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9ournal of. Opinion:
Democracy 101 To tell the truth
Mr'y M. Knight School Superintendent Fred Yancey learned The citizen's voice dripped with incredulity in the man-on-
stuniing lesson in democracy in the February 2 election in- the-street radio report after Friday's vote in the U.S. Senate on
vol)iing his district's proposed bond issue for a major schools the disorganized crime in the White House. "What am I going
f'a,' liflt in Matlock. He found out that making it convenient for to tell my 12-year-old daughter?" the man asked. "I am going to
p,q:lc to vote is apparently a sure way to kill a tax measure, have to tell her that the President lied and got away with it."
MMK decided it would be cost-effective to hold an all- Where has thzs guy been for the last 200 years? He acts
mail dection instead of opening up polling places. Bal- like he'.s been dealt a major parenting problem because
lots were sent to all the registered voters in the district, something unbelievable has occurred - someone in the
When the mail came back, only one-third of the people federal government has lied and gotten away with it.
had voted "yes" on the $8.4-million bond for a new ele-
mentary school, more high-school classrooms, an auxili-
ary gym and expanded library.
Yancey said there were more "no" votes February 2 than
there were total votes in MMK's last election on a mainte-
nance-and-operations levy. What the experience told him,
emphatically, was that more people will vote if you make it con-
venient for them, but you're going to get "no" for an answer
when you've got mail,
The superintendent is a brutally honest professional.
He laid out the proposal for the voters and told them
why they should vote for it. He and citizens' committees
looked at building needs for years and reached for the
sky with the bond measure. He made no apologies for
wanting a first-class school, one with room for award-
winning programs.
He has since apologized for the voters going postal on the
hool district, but we don't think an apology is necessary. "I'll
t:ke the fhll for the mail ballot," he told The Journal. How was
1 to know that mail bonding was a bad idea?
The scary thing for him, as a true believer in the dem-
ocratic process, was that a concept that seems to involve
more people in democracy may make it impossible for
his district to pass a bond. Leaders and civic boosters
for years have lamented the fact that the average citizen
is dropping out of the voting process. Along comes a so-
lution, and ironically it's no solution at all for making ci-
vic improvements.
la the Pioneer School District's election February 2, 69 per-
c:,nt of those who trekked to the polls voted for the district's
proposed bond issue, while 52 percent of those voting by absen-
t, ca favored the measure, which failed to get the necessary 60
percent. People voting by mail historically have been fiscally
md politically conservative with their absentee ballots. But the
,verwhelming MMK vote could never have been predicted. "I
was stunned," Yancey admitted. He hadn't heard a lot of oppo-
sitmn. MMK had held public meetings on the proposal, and
they were poorly attended. There was "absolute silence" on the
bond except in the election, he said.
What's unknown, said the superintendent, are the ex-
act reasons for the "no" votes by MMK patrons. Undoub-
tedly some people didn't want to raise their taxes, while
others thought the scope of the project was too big, he
said. It offered something for every grade level. He
hopes the district can reconfigure the project, scale it
down, and make another proposal. "I would not be fool-
ish enough to run this again," he said, "but I'm confident
we're going to run a bond again."
What disturbs him is the thought of slashing a third of the
project to make it more palatable and finding that it costs
more, simply because bond rates have gone up from their pres-
ent rock-bottom level.
When the next bond is proposed, MMK will face a real
dilemma: Call for another mail vote and involve the
most people in the democratic process, or reopen the
polling places and give the poor thing half a chance.
- CG
Washington has been filled with liars, cheaters and frauds
for as long as anyone can remember. If they aren't lying,
they're telling half-truths, spouting hyperbole or practicing
demagoguery, grandstanding or pandering. As a whole, the
people we have sent to the nation's capital and the agencies
they oversee have a record that is despicable. One more exam-
ple of revolting behavior shouldn't be a surprise to the father of
an impressionable 12-year-old.
