and replace it with Trumpcare, which would have eliminated healthcare for 640,000 Oregonians with preexisting conditions and remove another 380,000 people enrolled in the expanded Medicaid program. At the same time, in the fall of 2017, Congress was consid- ering how to extend the popular 20-year-old Children’s Health Insurance Program that was due to expire. In Oregon, the CHIP program provides insurance coverage for 120,700 children and pregnant women whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. Walden led the efforts to restore and fund the CHIP program, but he doesn’t tell you that he argued it might be nec- essary to make cuts to Medicare in order to pay for the $8 billion that was needed to keep the program running. Walden also voted to add $1.5 trillion to the deficit in order to give tax breaks for the wealthy. And in order to pay for it, GOP has made it clear they’ll go after social programs, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. In May 2018, just a few months after the passing of the tax bill, the Trump administration sent to Congress a request to cut $7 billion from the CHIP program in order to “rein in out-of-control federal spending.” Instead of standing up to Trump and his disastrous trade tar- iffs, Walden says, “people . . . are willing to give the president an opportunity to put new leverage on our trading partners and get a better deal.” Meanwhile, another $12 billion is to be added to the deficit in the form of welfare checks to farmers as they wait for a better deal, a deal that shows no sign of happening. It’s time for Representative Walden to go. Maybe he can retire beside a nice pond somewhere. Terry Weygandt s s s To the Editor: The “city” of Sisters is still a small town, arguably too small to justify maintaining a police department since we have good coverage by Deschutes County. I believe that from a cost standpoint and from an operational (backup, person- nel and expertise) standpoint we are wiser to contract with DCSO. And we should not need a multi-thousand dollar feasibil- ity study to clarify the matter. It would seem that an examina- tion of the operational costs of the Black Butte Ranch Police Department would be interesting. If we absolutely feel a need for a police department maybe combining resources in a joint police department with BBR merits consideration. Donald Harner Correction In last week’s Nugget, the page 1 article about SPRD selecting Courtney Snead as the interim executive director contained two errors. Snead worked for five years for the City of Bend, not the Bend Park and Recreation District. The name of her consulting business is Boring But Important LLC. MANAGER: Kucera has left Sisters for Midwest post Continued from page 1 with Kucera. “Kerry is on top of every- thing,” he reported. The Council estimates that a new city manager will be in place by the end of October. Kucera assumed the city manager helm in Sisters in May 2017, coming from a stint in Cannon Beach. Now that his son Rhys, who lives in Michigan, is a full-time elementary school student, Kucera realized the nine months of the school year was too long a time to not see his son. The position in Ashland puts Kucera three hours from his son.
