Letters to the Editor

Cancer support group looking for your help

To the editor:

I am writing this letter in hopes of making a positive experience for children and families in our community. These families are dealing with cancer and need to know they are not alone in this journey — people care and understand what they are going through. They endure, on a daily basis, things we hope most will never have to know.

I am a mother of five who is currently enduring treatment for breast cancer. I know from the inside out what these children are going through. If my children had had the resources and the ability to experience a support group, it would give them an amazing outlet to know they are not the only ones. There are currently so MANY children just like them, and they feel so alone, angry, hurt, scared and so many other confusing emotions.

I am currently working with a national organization called Kids Konnected. They offer summer camps and support groups to many families. I am working toward bringing that to our community.

This program will offer a Christmas celebration here in the Flathead Valley on Dec. 20, from 4-8 p.m. at the Armory in Kalispell. There will be games, crafts, food and fun for our local families enduring the cancer journey. We already anticipate that there will be nearly 50 kids in attendance. My goal is a special gift for each child.

I need your support with this undertaking. Would you consider any type of donation to the Flathead’s Kids Konnected? This is a program for families in our area to be able to forget for a second, a moment, an hour, about the daily life they are living. It will give them the opportunity to “let loose” and connect with others who know what they are going through, and understand. Your help would be greatly appreciated and touch the life of a child.

Thank you so much for your time. Call me at 253-7888. I look forward to hearing from you.

P.S. A tax I.D. number is available upon request.

Angie Olsen

Columbia Falls

Free, reduced-price meals available in District 6

To the editor:

Hard economic times have reached our Valley. Our households have been affected by hourly cuts, and layoffs in our places of employment. School District 6 would like to encourage you to take advantage of the free and reduced meals available for those who qualify. Applications may be filled out and accepted any time during the school year.

To apply for free or reduced-priced meals and/or free milk, households must fill out the application and return it to the school. If a household is eligible for food stamps the household will receive a Direct Certification letter from the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services in the mail. This letter may be used in place of the school meals application.

Please pick up your application form at any of the school cafeterias or school offices.

Laurie Iunghuhn

Food Services Director

Columbia Falls School District 6

Outraged about alleged fraud

To all other taxpayers:

We turned in a person for social security fraud! They should be unable to collect SSI and take all of my father’s assets. We were in hopes by this somewhere, somehow, this person would finally get some jail time for defrauding the government. Even my little old granny of almost 90 years of age got a fine including additional penalties and interest for saving some of her social security money, totaling $3500.. My granny saved this money to pay for her funeral expenses. After all was paid back she was only able to keep $2500.

This person that I mentioned above took my father’s land and assets and is living on SSI. It was taken away and then given back for mental issues they are now claiming and all in hopes for the government to get back some of their money. My assumption is that this individual took time to look online for symptoms of mental disorders and is pretending to have these symptoms.

I am sure that the taxpayers would be more than happy to pay to have this individual treated in a mental institution than to hand her any more money that really isn’t helping her illness.

Debbie Schumacher

Columbia Falls

Delist predatory species

To the editor,

When voicing concerns to Gov. Schweitzer I noticed that Mr. Baum only mentioned predatory species (Dec. 4 issue). With the great proliferation of these predatory species many thousand elk have vanished from the landscape. Not to mention deer, cattle, sheep, pets and businesses.

I would urge Gov. Schweitzer to use his considerable clout and prestige to delist the predatory species from the Endangered Species Act. It has been a colossal failure! There is no rational reason for these predators to exist in such large numbers.

Regarding firearms in the parks. It has been long overdue that lawful, law-abiding, tax paying citizens be allowed to carry a loaded firearm in the park.

Wm. Gordon Poggensee

Buckley, WA

Let the auto industry go bankrupt

To the editor:

Just to be repititious: I advise that the auto industry should be allowed to go into bankruptcy in order to see the executive management teams fired and the stock-holders and creditors punished financially for extremely poor and corrupt decision-making practices/policies.

Let these three companies reorganize with new management teams and have the unions re-benchmark their wage scales to be more competitive and put creditors on alert to exercise due diligence and caution in dealings with the auto industry in the future.

I do not favor industry de-regulation or government regulation/intervention, but see the two entities as “checks-and-balances” of each other. It has been my experience that Republicans, typically, fear government regulation more, while Democrats, typically, fear unregulated corporate greed more. It also breaks down to the demographics of rural parts of the country, having little or no giant corporations in their midst, focus their fears against government intrusion, while big city dwellers, having to live amongst and deal with huge corporations, favor government protection against corporate greed/abuse.

I suggest you do save as many blue collar jobs as possible, but do dissolve golden parachutes as you replace these white collar managements.

Any bail-out “investment” you decide to make should have a rate of return guaranteed to recover that investment. You might publicize that fact to gain public acceptance of such a bail-out plan.

Bill Baum

Martin City

Support Repair Act

To the editor:

Reuters reports that the number of U.S. car dealerships closing is expected to increase into 2009, with as many as 3,800 dealerships at risk of closure because of dwindling sales and tighter credit, according to a newly released study by Grant Thornton LLP.

With so many car dealerships in America projected to close next year, the need for the Motor Vehicle Owners’ Right to Repair Act (HR 2694) is even more critical to car owners than ever before.

The fact is that there already aren’t enough dealerships in all the right places to keep every motor vehicle serviced, repaired and operating safely. Now it appears that this situation is going to become worse. Without the Right to Repair Act, millions of motorists may be forced back to fewer dealers for service, making convenient and affordable local auto repair a thing of the past. In addition, many motorists may forgo important vehicle repairs due to the added costs of fuel and travel time because there is no dealership in the area.

The Right to Repair Act was introduced in Congress to protect vehicle owners by making it illegal for manufacturers to withhold safety alerts and repair information from car owners and their trusted repair shops.  

Please visit www.righttorepair.org to send a letter to each of your congressional representatives, urging them to support the Right to Repair Act by adding their names to the growing list of co-sponsors.

Aaron Lowe

Vice President, Government Affairs

Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association