Surely he has seen federal officials parade to prison in
his lifetime. He must have noticed that many of those
who were supposed to judge the liar in the Lewdinsky
scandal were liars of the same ilk.
He ought to have heard about the way the truth has been
twisted and hidden, the way the rules of decency have been
broken. The litany of the military's actions in our name runs
from marching to the sea in Georgia to herding Indians, from
collecting Vietnamese ears to reducing student enrollment at
Kent State, from killing civilians in Iraq by missing a target by
two miles to killing civilians in Italy by not missing a ski gon-
dola cable.
The interviewee couldn't have missed the exploits of
the CIA, FBI and IRS when they have careened out of
control, whether it was propping up horrible regimes or
supporting death squads in other countries, spying on
our own citizens or abusing power against taxpayers.
Nor should he have missed the scientific experiments in
which U.S. citizens were used as guinea pigs.
As a people we seem to run from the truth and criticize those
who would tell us the truth. We think that killing the messen-
ger somehow changes reality. We really don't want to think
about the truth of the federal deficit; we just reelect people who
make it larger. We wink at the special interests that buy elec-
tions and regard those clamoring for campaign finance reform
as freaks, radicals, unrealistic. The truth is that we despoil
land, pollute air and contaminate water to drive our economy,
but we vilify those who protest the environment's destruction.
The brutal truth is too tough to take, so we don't re-
quire it. We're scared of the truth and how people might
react to it, so we work overtime to put our own spin on
each situation. We don't believe our children can handle
the truth, but sometimes in their black-and-white world
they can deal with reality more easily than we can in
our gray world.
Mr. Clinton is a product of our system, as 'are Congress and
federal agencies. They play by rules we set, meet the standards
we establish. We have low standards, so they can get away
with almost anything. They can afford to be cynical about a
populace with a half-hour attention span that reelects them.
So, what is the man to tell his 12-year-old daughter?
He should tell her that the truth has been taking a beat-
ing in this country for a long time, and if the situation is
going to get any better, she and her generation are prob-
ably going to have to be the ones to change it, because
her elders, collectively, are botching it.
But he might not want to tell her that. That would be the
truth.
- CG
County doing its job in planning
Editor, The ,Journal:
I am writing in response to the
I,tter to the editor from John
Dieh] and the comments of Doug
Sayan to the Mason County com-
missioners as reported in last
week's Jour'no/. It appears that
the commissioners are being ac-
ctlsed of holding up approval of
the:, Mason County Comprehen-
sive Plan by challenging rulings
if the Western Washington
Growth Management Hearings
pretations of the law but just
plain wrong. To disallow industri-
al and commercial development
outside of urban growth areas is
not in conformity with the
Growth Management Act (GMA)
as amended by Engrossed Senate
Bill 6094 in 1997. Mr. Diehl gives
a nice summary of those provi-
sions in his second paragraph.
