Editor,

Elections are coming. Campaign signs are popping up like garden weeds. Decisions will be made. What do we want to become?

We used to brag about our island’s rural values, but we don’t hear that much anymore. Should old ways be kept or do we need progress to keep us in maddening lockstep with the mainland?

Every year at Christmas time Jimmy Stewart’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” movie gets played and we get a glimpse of what big dollar values bring. Then, a week later and a few drinks of the bubbly, forget it all.

Do we want that?

Do we need a “Clarence Angel” to remind us that the oldest natural law is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction?

The Koch Brothers built a marvelously effective industrial empire whose industrial wastes are reported to have poisoned streams, rivers, people, towns, farmland, good fishing and clean air.

Will we become like Easter Island where progress is said to have wiped out their forests and wildlife leaving nothing but lonely stone faces searching the open sea for rescue?

These are sobering decisions to make. Let’s be careful how we make them. Everything has consequences.

Al and Barbara Williams

Oak Harbor