Your voice: March 12, 2025

In response to my email inquiry, Rep. Maxine Dexter’s office held a phone call with Bernie Yoo and myself to discuss the matter.

Thanks to Columbia Gorge News (and reporter Nathan Wilson) for the recent article that shed light on this matter. The article quotes FID constituents Teunis Wyers and Bernie Yoo, along with FID Board President Pete Siragusa. If you haven’t already done so, please read this informative article.

I want to thank all the FID constituents who attended recent monthly board meetings (third Wednesday of each month, at noon, at the FID Office on Country Club Road). By showing your presence and raising your voices, you have raised the bar on FID and Pacific Power to issues of fairness, to all parties, in this complicated matter. Please continue to make your voices heard. A list of public officials and advocacy groups to contact can be found on FID’s FAQ (www.fidhr.org/index.php/en/faqs).

Tina Dye

Hood River

Thank you, Grace Su ...

... For your gracious welcomes, your excellent food, and your efficient and congenial staff for serving us for 50 years. The Panda is legendary and your strength and grace iconic. You shall be missed.

Joy Ingalls

Hood River

You’re fired

The recent firings of thousands of government workers is supposed to save millions of dollars. At the same time, Republicans have passed legislation that rewards corporations and billionaires with about $4.5 trillion in tax cuts.

In other words, we have removed the jobs and incomes of thousands of workers and GIVEN their incomes, many times over, to the very rich. We, the people, actually see NO increase in government savings.

Savings only exist if we do not increase spending and do not decrease income. If we decrease spending and also decrease income, ONE party is actually taking money from the other party. In this case, it is the rich gaining and the rest of our citizens losing.

Next on the agenda will be an effort to decrease spending on the middle and lower class incomes. This will be by cutting (or killing) Social Security, Meals on Wheels, education funding, Medicare, etc. Cut funding to any program that helps any segment of our society other than the rich! Wait and see!

Leonard Hickman

Hood River

 Editor’s Note: While one letter per writer is accepted each month, Hickman’s February letter was misplaced and subsequently ran March 5.

Message for reps

My message to our Congressional Republicans:

Have you no nation-wide condemnation and world apology for how Donald Trump and JD Vance humiliated Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Feb. 28? And your subsequent support of Trump’s and Vance’s horrible behavior towards Ukraine makes no sense given your acknowledgement that Russia was clearly the war’s initiator and aggressor — on second thought, it makes great sense considering that most of you’ve shown cowardice in not standing up to Trump’s cruel, vengeful, racist, and dangerous for public safety executive orders. You certainly lack the spine of Zelenskyy!

What have you to say about the US joining with only 18 countries — but including Russia, and Russian allies North Korea, Hungary, and Belarus — against the UN Resolution that demands Russia’s immediate withdrawal from Ukraine, and calls Russian aggression a UN Charter violation? The Resolution passed 93 – 18 with 65 abstentions. Your silence on that resolution is deafening.

How can you House Republicans justify voting for the House Budget Resolution that would significantly cut Medicaid in order to finance continuation of tax cuts overwhelmingly benefitting the rich? Be honest, letting people know exact amounts — an average cut of $51,140 per year for top 1% earners and $930 for the middle class, as reported during Trump’s first term. Rather, larger tax cuts for American workers, while increasing taxes on the rich, is desperately needed

Finally, your constituents deserve to be told the fact that Trump’s first term added twice that of Joe Biden’s term to the national debt, much due to those tax cuts for the rich.

Norm Luther

Spokane

Local reporting

The maxim to “think globally; act locally” has guided me for all of my adult life. In the face of the Trump/Musk administration’s overwhelming onslaught of cruelty, abuse, corruption, and wholesale destruction, I’m grateful for the local journalism of this newspaper. The front page articles by Nathan Wilson on Wednesday, March 5 are examples of the kind of reporting that helps to inform our local actions. I’m proud to be a member of this community and thankful for the editors of the Columbia Gorge News for prioritizing these stories.

Paul Woolery

Hood River

Unprecedented?

If Editor Therese Bottomly, in her editor’s column, “We must not abandon our role as honest broker of the facts” (March 2, Oregonian/OregonLive) is true to her word, then she should start with an honest definition of the qualifying word “unprecedented.”

Bottomly calls (without naming) some of Trump’s policies unprecedented. Which ones? Certainly not tariffs: The first major law passed by the U. S. after the ratification of the Constitution was the Tariff Act of 1789, signed by President Washington.

President McKinley enacted tariffs of almost 50%. Purging staff? Upon taking office, President Jefferson, in 1880, fired half of his, mostly in top positions. On acquiring Greenland? Not even close — remember the American purchase of, among others, Alaska and the Louisiana? And, yes, even Greenland from Iceland, a near-deal in 1868, the first of four times before Trump.