I suspect I am one of those
"businessmen who focus narrowly
on their self-interest" as de-
[,ard. In fact I believe they are scribed by Mr. Diehl. I would like
jst doing their job, which is to to present my side of the GMA
r'present the interests of all the story. My family owns Stretch Is-
itizens of Mason County: Some hand Fruit, a small business em-
rt.cent rulings of' the GMHB ap- ploying 40 people in the Allyn
pear to be not .just narrow inter- area. Most of our employees live
liluiilllllllllluulu
usPs492800
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Shelton-Mason
County Journal, P.O. Box 430, Shelton, WA 98584,
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Mailing address: P.O. Box 430, Shelton, WA 98584
Telephone (360) 426-4412
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Member of Washington Newspaper Publishers' Association
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$:-5.00 .)er year in state of Washington $45,00 per year out of state
Chrles Gay editor and publisher. Newsrom: Carolyn Maddux, managing editor; Steve
Patch, sports editor; Jeff Green. general assignment, city govemment, schools', Mary Duncan,
;ocey edttor, county government; Sean Hanlon, police, courts, Port of Shelton, Advertlaing:
.%tep'en Gay, advert=stag manager; Janet Daugherty and Dave Piedk, ad sales, Front office:
.hjlle Orme. bus=hess manager; Vickt Kamin, circulation; Donna Dooms, bookkeeper; Jane
rvlahony, office assistant. Composing room: Diane Riordan, supervisor; Margot Brand and
j;-m Kallinen. aste-up; Koleen Wood, typesetter and computer system manager; Karl Freer,
com)uter ad layout and computer system manager; Cynthia Moyer, proofreader. Pressroom:
Robert Rodriguez. production foreman; Roger Lawson, darkroom: Kelly Rlordan, pressman,
luuuuuuuu
Page 4- Shelton-Mason County Journal- Thursday, February 18, 1999
close to the plant. With my wife
and son I have spent 22 years
growing the business, most of
that time on its present site. Now
I am told that this site has been
zoned rural under the GMA and
tha the business will not be per-
mitted to grow on site. Further-
more, under development regula-
tions passed in response to the
GMA by the previous board of
commissioners, it is so risky to
leave this site that I can't move
the business. I simply can't walk
away from the substantial invest-
ment I have here; after all, the
bank still expects its mortgage
payments. We can't grow and we
can't go. So we're stuck.
Let me draw an analogy to our
situation which a homeowner
should be able to understand. You
own a home located in a rural
area, because that's where you
want to live. You know already (I
hope) that under GMA you will
not be able to subdivide your
property or build your ailing
mother a house unless you have a
lot of property (size yet to be de-
termined under GMA and
MCCP). Say you can live with
that. Now suppose that the coun-
ty told you that, if you want to
sell your house, you have to sell
to a family that is no larger than
your own, so as not to contribute
to suburban sprawl. In addition,
if you move out of your house, you
have three years to sell or lease
it. If you fail to have it occupied
within three years, the property
reverts to its "natural rural char-
acter" and you might as well bull-
doze your house.
What would this do to the val-
ue of your home? Would your
banker be willing to lend you
money to improve the home?
Would you be able to sell it? If
laws were passed which put you
in this situation, you would not
oply complain, you would scream
bloody murder! And yet that is
exactly the status of our noncon-
forming business under GMA and
the Mason County development
regulations. Are these "reason-
able regulations"? I think not.
We have tried to address our
concerns through proper local
channels. The Allyn Subarea
Planning Committee, the Mason
County Planning Commission
and our county commissioners all
recommended inclusion of our
business site in the Allyn Rural
Activity Center. The petitioners
challenged the plan and the re-
sult is the latest round of rulings
by the GMHB. It is the petition-
ers, not the county commission-
ers, who are holding up the pro-
cess. Yes, it gets expensive. And
folks, it's your money.
To Jay Hupp and the members
of the Mason County EDC, I say
thank you for continuing to press
for fairness and reason in the
MCCP. To our county commis-
sioners, I say shame on you (or
your predecessors) for passing
those punitive sections of the de-
velopment regulations to which I
refer. But congratulations to you
for resisting the efforts of the pe-
titioners and the GMHB to rain
down our throats an interpreta-
tion of the GMA which most citi-
zens of Mason County do not sup-
port.
Ron Sagers0n
Grapeview
A brief treatise on men
By DAVE BARRY
From time to time I receive let-
ters from a certain group of indi-
viduals that I will describe, for
want of a better term, as "wom-
en." I have such a letter here,
from a Susie Walker of North Au-
gusta, South Carolina, who asks
the following question:
"Why do men open a drawer
and say, 'where is the spatula?'
Instead of, you know, looking for
it?"
This question expresses a com-
monly held (by women) negative
stereotype about guys of the male
gender, which is that they cannot
find things around the house, es-
pecially things in the kitchen.
