Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 2006)
The INDEPENDENT, September 21, 2006 Page 3 Letters Helicopters will ruin outdoor fun at park To the Editor: We need to act now to save the L.L. Stewart State Park, which is about to open near the junction of Hwy 26 and Hwy 47, from excessive helicopter noise. Imagine driving over for a Sunday family picnic at this new full-use campground only to discover that there are heli- copters (both piston and tur- bine) flying over the camp- ground all day. Imagine spending a week- end camping with the family only to discover that helicopters fly over before sunrise, all day, and after sunset. Imagine taking a walk in the woods only to discover a sight- Between the Bookends By Nancy Burch, Librarian Vernonia Public Library Throughout the years I have been so grateful to li- brary patrons—for the fact that in general they are considerate of library equipment and of other patrons as well as their care and honesty in using and returning library mate- rials. Of course there are some items that have been kept far past due dates and a few that are lost and never returned, but it never even occurred to me that people would deliberately steal materials from the li- brary—items that are available to be checked out as many times as one might wish. While do- ing an inventory, I discovered that during the months of April and May, 30 DVDs disappeared from the library’s collection. They were not checked out but they are gone. I cannot help but hope that since all of these disappeared during a short time frame that this may have been a one time occurrence and will never happen again, but have made the decision to move the DVDs to a more visible place in the library for the time be- ing. I doubt that the person or persons who took these items will read this article, but if they do and have regrets, just drop them in the return slot. No one will ever know your identity and li- brary patrons will once again have use of these items. Again, my faith in the honesty and consid- erateness of library patrons has not been lost; this being verified the other day when two pa- trons who heard of this loss donated several DVDs from their own collections. On a more pleasant note, the after-school programs will be starting in October. The Read- ing Enrichment activities will begin October 2nd and will be held on Mondays when school is in session. All school age youngsters are encour- aged to take part in these fun-filled activities held at 3:30 p.m. Chess club will take place on Friday afternoons at 2 p.m. beginning October 6th. Any- one interested in chess is invited to attend. With so many sports taking place during these au- tumn months, it has been decided to start the bedtime stories in December and to limit the movies to Saturday matinees until December when Family Movie Nights will continue. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow will be shown on Sat- urday, October 28th at 2 p.m. Notices will be dis- tributed through the schools regarding these ac- tivities and others that will be taking place in Oc- tober and November. The book for discussion this month is The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger with the dis- cussion group meeting Monday, September 25th at 5:30. All are welcome to take part in an infor- mal discussion of this book and to suggest books for future discussion. Weekly pre-school story-time resumed in September and will be held on Monday morn- ings at 10:30. It was a pleasure to see an excep- tional number of youngsters and parents in at- tendance for the first story-time of this year and I certainly hope they and others find this an en- joyable experience and continue to attend. The theme for Monday, September 25th will be “dogs” because the last week in September is National Dog Week. Recent acquisitions include Blown Away by G.M. Ford, Crisis by Robin Cook, Copper River by William Kent Krueger, Winter’s Child by Mar- garet Maron, Copycat by Erica Spindler, For the Love of a Dog by Matricia McConnell, Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen, Sleight of Hand by Kate Wilhelm, A Stolen Season by Steve Hamil- ton, Babylon Rising by Tim Lahaye, and The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos. The nov- els by Hamilton and Krueger are both set on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and both feature characters from their previous books (Alex McK- night and Cork O’Connor). Since being on Michi- gan’s Upper Peninsula last fall, I guess I have a weakness for novels which feature that area, but I also have followed McKnight and O’Connor through their previous adventures and they now feel like old acquaintances. Kate Wilhelm’s latest release is of course set in Oregon where she lives (Eugene) and features DA Barbara Hol- loway (for the 8th time) as an exciting trial con- cludes with closing arguments sure to delight any legal-thriller fan. Family-oriented judge, Deborah Knott is featured for the 12th time in Maron’s charming, folksy, small-town world where murder always seems to intrude. Finally, poor Frank Corso, being featured for the 6th time by Ford, finds himself involved as bombs are strapped to people, banks are robbed and peo- ple are blown up. To refresh the reader, Corso is the former journalist whose career was derailed by a scandal and who has now become a suc- cessful author, but who continues to find himself in the middle of danger. While I have not read the other new acquisi- tions I am looking forward to doing so and hope there are some selections here that the readers of Vernonia can’t wait to read. Vernonia Public Library: 701 Weed Ave. Hours: Mon., Wed., Fri. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.; Tues., Thur. 1 p.m. - 7 p.m. Sat. 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Preschool Story Time: Mondays, 10:30 a.m., when school is in session. Phone: (503 ) 429-1818 seeing helicopter circling above you (one per every half-hour). Also, imagine hiking or horse- back riding on the Banks/Ver- nonia Linear Trail only to dis- cover that you are within 2,250 feet of a helicopter pilot training airstrip. These are the realities facing this campground and the Lin- ear Trail if the private use only airstrip at the junction of High- way 26 and Fisher Road is al- lowed to expand its’ activities to include (at this time) approxi- mately nine (9) flights a day during the week and 15 flights a day on weekends including up to 45 minutes of helicopter hov- ering per day. What kind of environmental and recreational experience will this be? In addition, this airstrip is lo- cated next to a creek, within a one hundred year flood plain and is a significant natural re- source area. How can each of us help stop this from happening? Show up at the Washington County Hearing that will be held on Thursday, September 21, at 9:30 a.m. in the Public Services Building Auditorium (155 North First Ave, Hillsboro). We need to fill the auditorium to show the county that we want to enjoy our new state park. Regards, K. A. Bilbao Manning Help is available to move elsewhere To the Editor: In response to “Objects to shooting range near city park:” If you were so terribly upset from the noise and the fear of a shooting range so near the city park five years ago, why, oh, why would you move so near knowing the situation. Maybe you would feel safer living in some of the neighbor- ing cities where they use their streets as shooting ranges and live humans as targets instead of using paper targets like this civilized community. I am sure there are enough shooters in this area that would be glad to donate their time and effort to help relocate you to one of the other areas. Leonard Simmons Vernonia Join in protest to U.S. occupation of Iraq To the Editor: I am against the occupation of Iraq. Our country has spent untold billions to destroy, in- vade and occupy Iraq. Both Americans and the Iraq people have lost their lives. The wounded and psychologically damaged people, over 60,000, will need help in the years to come and the occupation con- tinues. What is the “mission ac- complished” that our President Bush wants us to win?? Look- ing at our country we also see another cost. Our seniors say that they don’t have the funds to feed the meals on wheels folks, the program “No Child Left Behind” was mandated but not fully funded putting even more pressure on our educa- tional system. During 2003, the infant mortality rate of the Unit- ed states increased by 8 per- cent. Think of the pain, grief and waste of life lurking within these statistics. Clearly it is not unrelated to another statistic that over 47 million Americans have no health insurance and that number is still growing. And the billions continue to go to the Iraq occupation. Let us stand up as citizens and tell our government that enough is enough. Columbia County Citizens for Human Dignity are opposed to this war and do not want to fund it with our taxes. Join your neighbors on Thursday, September 21, the international day of peace, to say no to this war and yes to peace at 5:30 p.m. on Highway 330, St. Helens in front of the Chamber of Commerce. In peace, Marjorie Kundiger St. Helens Legal activity will stay on private land To the Editor: I am writing this letter in re- sponse to the letter headlined “Objects to shooting range near city park” that appeared in your September 7 issue. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, that’s why this country is so great. But, this letter struck a nerve with me and I wanted to share Please see page 24