Executive orders unprecedented? Nope — Truman, Teddy Roosevelt, Coolidge, and Franklin D. Roosevelt tallied executive orders of 900 to more than 3,700. Comparatively, Trump is a lightweight.

I am not defending nor criticizing Trump, although I do root for both political sides to come back towards the middle. I urge readers to use the current political strife to simply Google up your assumptions and learn history. At no time in the history of mankind has it been easier to check information. To paraphrase Cicero, these are the best of times, may I add, for personal learning.

Inflammatory information fuels both political sides, which, I suppose, helps the brokerage of news mentioned in Bottomly’s lofty headline. But why should readers believe claims of honesty from editors who don’t take but a few minutes to do at least a cursory fact check of history?

Bill Perconti

Goldendale

Keep protesting

I was horrified Feb. 28 as I watched Trump AND Vance attack Zelensky. As bad as it is, if you haven’t seen it, you need to. You need to know what we are living under at this time. I am certain that if the courts do not uphold the Constitution in the next few weeks, the United States of America will no longer exist as a democracy. We are barely one right now.

About 70 people stood on the corners that night, holding flags and protest signs for the second week in a row. There was an overwhelming amount of support from the cars passing by. Some people pulled over, got out and joined us. At one point, two men walked through the protesters and thanked us for being there. Talking to them, off to the side, they quietly said that one was a federal worker who is scared to death that he will go to work one of these mornings and find he has lost his job, which is sustaining his family. It broke my heart.

This is happening everywhere in our country as people are bullied and yanked from jobs with no cause. You think your job is safe? You think your Medicaid and Medicare are safe? Who is going to be there to write that check for you? Right now, the Republican Party is destroying these agencies from within. Yes, I said the Republican Party because they are the only ones who can vote against what is happening and they have chosen not to.

It feels very close to being over. If the courts don’t hold up, you will no longer see people on the streets or hear even a whisper of opposition because people could be jailed for saying anything against our fascist government. I feel it coming closer.

So, while you have the chance ... the choice ... call Congress, write a letter to the editor, join us on the street corner to yell into the wind. While you have the chance ... while you have the choice.

Widge Johnson

The Dalles

Price of eggs

FYI, I just bought a carton of 18 eggs from Rosauers. It was $9.49, or .527 cents per egg. Then I saw an ad in a paper for a dozen (12) eggs for $7.74, or .645 cents per egg. Penny wise and pound foolish. Like with many things, it’s cheaper to buy in quantity. Or maybe get your own chickens.

Bev Elsner

White Salmon

Medicaid fraud

Last week, Cliff Bentz was interviewed on OPB. When asked about the attack on Medicaid, Bentz said that people who will lose their Medicaid coverage are frauds. He said they are people who should not have been found eligible.

I am wondering if the “frauds” are your 90-year-old granny? Your low income pregnant woman? Your disabled child? When these poor, disabled people lose their healthcare, maybe the rest of you will wake up and realize that the real frauds are the politicians who don’t have the courage to stand up for you rather than supporting a couple of billionaires who are running this government into the ground.

Susan Lannak

Hood River

Barrett sale concerns

I am a resident of Hood River County and am concerned about the potential sale of Barrett Park. The Hood River Valley Parks and Recreation District (HRVPRD) is in the process of getting appraisals for the potential sale of Barrett Park, as they have been lobbied by Thrive and pressured by community members to let go of this beautiful property for years.

The land is zoned EFU (Exclusive Farm Use) and can be sold to the highest bidder, traded for a smaller property in Parkdale, or given to the community college for an AgTech program. Any of these options take the park away from public use and enjoyment. The park has been really busy during these past warm days, lots of fliers flying responsibly, many joggers enjoying the trail and people enjoying the beautiful landscape. There are no problems. It’s peaceful, and wonderful to have a place that doesn’t need a lot of management. It is a gift to the community and future generations to have open space for the health, well being, and enjoyment of all. Please don’t let Barrett Park be decommissioned by ignoring this issue.

HRVPRD board meetings are at the aquatic center on the third Wednesday of the month so the next meeting is at 6 p.m. on March 19. Please come and share your thoughts or submit written comments to save Barrett Park. Thank you.

