Love to Scott

Thank you, Scott Durkee, for your love letters to our community. Letters inspiring smiles and tears and awareness of our finite precious lives. May you rest in all the love that surrounds you.

Margaret Smith

TRUMP INDICTMENTS

Crimes are too serious to be ignored

The evidence contained in the most recent indictments against Donald Trump should disturb every American. Trump threatened the very bedrock of American democracy.

Knowing he lost the 2020 presidential election, Trump cooked up numerous illegal schemes to stay in power. He deliberately spread disinformation about the 2020 election, then used those lies to pressure state officials in Georgia and other swing states to overturn the will of voters, including by asking the Georgia secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes.” He and his cronies leaned on everyone they could to carry out their plans, including former Vice President Pence, who refused.

When they couldn’t steal the presidency through phony paperwork or throwing out votes, they rioted on our nation’s Capitol in an attempt to stop the election from being certified.

These crimes are too serious to be ignored. That’s why two separate grand juries of everyday Americans, one in Washington D.C. and one in Georgia, have now issued two separate indictments of Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn the will of voters. These are the most serious indictments thus far because they deal with a conspiracy to overturn the foundation of our democracy: the vote of the American people.

We the American people choose our leaders, not the other way around. When we go to cast our ballots, we should be confident that our vote will be counted, no matter our political party. We shouldn’t have to worry about power-hungry officials throwing out votes that they don’t like to try and keep control.

Trump must be held accountable for his crimes, just like anyone else would be, and our elected officials must allow a trial to proceed without political interference.

Harry Gerecke

FERRIES

What do workers think?

Concerning ongoing ferry meetings; I haven’t paid a lot of attention or checked them out online, but I don’t recall ever seeing a statement from an actual deck, ramp or boat employee concerning how they feel as a part of the picture.

Like me, most of them just do what they need to do and hope for the best. Maybe some of them could answer some of our questions from a completely different viewpoint.

Jack Peterson

FIRE DISTRICT

Levy lid lift not needed

In case you missed the fire district story in the Aug. 17 Beachcomber:

• Burton Station will open in November, staffed by two responders. (Guess we didn’t have to wait for additional levy funds after all.)
• Buying a mobile home to put at Burton station as a residence, using money from the reserve fund. (Guess we know how to use part of our existing large reserve funds after all.)
• Hiring two new firefighter/EMTs, so the department will have a total of 20 full-time responders. This will give Chief Vinci his desired four shifts, five responders on each. (Guess we hired two more staff from the already budgeted vacant positions to allow us the ideal number per shift so really didn’t need new levy funds for staffing.)
• Earlier in the year lack of staffing caused high overtime costs and “Zone 1 callbacks,” or duplicate calls. (Guess pointing out the screaming about duplicate calls related to earlier in the year before we had 18, now 20, responders — and so really it wasn’t an issue at the time of the levy.)
• Ordering two new ambulances and getting a discount because we are prepaying. $748,843 of money from “windfall settlement” which was noted in the 2023 budget as only $318,000. Remaining $77,000 from reserves. (Wow, guess we knew we had that $748,843 extra cash to buy two new ambulances to replace those that were so old they were undependable way before the levy didn’t we?)
• Selling two properties. (And we also knew before the levy we were going to sell these pieces of property and gain even more cash.)
• The Board voted (all but one commissioner) that Chief Vinci does not have to be a licensed EMT. (Not necessary to figure out if Chief Vinci failed to meet his commitment to become a certified EMT as the Board changed the requirement now believing it isn’t necessary for our Fire Chief.)

The “sky is falling” approach, plus the scare tactics presented to the citizens of Vashon sure works well, doesn’t it?

Steven Nourse