Many women believe that if you
want to hide something from a
man, all you have to do is put it
in plain sight in the refrigerator,
and he will never, ever find it, as
evidenced by the fact that a man
can open a refrigerator containing
463 pounds of assorted meats,
poultry, cold cuts, condiments,
vegetables, frozen dinners, snack
foods, desserts', etc.,' alid ask, with
no irony whatsoever, =Do we have
anything to eat?
Now I COULD respond to this
stereotype in a snide manner by
making generalizations about
women. I could ask, for example,
how come your average woman
prepares for virtually every up-
coming event in her life, including
dental appointments, by buying
new shoes, even if she already
owns as many pairs as the entire
Riverdance troupe. I could point
out that, if there were no women,
there would be no such thing as
Leonardo DiCaprio. I could ask
why a woman would walk up to a
perfectly innocent man who is
minding his own business watch-
ing basketball and demand to
know if a certain pair of pants
makes her butt look too big, and
then, no matter what he answers,
get mad at him. I could ask why,
according to the best scientific es-
timates, 93 percent of the nation's
severely limited bathroom-stor-
age space is taken up by decades-
old, mostly empty tubes labeled
"moisturizer." I could point out
that, to judge from the covers of
countless women's magazines, the
two topics most interesting to
women are (1) Why men are all
disgusting pigs, and (2) How to
attract men.
Yes, I could raise these issues
in response to the question asked
by Susie Walker of North Augus-
ta, South Carolina, regarding the
man who was asking where the
spatula was. I could even ask
WHY this particular man might
be looking for the spatula. Could
it be that he needs a spatula to
kill a spider, because, while he
was innocently watching basket-
ball and minding his own busi-
ness, a member of another major
gender - a gender that refuses to
personally kill spiders but wants
them all dead - DEMANDED
that he kill the spider, which nine
times out of 10 turns out,to,be, a
male spider that was minding its
own business? Do you realize how
many men arrive in hospital
emergency rooms every year,
sometimes still gripping their
spatulas, suffering from painful
spider-inflicted injuries? I don't
have the exact statistics right
here, but I bet they are chilling.
As I say, I could raise these is-
sues and resort to the kind of neg-
ativity indulged in by Susie Walk-
er of North Augusta, South Caro-
lina. But I choose not to. I choose,
instead, to address her question
seriously, in hopes that, by im-
proving the communication be-
tween the genders, all human be-
ings - both men and women, to-
gether - will come to a better un-
derstanding of how dense women
can be sometimes.
I say this because there is an
excellent reason why a man
would open the spatula drawer
and, without looking for the spat-
ula, ask where the spatula is: The
man does not have TIME to look
for the spatula. Why? Because
HE IS BUSY THINKING. Men
are ALMOST ALWAYS thinking.
When you look at a man who ap-
pears to be merely scratching
himself, rest assured that inside
his head, his brain is humming
like a high-powered computer,
processing millions of pieces of in-
formation and producing import-
ant insights such as, "This feels
good!"
We should be grateful that
men think so much, because over
the years they have thought up
countless inventions that have
made life better for all people,
everywhere. The shot clock in
basketball is one example. Anoth-
er one is underwear-eating bacte-
ria. I found out about this thanks
to the many alert readers who
sent me an article from New Sci-
entist magazine stating that Rus-
sian scientists - and you KNOW
-, these ,are guy scientists - are try-
ing to solve the problem 0f waste
disposal aboard.,spacecraft,: by
"designing a cocktail of bacteria
to digest astronauts' cotton and
paper underpants." Is that great,
or what? I am picturing a utopian
future wherein, when a man's
briefs get dirty, they will simply
dissolve from his body, thereby
freeing him from the chore of
dealing with his soiled underwear
via the labor-intensive, time-con-
suming method he now uses,
namely, dropping them on the
floor.
I'm not saying that guys have
solved all the world's problems.
I'm just saying that there ARE so-
lutions out there, and if, instead
of harping endlessly about spatu-
las, we allow guys to use their
mental talents to look for these
solutions, in time, they will find
them. Unless they are in the re-
frigerator.
l00eaders ' 00lournal:
Let's talk about education
Editor, The Journal.