Natasha Colette

Hood River

Alliance shift

If you’re not a fan of dictators, then you need to know that under Trump, we’ve shifted our alliance from NATO to Russia. In a sharp turn from U.S. policy, we joined 17 countries in voting against a non–binding resolution condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine. Other countries voting no to the resolution include Russia, North Korea, Syria, and more. Trump refuses to blame Russia for the war, and we’ve now aligned ourselves with hard authoritarian regimes (Elizabeth Crisp, “These 17 Countries Voted with the U.S. Against UN Ukraine Resolution,” The Hill, Feb. 24). Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

It has used coercive adoption to deport Ukrainian children, conceal their identities, and change their names to prevent repatriation and return to their families. The Yale Humanitarian Research Laboratories has identified 315 Ukrainian children placed into Russia’s system of coercive adoption. Putin continues to claim that these children were taken to Russia for humanitarian reasons (Countering Disinformation with Facts, Government of Canada, Jan. 15).

Trump has called Zelensky a dictator. This is a lie. He claims that Ukraine should never have started the war, when in fact, Putin invaded Ukraine, unprovoked. (Matt Murphy and Jake Horton, “Fact–Checking Trump Claims About War in Ukraine” BBC Verify, Feb. 19).

If you’re a fan of dictators, then Trump is your president. If not, I urge you to contact your congressional representative and urge them to support Ukraine, not Putin.

April George

White Salmon

Benefits the wealthy

Recently, the Republicans in the U.S. House approved a new budget that includes extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts that predominately benefit the wealthy 1%, and paying for it by cutting billions from important programs for the public, such as Medicaid, food stamps, educational grants, and more. It also will add $4.6 trillion to the U.S. deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

I had voiced my concerns about the impact of this Republican budget to our WA-04 Rep. Dan Newhouse. In his reply, he said he was very concerned about the federal deficit and would give “careful consideration” to how he would vote on this budget.

Guess what? He voted for this budget, adding trillions to the deficit he wants reduced, and ignoring the difficulties the budget cuts will have on his constituents in Central Washington.

Other Republican representatives also had objections to the deficit increase due to the wealthy tax cuts, but in the end they and Rep. Newhouse all bowed to Trump’s intimidation tactics.

It has become clearer by each vote by Rep. Newhouse that our WA-04 citizens are not his main priority, but following Trump and Republican leadership — who are in the process of dismantling our health and financial safety nets for the benefit for the very rich — is what’s most important. I had hoped his careful consideration would result in standing up for our interests and well-being, but he does not.

Again, it’s time to find a real representative for us in WA-04.

Steven Woolpert

White Salmon

USAID highlights

I worked in USAID (United States Agency for International Development) for 18 years and will share what I know best, Nepal’s public health successes from 1990-2020:

• The fertility rate dropped from five to two children per mother;

• Child mortality dropped from 139 to 28 deaths per 1000 live births;

• Maternal mortality dropped from 550 to 175 deaths per 100,000 births;

• Sanitation coverage went from 6% to 99%;

• Water supply coverage improved from 40% to 90%.

These huge leaps are not simple modernization; they result from tight monitoring and adjustment for ground realities, with USAID usually the health donor lead. Reduction in family size required educating girls. Getting families to build and use outhouses required a global sharing of community education strategies about stopping the spread of contagious disease. Reduction in child mortality required these successes, plus USAID’s initiation of world-celebrated female community health volunteer and immunization programs. My portfolio included support for physical rehabilitation centers. I hope to never forget the fierce love on one father’s face as he locked eyes and smiles with his daughter, and she willed her limbs to align and move beyond others’ expectations for children with cerebral palsy. Our work raised the American flag a few inches, and upon their departure, our many Congressional visitors professed enhanced humility and pride.

Why should this matter to Americans? For those who hold to Christian love, is it not obvious that Jesus’ injunction to help the poorest amongst us would not have been confined to borders? The global community is us and deserves our attention. But it is also no secret that desperately poor populations turn to demagoguery and violence with vain hopes of improving conditions for their families. Wars in poor regions pull in others, either through alliances based on common values, or through terrorism. By creating a peaceful path to improvement, USAID made American society more secure, too. Sadly, just over one half of Congress is now willing to see USAID destroyed due to lies about rampant fraud and waste. USAID plans, budgets, activities and results could hardly have been more closely scrutinized than they were.

Linda Kentro

The Dalles

Letter to Bentz

I sent this to Rep. Cliff Bentz, Oregon District 2,  on March 3:

Dear Rep. Bentz,

The founders of our Constitution intended the strongest element of federal government to be Congress, the people.

Over time, the balance has tilted unevenly to the Executive, yet still retaining at least token respect for Article One. Until Jan. 20, 2025.

In the last five weeks, you have enthusiastically given up what remained of norms respecting any balance of power.

Day by day, the Executive seizes unlawful control over constitutionally explicit Congressional jurisdiction, and you give two thumbs up. In the near future, the Constitution may well be an afterthought.

