Letters to the Editor for March 7

I’d like to represent the West Side School and community as well, so I’m running for the school board to represent both. I’ve been a county resident for nearly two decades and have held public office here in Cascade Locks as a city councilman, a planning commissioner, and as a member of both the port and city budget committees.

Some of the challenges I see ahead for our schools are the state budget, which underfunds education, it’s gone from 45 percent of the budget down to 39 percent, slowly reducing operating revenues over many years. We also face local challenges in raising our graduation rates from 81 percent to having all students ready for employment or prepared for entry to college. Class sizes and days of instruction per year are also issues. We also are challenged to bring grade equity for all students no matter what their background or financial situation.

On the positive side, did you know our high school was ranked by a major newsmagazine at number 11 in the state? That’s out of over 260 high schools. We have outstanding students doing incredible things, excellent award winning robotics teams, state champs in soccer, and placing well above average in graduation rates in the state.

Please vote and consider me when you do so.

Rob Brostoff

Cascade Locks

Tell it to the UN

It doesn’t matter if you agree with Obama’s Iranian nuclear policy or not. How dare some foreigner come into my house and tell me what to do! Into my country, my capitol, my Congress. Save it for the floor of the UN or your own country where it belongs.

Jerry Giarraputo

Hood River

Climate change deniers

Climate change deniers have an icon they look up to with reverence and unshakable faith. Their deity is Wei-Hock Soon. Soon, who is not a climate scientist but a physicist, has made a career and a living out of denying any human activity effecting the earth’s climate change – it is all the fault of “changes in variations in the sun’s energy.” But Soon’s much quoted “climate research” was paid by Exxon Mobil, Southern Company, the American Petroleum Institute and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, groups with a strong financial stake in denying man’s influence on climate change. He was $1.2 million for “deliverable” results. The conflict of interest here is staggering.

Dr. Don Rose (letter “A non-solution,” Feb. 28) must be an avid follower of Mr. Soon. The science of climate change was settled decades ago, what remains is a warring debate between culture and ideology, not science. Yes, the sun shines on this planet, without it no life would exist. But the sun’s energy must pass thorough the earth’s atmosphere. It is what is in that atmosphere that sunlight must pass through that effects a planet’s climate. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does have a profound effect on planetary surface temperatures. Venus has an atmosphere that is mostly CO2 with a small amount of Nitrogen. Venus’s surface temperature is 825 degrees Fahrenheit. The more CO2 human activity releases into the earth’s atmosphere, the higher our surface temperatures will be. No ifs ands or buts!

Gary Fields

Hood River

See CGCC art students’ works

Sometime near the end of the 2014 Columbia Gorge Community College spring term — as I was leaving published author Tim Schell’s Writing 121 class — I stopped to admire some art that was being exhibited by the students of Abby Merickel’s printmaking class. There were informative displays, pictures of the students creating prints, actual linoleum blocks carved by the students that I could pick up and study, as well as the tools used to make them, along with a wide array of very interesting hand-pulled prints to look at. I was so impressed by the quality of art that was being shown and equally intrigued in the different processes being used that I decided it was a class I needed to take.

I enrolled in Art 270 Printmaking for winter term, and it has been a fantastic experience thus far. As the term draws to a close, we have explored many techniques for relief, surface and intaglio printing, such as monotype, linocut, dry point and solar-plate etching. The printmaking class offers a wonderful opportunity to work alongside local artists, learn a valuable new skill, and create something that you can display and be proud of forever. The class is collaborative as the students share everything starting with the inking table and printing press, as well as the sharing of ideas and images, creating a real sense of community. There is a mixture of degree seeking students, and also people who enroll just wanting to try their hand at something new and interesting.

We will be having an open house exhibition displaying the work created this winter term on Tuesday, March 17, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the main lobby of the CGCC Hood River campus across from Rosauers. The course will be offered again spring term — Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9 to 11:50 a.m. — at the Hood River Indian Creek campus. Stop by and see what you are missing out on.

John Stewart

Hood River

Good time to enroll at CGCC

Please consider taking a class with Columbia Gorge Community College. So many wonderful learning opportunities to enrich your life are available right here in the Gorge. The spring schedule is available now and registration just started this week, so now is a good time to consider taking that class that you have been putting off taking. Statewide, community college enrollment is down 20 percent. The good side to this is smaller class sizes and more one on one student to instructor attention. Please take a look at the offerings and consider a new adventure in your life of learning. Schedules are available at the college locations in Hood River and The Dalles, or online. Classes will be starting March 30.

Elizabeth Anderson

Hood River