I wanted to take a moment to
respond to your editorial, =Drive
Your Bus," in which you urge the
citizens of the community to en-
gage in a civil discussion about
education. Speaking for the
school district, we second your
motion!
While I am relatively new to
the community, I absolutely agree
that Shelten is a wonderful place
to grow up and go to school. It is
our desire to make it even better.
We can not do that without the
help of the community. We
strongly believe we are stewards
of our community's priceless re-
source -our public schools. The
community should expect nothing
short of wise, effective and effi-
cient stewardship from us. We
join with you in asking for a dia-
log in order to specify what that
stewardship should look like.
We have taken some specific
actions to further this goal. In ad-
dition to forming the Council for
the Improvement of Student
Learning, we have established a
Citizen's Budget Advisory Com-
mittee and are forming a commit-
tee to advise us on activities and
athletics. Each school has a Site
Council which deals with gover-
nance of the school and several
are looking for parents and other
community members.
Finally, I am in the process of
designing a series of interaction
topics which we hope to use to en-
gage the community through
groups such as service clubs,
church groups and other organ-
ized groups. All of this is import-
ant as we attempt to reflect com-
munity values while building
upon the tradition of excellence in
the Shelton School District. We
extend our thanks to The Journal
for your advocacy of this civic ac-
tivity.
William W. Hundley
Shelton Schools Superintendent
Reflections about neighbor
Editor, The Journal:
Last week the last of the "old-
timers" of Dayton was killed go-
ins to get her mail. It's sort of
ironic. Several years ago, if you
drove through the Dayton cross-
roads, you might see a little lady
and her two dogs along the road.
That was Vivian Buechel. Being
the type of lady she was, she
couldn't just walk for exercise,
she had to be cleaning the road-
side. Her neighbors would fear
that she or one of the dogs would
be hit by a chip truck. Her hear-
ing was failing and she would be
oblivious of traffic. She kept the
crossroads area neat and clean for
several years, with no mishaps.
I am writing this out of guilt. I
was always going to stop in and
see her and tell her how nice the
roadside looked. Or when her son
Joe was killed, I was going to
drop her a note to tell how bad :I
felt for her. I saw ambulance
in her yard last year and I was
going to call her family so see ff
she was all right. None of these
things did I find time to do, and
now it's too late.
I'm sorry, Vivian, that I wasn't
a better friend and neighbor.
Good-bye, I will miss you.
Vera Lorenz
Matlock
9ournal of. Opinion:
Democracy 101 To tell the truth
Mr'y M. Knight School Superintendent Fred Yancey learned The citizen's voice dripped with incredulity in the man-on-
stuniing lesson in democracy in the February 2 election in- the-street radio report after Friday's vote in the U.S. Senate on
vol)iing his district's proposed bond issue for a major schools the disorganized crime in the White House. "What am I going
f'a,' liflt in Matlock. He found out that making it convenient for to tell my 12-year-old daughter?" the man asked. "I am going to
p,q:lc to vote is apparently a sure way to kill a tax measure, have to tell her that the President lied and got away with it."
MMK decided it would be cost-effective to hold an all- Where has thzs guy been for the last 200 years? He acts
mail dection instead of opening up polling places. Bal- like he'.s been dealt a major parenting problem because
lots were sent to all the registered voters in the district, something unbelievable has occurred - someone in the
When the mail came back, only one-third of the people federal government has lied and gotten away with it.
had voted "yes" on the $8.4-million bond for a new ele-
mentary school, more high-school classrooms, an auxili-
ary gym and expanded library.
Yancey said there were more "no" votes February 2 than
there were total votes in MMK's last election on a mainte-
nance-and-operations levy. What the experience told him,
emphatically, was that more people will vote if you make it con-
venient for them, but you're going to get "no" for an answer
when you've got mail,
The superintendent is a brutally honest professional.
