4 A
❘
WEDNESDAY EDITION
❘ NOVEMBER 16, 2016
Siuslaw News
P.O. Box 10
Florence, OR 97439
NED HICKSON , EDITOR
❘ 541-902-3520 ❘
EDITOR @ THESIUSLAWNEWS . COM
Opinion
LETTERS
Invest in our
next generation
While on the Siuslaw School District web-
site, I came across a “Wish List” of items the
school district does not have the money to pur-
L ETTERS TO THE
E DITOR P OLICY
The Siuslaw News welcomes letters
to the editor concerning issues affect-
ing the Florence area and Lane
County.
Emailed letters are preferred.
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Write to:
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chase. These items include such things as AA
batteries for keyboards; glue sticks, erasers,
markers, pens, colored pencils; classroom
books; and the list goes on and on.
Nothing fancy, nothing frivolous — Just
items teachers and kids need to learn.
Measure 97 was supposed to help with that,
but business interests in the country, state, coun-
ty and even locally within the Florence area
spent a lot of money to defeat Measure 97 and
were successful.
Even the Florence Area Chamber of
Commerce came out against Measure 97 (Oct. 1
issue of Siuslaw News).
Although I am now a retired high tech exec-
utive, I worked in business for over 40 years.
One of the issues that was always critical was
the ability to hire qualified employees and keep
them. Not continuously working towards that
aim was shooting yourself in the foot.
Without investment in education, your chil-
dren and the children of your employees will
not have an opportunity to succeed — and nei-
ther will your business.
Invest in the education of the next generation,
the one you hope will support you.
Go to that Siuslaw School District “Wish
List” and start investing in the education of our
next generation.
Pat Reno
Florence
Common sense in
government
In regards to Florence City Councilor Joshua
Greene’s letter (Saturday, Nov. 12) and his take
one candidate won a specific state they would
win the electoral votes.
How wrong was I.
This confuses me because I believe that the
individual votes should rule. However, I discov-
ered that a few individuals in each state are
Electoral Collage voters and they control the
outcome of the election — not us.
It seems there is no “by the people and for the
people” in our national elections. We need to
get away from this potentially corrupt and
archaic election system and elect those that the
people vote for.
I feel like I casted my vote only to have an
individual at his or her discretion change it.
Win Jolley
Florence
Individual votes
should count
I must confess that I was disappointed that
Trump won but given two choices it was hard to
define who would be worse. In the movie
“Master and Commander,” Russell Crow asked
his crew “who was the lesser of two weevils?”
I’m not sure which one we got.
Admittedly, I had no comprehension of the
Electoral Collage and how it works. I discov-
ered there is some complex way that individuals
in states cast votes that determine the outcome
of an election.
Due to my uninformed mentality, I thought if
The First Amendment
C
ongress shall make no law
respecting an establishment
of religion or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof; or abridg-
ing the freedom of speech, or of
the press, or the right of the peo-
ple peaceably to assemble, and
to petition the Government for a
redress of grievances.
Copyright 2016 © Siuslaw News
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WHERE TO WRITE
Published every Wednesday and Saturday at 148 Maple St. in Florence, Lane County, Oregon. A member of the National
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Postmaster, send address changes to: Siuslaw News, P.O. Box 10, Florence, OR 97439; phone 541-997-3441; fax
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John Bartlett
Jenna Bartlett
Ned Hickson
Susan Gutierrez
Cathy Dietz
Ron Annis
Jeremy Gentry
on the Rhododendron Drive multi-use path, I
would like to comment on his last two sen-
tences.
First: “Who would’ve thought that common
sense in government would prevail?”
I would point out that common sense in gov-
ernment only happened after the Save The
Rhodys protest was formed and over 3,000 sig-
natures protesting the building of the 10-foot-
wide multi-use path were obtained.
The last sentence: “We serve at your pleas-
ure.”
This was one time that city government did
serve its residents, but it sure took a tremendous
amount of effort by the Save the Rhodys volun-
teers and the citizenry of the city of Florence.
In closing, this is my thought on City gov-
ernment: Be wary of government that pats itself
on the back.
Bill Johnson
Florence
Pres. Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461
TTY/TDD Comments: 202-456-6213
www.whitehouse.gov
Gov. Kate Brown
160 State Capitol
900 Court St.
Salem, OR 97301-4047
Governor’s Citizens’ Rep.
Message Line 503-378-4582
www.oregon.gov/gov
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden
221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-5244
541-431-0229
www.wyden.senate.gov
FAX: 503-986-1080
Email:
Sen.ArnieRoblan@state.or.us
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley
313 Hart Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-3753/FAX: 202-228-3997
541-465-6750
State Rep. Caddy McKeown
(Dist. 9)
900 Court St. NE
Salem, OR 97301
503-986-1409
Email:
rep.caddymckeown@state.or.us
U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (4th Dist.)
2134 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-6416/ 800-944-9603
541-269-2609/ 541-465-6732
www.defazio.house.gov
State Sen. Arnie Roblan (Dist. 5)
900 Court St. NE - S-417
Salem, OR 97301
503-986-1705
West Lane County Commissioner
Jay Bozievich
125 E. Eighth St.
Eugene, OR 97401
541-682-4203
FAX: 541-682-4616
Email:
Jay.Bozievich@co.lane.or.us