Rep. Bentz, you are in the rare position to rescue our democracy. I have little confidence that you will, yet I implore you to consider our history and to understand that capitulating to Trump and his wrecking ball DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) has perilously harmed our republic unconstitutionally, and, with your support, has delivered us into the early stages of fascism.

Please represent your constituents in upholding your vow to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Jim Appleton

Mosier

Saving Barrett Park

The Hood River Valley Parks and Recreation District is in the process of getting appraisals for the potential sale of Barrett Park. This park is the southern destination for walkers along the Indian Creek Trail. The park is very popular and one of the most beautiful in Hood River. The expansive views, the natural grade of the land toward the east hills and a view of Mount Hood add up to an unforgettable experience. 

The land is zoned high value farmland, and a park is not allowed unless the county adopts a parks master plan and acknowledges it in the comprehensive plan. This can be done even though it takes some time and requires the vote of a majority of the county commissioners.

The parks board has been lobbied for years by members of Thrive to sell this magnificent 31-acre park and buy a 3.6-acre parcel in Parkdale zoned commercial. It is the Mills property and does not include the buildings. The parks board is waiting for appraisals on both properties.

We must show the parks and recreation board how we feel about this. 

Why in the world would a parks and recreation board give away such a valuable and important asset for our community? It makes absolutely no sense on any level. Green space is good for people, animals and our environment. The city’s goals for denser and more housing everywhere is more palatable when green space is available nearby.

The parks board is made up of good people doing their best, and they need our input. Their meetings are at the swimming pool on the third Wednesday of the month so the next meeting is 6 p.m. on March 19. Please come and speak or submit written comments to save Barrett Park.

Linda Maddox

Hood River 

Another letter to Bentz

When you voted for the new federal budget and approved Elon Musk’s destruction of government agencies, did you think about how this would impact the folks in your district?

Agriculture: Oregon District 2 has 12,780 farms. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) helps farmers with loans, grants, disaster assistance, technical assistance, crop insurance, and much more. Do you really want to cripple the USDA?

Air Safety: Our district has five commercial airports. With two recent crashes and many near misses, why fire the most experienced people in the FAA?

Health: 52% of people in our district are on Medicaid. Health care and social assistance are our largest employment fields, with more than 46,000 jobs. Do you really want to take away our healthcare and health related jobs and bankrupt local hospitals by slashing Medicaid?

Hunger: One in six residents in Oregon receive Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP) benefits. Over half are in families with children. Over a third are in families with elderly or disabled adults and forty one percent are in working families. Why dismantle the SNAP program?

Wildfires: Last year was the worst wildfire season on record in Oregon, with 430,000 acres burned in our district. It’s crazy to be firing US Forest Service employees who fight fires.

Education: College gets more expensive, and good jobs require more skills. The US Department of Education (USDE) provides student grants, loans, work-study jobs, funding for college, vocational and technical programs and much more. Why abolish USDE?

Climate chaos: Last year was the hottest on record. In 2021, the entire state experienced overwhelming drought. Do we really want to speed up global warming by increasing production of fossil fuels?

If you want to cut taxes for the richest Americans, don’t do this by cutting critical government services for our district. Don’t jeopardize our farms, jobs, healthcare, higher education, air travel and fire safety. Have the courage to resist political pressure to cruelly and foolishly dismantle essential government programs. Use your vote to benefit the people in your district.

Martin Albert MD

Ashland 

WAGOP lawsuit

Currently, Democrats hold a supermajority in the Washington State Legislature without any checks or balances, a situation that has not occurred in over a decade. This shift resulted from a narrow margin of just 173 votes out of nearly 90,000 cast in the 18th Legislative District in Southwest Washington.

As an all vote-by-mail state, Washington faces significant questions regarding voter registration, especially when citizens move. County auditors are responsible for regularly updating voter rolls using National Change of Address (NCOA) data from the USPS. However, this process is often neglected, notably by Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey, who failed to account for hundreds of ballots cast by individuals who had already reported moving out of the district.

The number of ballots from these voters far surpassed the 173 votes that determined the election outcome. Despite this, the election was certified. In response, the Washington State Republican Party has filed a lawsuit to decertify the election and advocate for updated voter rolls, ensuring trust in our electoral process. It is crucial for all citizens to support efforts for election integrity. For more information on how to help, visit wagop.org/support-election-integrity/.

Please join us in-person for the court hearing on Thursday, March 13 at 11 a.m. at Clark County Superior Court, 1200 Franklin St., Vancouver, Washington.

Aliyah Mattila

Brush Prairie

Editor’s Note: These accusations have yet to be proven in a court of law. Charges are often reduced, modified or dismissed in the criminal justice process.