I read with utter dismay your recent article outlining the plan to lower SR 20 eight to nine feet south of entering Oak Harbor to improve the sight distance. This another one of the ongoing absurd, wasteful DOT projects that have appeared ever since the voters refused to rescind the recent obscene gas tax raise. (Others are the work along SR 20 by Ducken Road, and most of the passing and turning lanes recently installed between Deception Pass and Oak Harbor. These are examples of the mischief that politicians do when given more money to spend than necessary to efficiently run a government.)

If the sight distance is inadequate it should be obvious to even the “dimmest bulb” in DOT that REDUCING THE SPEED LIMIT would adequately solve the problem at the cost of a couple of new speed limit signs, instead of the hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars it will take to lower the road.

Relevant to this wasteful spending are those annoying, insulting, aggravating signs that have appeared at these highway projects. I refer to “It’s your nickel, watch it work” and “Making Every Dollar Count.” I find it extremely galling to watch “my nickel” continuously being wasted. I would also like some politician or DOT official to explain to me how spending money on these signs can possibly be considered as “making every dollar count” when the dollars used for them are 100 percent wastefully spent without any actual, useful roadwork being accomplished.

David J. Powell

Oak Harbor