Your voice: July 31, 2024

Like you, we have been smelling strong odors in town this past week! Our Dirt Hugger [compost facility]site manager, Gavin, drove around all last weekend to try to figure it out. Most days the wind was westerly with speeds from 10-30 mph. It would be challenging to have an odor from our site reach The Dalles/Dallesport in those conditions. Our best guess is that the odor source is coming from the west of town.

This past winter we had odor issues due to broken equipment and invited The Dalles city manager to visit our site and see the challenges first hand. We readily will own our issues when they occur. However, at this time our operations are in good working order with our biofilters operating normally. We have had two surprise regulatory inspections recently (one this week) and had clean bills of health.

Please know that we take odor very seriously, monitor weather daily, and work hard to be a model composting facility for the industry. If you ever have questions or concerns, please feel free to call us directly at 541-946-DIRT.

Pierce Louis

Hood River

Running mate is telling

We know everything we need to know about Donald Trump simply by the man he chose to be his running mate, JD Vance.

While Trump is trying to distance himself from the disastrous Supreme Court decision to abolish women's reproductive autonomy, in Vance, he chose a potential VP who has called for a national abortion ban. Vance also asserted that women in physically abusive marriages should stay put. He refers to women who choose not to have children as "childless cat ladies."

None of this misogyny should surprise anyone. Trump doesn't have a great record of respect toward women, either. He stacked the Supreme Court with justices who took away women's reproductive rights and has repeatedly bragged about it. He's been found liable for sexual assault and was caught on tape bragging about sexual assault.

I don't see how anyone who respects women can vote for the Trump-Vance ticket.

Rick George

White Salmon

Newhouse's statements

Candidate statements that appear in the Voters’ Pamphlet are printed as submitted to the Office of the Secretary of State. Any candidate can say what they want in their statement, which will go out to voters exactly as written. In the case of Dan Newhouse, a candidate for Congressional District 4, US Representative, the statement reads, “Dan votes to ensure healthcare is accessible, affordable, and that decisions remain between a patient and doctor” (page 21, 2024 WA Voters’ Pamphlet).

Given Newhouse’s voting record, his poor rating with pro-choice groups, and his high rating with ultra-conservative groups, I’m guessing what he means is a male patient and doctor. Nothing in his record suggests that a female patient has any such right to privacy. For example, Planned Parenthood rates Newhouse 0% between 2015-2020, 12% in 2022, and 18% in 2024. With the backlash from women voters hitting politicians after the Dobbs decision, he seems to have compromised somewhere. By comparison, the National Right to Life Committee rates him 100% every year from 2015-2024.

In all fairness, the statement in the pamphlet includes mention of his endorsement by “pro-life organizations” in the last paragraph, referring to his traditional values. To me, a traditional value since 1973 was my right to make my own health decisions with my doctor. I vote with that in mind.

Virginia Hartnett

White Salmon

Thanks for spay/neuter program

I want to thank the city for implementing the new spay/neuter program. It has been long overdue.

Hopefully in the (near) future it can be expanded. Perhaps with sponsors to include feral cats. Ferals are community cats, it's vital that people work with the three local rescues and get the feral population under control.

Feral cats, if fixed and fed regularly, are actually an asset as they make better mousers when they are not hungry or looking for the opposite sex.

Another note: Please, if you find a friendly cat that is either lost or abandoned, secure it until the owner is located or a rescue can be contacted. Do not just leave on a street or unsafe location.

Betty Mercado

The Dalles

'Choose wisely'

Kamala Harris, in her first speech after Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race asked, "Do we want to live in a country of freedom, compassion, and rule of law? Or a country of chaos, fear and hate?"

It's a fair question and I hope that ALL Americans will give it some serious thought before voting in November. I would challenge every voter to listen to Kamala's vision for America moving forward and contrast it with the opponent's messaging of doom and gloom. Two very different visions for America are being presented. Choose wisely.

Kathy Gay

The Dalles

Resolution

“City Council to pass resolution on Gaza conflict”? Well, that oughta do it, about time these narcissists chimed in on HAMAS and Israel’s long-lived conflict, well done!

Peter Smith

Hood River

Project 2025

Project 2025, an initiative by the conservative Heritage Foundation in collaboration with key advisors to former President Trump, outlines a plan to significantly curtail reproductive rights across the United States. The proposal suggests drastic policy changes aimed at nearly eliminating abortions, including recommending that the Food and Drug Administration remove abortion medications, such as Mifepristone, from the market. It also proposes limiting the use of Mifepristone to seven weeks, often before a woman is aware of her pregnancy, and enforcing the Comstock Act to prohibit the mailing of these drugs and certain contraceptives, potentially criminalizing such actions (Project 2025, Justice Department Chapter, p. 562; Department of Health & Human Services, pp. 450, 458-459).

Under these proposals, women experiencing medical emergencies could be denied access to these lifesaving medications, with no exceptions for cases of rape or incest.

The project advocates for the protection of life from conception, proposing a national ban on in vitro fertilization (IVF) and several forms of effective contraception.

Voters should be aware that a future administration led by President Trump and Vice President Vance would likely implement the policies detailed in Project 2025. Your vote matters.

Sandy Holden Montag

White Salmon

Take America back!

One of the vague and puzzling campaign slogans this year is “Take America Back.” Does this slogan advocate for taking America back from some sinister minority who are degrading our citizen rights or siphoning off money?

Most Americans think health care is a human right, but the GOP has been trying to cut government funding of any kind of healthcare; the result is that our healthcare coverage and costs are far worse than any other developed country. Recently the GOP is celebrating abortion restrictions, but most Americans instead think abortion rights are an essential part of healthcare.

Who is siphoning off money? Trickle-down Reaganomics and union-busting since 1980 have resulted in the rich getting much richer while the national median income has barely increased at all. And since the Trump tax cut of 2017, American billionaires have doubled their total net worth from $3 trillion to $6 trillion. $3 trillion is around $10,000 per US citizen — which could have gone instead to increasing your net worth by $10,000 since 2017… Yes, let’s take back a fair share of earnings from our freeloading billionaires!

Or does “Take America Back” advocate for taking us back in time? How about 1850, when slavery was the norm? How about 1915, before women could vote? How about 1980, before middle class wages stopped growing as fast as the gross national product? How about before 2010 and Citizens United, which nonsensically declared that money is free speech and that corporations have the same rights as people? Ever since 2010, money in politics and the media has grown to dangerous levels of corruption. In financial graphs 1980 stands out as the last year we had fair economics.

Let’s vote for taking America back from billionaires, letting the middle class share our national prosperity as much as the rich, stopping the legalized corruption from Citizens United, and investing more in healthcare programs like Medicare for All. Hmm — all the policies that Democrats have identified as priorities.

References: search US Healthcare from a Global Perspective; World Inequality Database; dark money.

Eric Strid

White Salmon