Letters?to the?editor

Pope should

hang it up

I strongly believe the pope should resign. He has failed to fulfill his responsibilities to the Catholic Church and its members, especially the children, by not expelling the pedophiles within the priesthood. There is no excuse for his gross negligence.

Richard Mack

Oak Harbor

Family’s proud

of the military

This is in response to Thomas Garrrad’s April 23 letter about the benefits of the Navy departure. Being a Navy wife of 22 years, we have seen two bases closed and the towns have never recouped the economy that everyone thought it would.

First of all, the planes that fly over our heads are a sound of freedom, yours and mine. I thank the Lord that they are not enemy planes, then you would have more than noise to worry about. You claim the Navy nightlife, fights and intoxication would be gone! Roads approaching the base will no longer ring with boom systems! No longer daredevils, motorcyclists and road racing! You talk about politicians no longer banking on a voiceless constituency. What makes you think all will be well if the Navy leaves? I agree that there are a few bad apples who spoil it for the rest, but they are not all like that. They are our men and women, stationed here to do a job, to continue to make a safe country.

They are men and women who are sent to Iraq and other parts of the world to insure that you can have freedom of speech. Do not judge them all the same. Most of them are very responsible. We are a proud military family and will put up with your complaints, but we don’t have to agree with them.

Evelyn Lloyd

Oak Harbor

Action needed, not complaints

After reading the many complaint letters concerning the “restricting property development without compensation” issue, I offer the following advice:

First they must organize, organize, organize. The reason is power. It is a proven fact that ten people well organized have more power than one hundred people not organized.

This power comes from two sources: 1. The people themselves working as a team, pooling their talents and speaking with one voice. 2. Money. An organization receives dues and donations which can be used to buy “legal muscle.” Legal muscle can force many changes.

The first task for those opposed to this issue is to reverse this decision. This can be achieved by either having a county initiative placed on the ballot and passed by voters, or by passing a ballot measure that recalls the commissioners who voted for this measure. The fact that there have been extremely few aircraft crashes in the past and fewer predicted for the future is poor justification for their actions.

Another item is to persuade the Navy to be better neighbors. A giant step in this direction is for them to have their aircraft take off and land from the water. The only exception is when the wind is a significant safety hazard. On Decatur Island the aircraft land from the south and take off to the south, so this is not an unrealistic requirement.

A final item is to have the Navy fund sound insulation measures for the many impacted homes. This is on par with what the Seatac airport’s third runway project was forced to do. They not only insulated hundreds of homes, they also purchased hundreds more!

In conclusion, to make the necessary changes the onus clearly rests with the impacted citizens. The question is will they continue to wring their hand and complain, or will they take action.

Joseph C. Coomer

Decatur Island

Sign noise

petition Saturday

Thanks to your March 12 article about the crash zone, hundreds of families who are being affected are now aware of the mandate. We are busy citizens trying to take care of our personal lives, businesses and responsibilities. We are having the value of our properties encroached upon for no valid reason under the guise of protecting “the health, safety and welfare of Island County residents” and “to meet the future needs and uses of the military and Island County.”

We have lived on Whidbey Island for 14 years and haven’t seen one crash. I do not believe that will change. I believe this is another attempt to “keep Whidbey Island rural.” We were not notified of this change in understandable or coherent language. We read the paper, but even if we happened to read the notices they were in such coded language by the county that they were not clear in meaning.

We are running out of time on our appeal. None of us has time to knock on each other’s doors and those of the populous for support. Please print this letter.

We are asking everyone who wants to protect their rights in Island County to come and sign a petition at City Beach Park in Oak on Saturday, May 10, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. We will be at the end of City Beach Street at the picnic tables or using a table of our own if none are available. The deadline is May 14, 2008 for our letter to reach Olympia. If there is a lawyer in the crash zone or one who will donate time to help, please be there.

Please, all voters come. You can call me at 929-2523. My husband, Mo, spent 30 years in the Navy for our country and now Island County is destroying all he worked for all of those years. Don’t let them take your rights, our rights. Becky Spraitzer’s number, 675-8438, was also published, and is currently posted.

Mary B. Morrison

Oak Harbor

‘Social Security’ sex inoffensive

For the past 30-plus years, my husband and I have been faithful season ticket subscribers to the Seattle Repertory Theater, Intiman Theatre, A Contemporary Theater, the Paramount, and the Fifth Avenue Theater, and the Seattle Symphony (all in Seattle). Sometimes it was difficult to juggle the tickets when some presentations occurred on the same evening.

On opening night, we attended your production of “Social Security” at the Whidbey Playhouse. We thought it was one of the funniest, most timely, and best plays we have ever seen. (And we’ve seen a lot of Broadway shows in New York, too).

We couldn’t understand why anyone would be offended by this play. Doesn’t everyone have sex in their life? (Or at least hope to if they haven’t?) It helped make it all the funnier. And the topic of having to care for one’s aging parents is very timely, too. But unfortunately that is not funny. We are facing this with our parents who are in their 80’s (we are 63 and 64 years of age). It was totally realistic. I have two sisters and just loved the idea of being able to “dump” one’s parent(s) on the non-caregiver sisters for them to deal with it for awhile.

We received letters warning about the contents of this play beforehand. We saw nothing objectionable about it and have wholeheartedly recommended it to all our friends. From the letters that were sent, I thought we were going to see two naked people having sex on the stage!

We have just retired (finally!) and moved here to Oak Harbor near Deception Pass. We have enjoyed every one of your plays since we began subscribing two years ago. We no longer drive clear down to Seattle for all those previous subscriptions.

The Whidbey Playhouse production of “Social Security” in particular, was a great, funny and very timely production. We look forward to being long-term subscribers as long as possible. At least 20 years if we live that long!

Erlene and Joe Little

Oak Harbor

‘Social Security’ sex inoffensive

Erlene and Joe Little

Oak Harbor