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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 19, 2020)
2 Wednesday, August 19, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N Excessive tenure of elected officials must end By Terry Coultas Guest Columnist Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer9s name, address and phone number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is 10 a.m. Monday. To the Editor: The tirade against Jim Cornelius (Letters to the Editor, The Nugget, August 5, page 2) represents the attitude of too many dem- onstrators we have seen, i.e. <my way or the highway.= It should make thoughtful people take notice. The urge to beat up Donald Trump over- flows into condemnation of all who disagree with their myopic viewpoint. Civility is passé, it seems. The style now is sarcasm and spin. Nothing new about that, but it should be recognized as vitriol, not analysis. Donald Harner s s s To the Editor: I am the mother of a Black child that was repeatedly bullied for months in the Sisters school district. After getting nowhere with the many phone calls, emails and face-to- face meetings with the adults in the school district that were supposed to be protecting her from the other child, I chose to contact the Oregon Department of Education. They took the situation very seriously and came to Sisters to interview everyone involved. When their report came out, it said that the Sisters school district was found to have discrimi- nated against my child on the basis of race and gender and allowing her to be discrimi- nated against on the basis of race and gender by the other child. We had the choice of taking them to court, where the judge would use the report and find them guilty, or go through a conciliation pro- cess where we would have a chance to make changes in the school districts policies and procedures so that no other child would have to endure what my child did. We chose to go through the conciliation process with the school superintendent as well as an employee from the Oregon Department of Education. We are not trying to make George Floyd a role model for our children based on any- thing he may or may not have done during See LETTERS on page 14 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Monday Sunday Sunny Mostly Sunny Mostly Sunny Sunny Mostly Sunny Sunny 89/56 84/54 84/52 87/53 91/55 91/54 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC Website: www.nuggetnews.com 442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759 Tel: 541-549-9941 | Email: editor@nuggetnews.com Postmaster: Send address changes to The Nugget Newspaper, P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759. Third Class Postage Paid at Sisters, Oregon. Editor in Chief: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Easterling Creative Director: Jess Draper Community Marketing Partner: Vicki Curlett Classifieds & Circulation: Lisa May Owner: J. Louis Mullen The Nugget is mailed to residents within the Sisters School District; subscriptions are available outside delivery area. Third-class postage: one year, $55; six months (or less), $30. First-class postage: one year, $95; six months, $65. Published Weekly. ©2020 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is pro- hibited. All advertising which appears in The Nugget is the property of The Nugget and may not be used without explicit permission. The Nugget Newspaper, LLC. assumes no liability or responsibility for information contained in advertisements, articles, stories, lists, calendar etc. within this publication. All submissions to The Nugget Newspaper will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyrighting purposes and subject to The Nugget Newspaper9s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially, that all rights are currently available, and that the material in no way infringes upon the rights of any person. The publisher assumes no responsibility for return or safety of artwork, photos, or manuscripts. I have been an advocate of term limits for as long as I can remember. The thought sickens me that members of Congress are allowed to serve so long 4 like the late Senator Strom Thurman (R) for 48 years, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, (D) 34 years, Senator Mitch McConnell, (R) 36 years, Lindsey Graham (R) 30 years, and we can9t forget Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D), 30 years. The list goes on and on. There is no need here or little point in taking time to delineate why we need term limits; that is obvious or should be obvious. Forty- eight years at any job is too long. The lack of term lim- its is the root cause of our problem with our political discourse, where the conse- quences have led us to our current divisiveness. The longer a politician stays in office the more he or she believes in the total party line, leaving no room for doubt. Those politicians firmly believe they are 100 percent right, thus leaving the other side as 10 percent wrong. Common sense tells me nothing, nothing can be 100 percent right, not even the difference between black and white; there is always a shade of grey in every argument. The resultant effect (unintentionally or maybe intentionally), separates the politician from the issues, thereby making issues a sep- arate matter. The politicians are one entity and the issues are another, consequently making issues a secondary matter to the politician9s all- important reelection. <The American People= that politicians so care about don9t really get a chance to vote on issues; we get to vote for a politician that claims he/she will get it done. The longer the politi- cian9s tenure the more likely they are to be under the influence of the lobbyists who control Washington. The two leading parties9 platforms mandate it9s all or nothing. This leaves com- promise and common sense totally out of the equation when debating these issues. Again, the root cause of our demise is excessive ten- ure of politicians, fueled by partisanship. The adding of term lim- its requires a Constitutional amendment. The approach that most have taken, in an attempt to amend the Constitution has always required Congressional cooperation. That9s tanta- mount to asking a fox to willingly give up his seat guarding the chicken house. There are literally hun- dreds of groups and orga- nizations that propose solu- tions to this older-than-dirt problem; most of these are out of control bureaucra- cies themselves. Each one of these depends on outside public donations to first, exist, and secondly to fund their cause. The executive boards of these varying organizations all have paid administrators. These elaborate groups are created with the sole purpose of filling the pock- ets of these administrators with lucrative salaries from money collected from you the naive public. Hence, these political leaches are no more or no less than lobby- ists themselves. I have never been as pes- simistic as I am today about the future of our country. Regardless of who wins in November or which party takes Congress, we are facing the worst political upheaval America has ever seen. You are a partisan if you truly believe that Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham are not equally as dangerous as Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. You are a typical American voter when your choice is the lesser of two evils. These people should have served no more than 20 years maximum, com- bined they9ve been there 130 years. To get this done we need the unity of the people, not Congress, within both par- ties working on one issue together 4 that issue: excessive tenure of elected officials must end. We are <The People= within a republic who should resolve this issue. We need a solution to this nightmare. How can we get this done? Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.