Letters from June 30, 2007

Immigration

Citizenship is more than a Senate vote 

Theodore Roosevelt’s ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

Why then has the United States Senate turned their back on this bedrock philosophy and acted contrary to the expressed wishes of the vast majority of American citizens?

Why is the Senate determined to have their own way - regardless of what the voters want?  they say - to hell with assimilation, to hell with one language, and to hell with the american citizen’s opinions and their social security and health care systems.

Why do legal immigration applicants who have waited their legal turn have to go to the back of the line of 12 million illegal aliens?

Why do the senators need that many gardeners?

HELEN MILLER

Bremerton

Commissioners

Angel’s absence speaks

volumes

Former County Commissioner Patty Lent attended the farewell ceremony given for Commissioner Chris Endresen yesterday. Notably absent was Commissioner Jan Angel.

Commissioner Lent was known for her desire to reach across the aisle and make the difficult decisions to make our county a better place to live. Working collaboratively was important to her because she knew she represented all the people of Kitsap County.

When she took her first major vote to increase impact fees she faced vitriol the likes of which most of us could not fathom. Lary Coppola used the word liar at least 7 times in a 200 word letter regarding that one issue. He and others continued to call into question her integrity, using Coppola’s newspaper to print their screed.

The far right of the home builders, realtors and KAPO had much to do with Lent’s loss in the primary.

However, many Republicans, Democrats and Independents admired her for her desire to bring together various factions for the public good. Fittingly, Commissioner Josh Brown wants to bridge that same chasm.

Lent’s class, good humor and intellect were again on display yesterday. The differences between Patty Lent and her former Republican counterpart were glaring.

JOHN GIDEON

Bremerton

The environment

The assault

on Illahee

“To be forewarned is to be forearmed”

Illahee citizens were forewarned recently of possible assaults on the Illahee Community from additional stormwater discharges and over-development plans.

Burned before, the Illahee Community remembers the scars from past assaults: For nearly 40 years we still see brown silt-laden water dispersed in the Sound for miles from Illahee Creek after major storm events. For the past 12 years we have lived with the disappearance of fish and shellfish from the Community fishing pier since stormwater outfalls were placed at the base of the dock.

The outsiders leading the assault seem to view Illahee Creek as a drainage ditch, whereas residents view it as a struggling salmon stream. They see the Illahee Community dock as a place to run their stormwater outfall pipes, whereas residents respect the dock as a long established pier for fishing, congregating, and recreation.

Who are these outsiders? They can be unconcerned financers, bankers, developers, real estate people, engineering firms, and generally those who think they have the answers for what our Community should look like.

So what do we want? Some want a moratorium, others just want responsible development. We all want to see the stormwater infiltrated back into our aquifers where it is cleansed and re-supplied to Illahee Creek and Puget Sound. This can be done through the use of Low Impact Development (LID) applications. We want housing densities that conform to our zoning and surrounding neighborhoods, not over-development on ‘legacy lots.’ We want outsiders to respect those who have chosen to live out their lives in Illahee, which in the Chinook language can mean “a place of rest”.

JIM AHO and more than 250 other Illahee Residents

Bremerton

Copngress

Are

lawmakers

listening?

How? how can we have representative government when we can’t contact our congressmen?

Anybody tried to contact their senator lately? Have an luck?

Letters take about three weeks to go through anthrax  etc inspection to delivery, phones are mysteriously always busy, voice mail is reportedly not being opened, e-mail — only by forms provided on the Web page — no responses — fax — ditto — no responses.

It would appear that our loving senators are bunkered down behind fortress walls - effectively alone with their own ideas - untainted by those suggestions and preferences offered by their “constituents.”

Representative democratic process in action?

GEORGE MILLER

Bremerton

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