Letters to the Editor

Support Pioneer School

Editor, the Journal,

I am in support of the levy for Pioneer School. This is a replacement levy, not a new one. The levy is about 20% of the district’s budget. It supports transportation costs not covered by the state, after-school academic tutoring for students, athletic programs, reading and math specialists, support staff not covered by the state and other programs.

I am retired and do not have children in school, but education is important for the children’s and our future.

Pamela Harrell, Shelton

Vote for schools

Editor, the Journal,

The Citizen’s For Shelton Schools Committee would like to urge all voters in the Shelton School District to vote “yes” on the upcoming levy ballot measure on Feb. 14. This is a replacement levy, which means no new taxes — just a renewal of the current tax, which will expire on Dec. 31, 2023.

These funds shore up the gap between the funding that the district receives from the state and the cost of offering things such as the school nurse, library services, counseling services, after­school sports and activities, campus security, etc. This replacement levy provides about 11% of the Shelton School District’s budget. In addition, Shelton School District will receive about $3 million additional dollars from the state, but only if the levy passes.

Please vote “yes”!

For additional levy fact information, see http://www.sheltonschools.org.

Kristy Buck & Brad Miller, Co-chairs, Citizens for Shelton Schools

Fire 17 responds

Editor, the Journal,

Mason County Fire District No. 17, doing business as Hama Hama Fire, denounces the article that was printed in last week’s Shelton-Mason County Journal. The opinions shared were those of individuals and are not the opinions of our department. Such statements have no place in public service and have no benefit to anyone. We promise to strive to do better with any and all future communications.

We want to ensure the constituents of the local fire districts, including but not limited to Mason 17, Hoodsport Fire and EMS, and Brinnon Fire, that if you need any of us, or all of us, we will be there!

Signed this 16th day of January 2023 in a special meeting of the Board of Commissioners of Mason County Fire Protection District 17.

Gary Janisch, board chair; Pat O’Brien, commissioner; Joel Carlson, commissioner; Nadine Brown, fire chief.

Dear Mr. Duenkel

Congratulations on being elected and sworn in as auditor for Mason County, Washington.

For transparency sake, I would like to ask how you will use your office to resolve the conundrum of your election within a process whose legitimacy you so thoroughly and unswervingly questioned and disparaged during your campaign?

Since you ran on a platform of “election integrity,” what are your goals, objectives and timeline to identify and resolve any additional “voter anomalies” in the existing voter registration roles as identified in the Mason County Voter Research Project’s “Voter Anomaly” report? How do you plan to keep them from reoccurring? How often will you inform the voters of Mason County of your efforts to achieve them? Will you continue to use the questionable services and results of the Mason County Voter Research Project, some other authorized election integrity group or initiate your own from within the Auditor’s Office?

If you deign to respond to this letter, I would request that you also submit your response to the Shelton-Mason County Journal for publication in its “Letters to Editor” as I am also doing. IMHO, a nonresponse would constitute an admission that all your election integrity bravado was just that … bravado.

Respectfully yours,

Bill Pfender, Shelton

To the Promised Land

Editor, the Journal,

Though we hear it said, “Don’t talk politics or religion,” I’m pleased the Journal allows us readers to talk politics and religion herein.

Last December, I submitted a letter titled “Blame the Bible,” about the Bible being homophobic. I quoted verses to support my claim that the Bible actually says to “kill those men who slept with other men as with a woman.” Yeah. Kill. And that hideous narrative remains rampant among homophobes today.Then last week, Monna Haugen from Belfair mentioned my name, but her titled “Good Bible news” letter had nothing to do with my substantiated letter in reply seemingly to bolster the Bible, contrarily, as a good book instead.

She submitted a biblical mention about God getting Israelis out of slavery, and with divine direction he commissioned Moses to lead his estimated 2 million people out of Egypt through a bleak landscape between there and Canaan, a journey which apparently took “40 years” to reach the so-called Promised Land, a distance of 265 miles. 40 years?

Now I always thought that that was an exaggeration, if ya wanna know the truth, but the Bible then points to disobedience for the wandering delay. Apparently, God disapproves of them being obediently enslaved in Egypt, but then, as the story goes, is mad at them for being disobedient to him. Can you say double standard?

Anyway, disobedience aside, at a speed of 2.8 mph, (my average walking speed as a 71-year-old man) it seems to me to be an unbelievably incredulous story, so I went to Google maps and put in the coordinates. Monna, I typed in Egypt to Jerusalem and found out that if I walked it, it would take me six to 10 days, and were there cars back then, it’s only an eight-hour drive. Not too arduous either way.

Well, OK, anyway, if true, I’m thinking: With 2 million humans wandering aimlessly, I would expect there’d be millions of artifacts evidencing them having once been there, oh, like campsites, cooking utensils, animal bones, broken sandals, altars and other stuff laying dense with remnants. It has not been for the lack of trying, instead, dozens of capable archaeological surveys of the Sinai Peninsula have resulted in nonexistent nothings for bolstering believability. I’m sorry Monna, believe what you will, but I’ve more trust in the promises of Google to lead me to a promised land than a Bible-God who demands obedience along the way.

Darrell Barker, Shelton

Democracy in action?

Editor, the Journal,

The Jan. 12th edition of the Shelton-Mason County Journal printed some letters stating the House conduct that resulted in McCarthy being elected speaker was an example of healthy debate and democracy in action. I think they missed the point, however.

What I witnessed was a 20-person extremist minority completely dominate the remaining 202 GOP majority, most of whom like to call themselves moderates. That can only mean those latter members are either (a) so politically inept they could not overcome an extremist minority, or (b) are themselves not truly moderate at all, and just want to falsely claim they are. It really doesn’t matter which, because either way we now know the party controlling the House of Representatives is completely under the control of hyper-partisan extremists.

Most voters value honest and factual debate among different elected parties. Each party may be grounded in its own particular values, but each should seek solutions to real problems. We can only be appalled at the agenda that triumphed last week.

Stan Horton, Shelton