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