Letters to the Editor for Aug. 20

I am a mother of three daughters that attend Hood River County School District and ride the bus to school every day. I am also owner of Travesuras Preschool and an after school program and know the importance of bus stop safety. This is the main reason I am writing: please respect and watch out for our children crossing roads to get on the school bus.

Last year my youngest daughter was excited and eager to be the first one to get on the bus on the first day of school, and a vehicle had a near miss with my child by not stopping at a school bus stop as she was crossing. Please let me inform you that ever since then, there have been children afraid of crossing the road to get on the bus. You might be asking if the bus driver did all that he could to prevent the situation and the answer is yes. The bus approaches slowly with the bus signals, and once he has come to a stop and sticks out the “stop” sign, he then assures that the oncoming traffic has come to a stop, and then he vocally asks children to cross the road. There are about six moms including myself and four dads including my husband accompanying children at the bus stop, but vehicles are not stopping. I too have called dispatch of the heavy and speeding vehicles on 3300 Cascade Ave. and once in a while they do patrol the area, but it’s not enough.

Please slow down and come to a stop, letting children cross safely to get on the bus.

Jeymey Heredia and the Heredia-Merida family

Hood River

‘Slap’

A Hood River News letter to the editor on July 23, 2016, titled “Need Park” by Steven Hawley, expresses bitterness and is a slap in the face to the many years of fruitful service of our Parks and Recreation Department Director Lori Stirn and her recreationally concerned board of directors who guide her.

Hawley presents a remarkable pile of statements to support his case that would lead this department in his chosen direction, accommodating our newer residents.

I have visited parks and rec meetings and what I saw from where I sat was that Lori’s leadership reflected a spirit of teamwork.

What I sense between the lines of Hawley’s letter is that we should all play with his choice of “toys” and not allow these old time Hood River residents a place to play with their model airplanes.

Alan Winans

Hood River

‘Birth only’

I recently read the most acute statement about people who are anti-abortion. This applies to people who are legislators to the person in a pew. The following quote is from Catholic nun Sister Joan Chittister, OSB: “I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.”

When legislators in both state and federal congresses pass legislation to restrict the options of pregnant women, close health care facilities that provide both counseling and abortions, de-fund the health care organization serving the largest number of women in America (Planned Parenthood) they are not pro-life, but as Sister Chrittister says, they are pro-birth only. The have no compassion, sympathy or feelings for those they would force to have carry to term a fetus, be it healthy, deceased or non-viable. In reality they only want to force their religious beliefs on others.

This country was founded, in part, to ensure freedom of religion. No individual, political party or government has the right to trash this basic tenant of our constitution.

Gary Fields

Hood River

A nod to the dumbbell

“Judge upholds denial of Columbia River coal dock” (Hood River News, Aug. 17) reveals some interesting information about dirty coal’s attempt to turn the Columbia River into a slurry sluice for coal exports. The article states, “The company (Ambre Energy) said it would pay $850,000 in annual fees to each of the two ports while paying property taxes in Morrow and Columbia counties.”

This dirty coal company — Ambre — managed a couple years ago to persuade the regulators at both the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and the Corps of Engineers to keep the scope of the issue extremely narrow, limiting the environmental analysis only to Boardman (Morrow County) and the immediate area around the proposed loading facility. The barging system and its impacts on the river, and the impacts associated with unloading the barges at the Port of St. Helens (Columbia County), storing the coal, and reloading it onto oceangoing ships were ignored.

But the proposed coal barging for export is really a system. Think of a dumbbell: one end the coal dump at Boardman, the other end the coal dump at St. Helens, and in between the handle of the dumbbell (the coal barges swarming down our river).

So now it’s refreshing to see that Ambre is acknowledging the dumbbell.

If they succeed on appeal (and I hope they do not), then perhaps the ensuing environmental analysis will scope the whole system.

By the way, Coyote Island Terminal LLC, cited in the article as if it were somehow a separate agency, even comparable to a port, is an arm of the bankrupt Ambre Energy (now owned by Resource Capital Funds, a global risk-seeking investment speculator that is the largest backer of northwest coal export proposals).

David Hupp

Hood River