He laid out the proposal for the voters and told them
why they should vote for it. He and citizens' committees
looked at building needs for years and reached for the
sky with the bond measure. He made no apologies for
wanting a first-class school, one with room for award-
winning programs.
He has since apologized for the voters going postal on the
hool district, but we don't think an apology is necessary. "I'll
t:ke the fhll for the mail ballot," he told The Journal. How was
1 to know that mail bonding was a bad idea?
The scary thing for him, as a true believer in the dem-
ocratic process, was that a concept that seems to involve
more people in democracy may make it impossible for
his district to pass a bond. Leaders and civic boosters
for years have lamented the fact that the average citizen
is dropping out of the voting process. Along comes a so-
lution, and ironically it's no solution at all for making ci-
vic improvements.
la the Pioneer School District's election February 2, 69 per-
c:,nt of those who trekked to the polls voted for the district's
proposed bond issue, while 52 percent of those voting by absen-
t, ca favored the measure, which failed to get the necessary 60
percent. People voting by mail historically have been fiscally
md politically conservative with their absentee ballots. But the
,verwhelming MMK vote could never have been predicted. "I
was stunned," Yancey admitted. He hadn't heard a lot of oppo-
sitmn. MMK had held public meetings on the proposal, and
they were poorly attended. There was "absolute silence" on the
bond except in the election, he said.
What's unknown, said the superintendent, are the ex-
act reasons for the "no" votes by MMK patrons. Undoub-
tedly some people didn't want to raise their taxes, while
others thought the scope of the project was too big, he
said. It offered something for every grade level. He
hopes the district can reconfigure the project, scale it
down, and make another proposal. "I would not be fool-
ish enough to run this again," he said, "but I'm confident
we're going to run a bond again."
What disturbs him is the thought of slashing a third of the
project to make it more palatable and finding that it costs
more, simply because bond rates have gone up from their pres-
ent rock-bottom level.
When the next bond is proposed, MMK will face a real
dilemma: Call for another mail vote and involve the
most people in the democratic process, or reopen the
polling places and give the poor thing half a chance.
- CG
Washington has been filled with liars, cheaters and frauds
for as long as anyone can remember. If they aren't lying,
they're telling half-truths, spouting hyperbole or practicing
demagoguery, grandstanding or pandering. As a whole, the
people we have sent to the nation's capital and the agencies
they oversee have a record that is despicable. One more exam-
ple of revolting behavior shouldn't be a surprise to the father of
an impressionable 12-year-old.
Surely he has seen federal officials parade to prison in
his lifetime. He must have noticed that many of those
who were supposed to judge the liar in the Lewdinsky
scandal were liars of the same ilk.
He ought to have heard about the way the truth has been
twisted and hidden, the way the rules of decency have been
broken. The litany of the military's actions in our name runs
from marching to the sea in Georgia to herding Indians, from
collecting Vietnamese ears to reducing student enrollment at
Kent State, from killing civilians in Iraq by missing a target by
two miles to killing civilians in Italy by not missing a ski gon-
dola cable.
The interviewee couldn't have missed the exploits of
the CIA, FBI and IRS when they have careened out of
control, whether it was propping up horrible regimes or
supporting death squads in other countries, spying on
our own citizens or abusing power against taxpayers.
Nor should he have missed the scientific experiments in
which U.S. citizens were used as guinea pigs.
As a people we seem to run from the truth and criticize those
who would tell us the truth. We think that killing the messen-
ger somehow changes reality. We really don't want to think
about the truth of the federal deficit; we just reelect people who
make it larger. We wink at the special interests that buy elec-
tions and regard those clamoring for campaign finance reform
as freaks, radicals, unrealistic. The truth is that we despoil
land, pollute air and contaminate water to drive our economy,
but we vilify those who protest the environment's destruction.
The brutal truth is too tough to take, so we don't re-
quire it. We're scared of the truth and how people might
react to it, so we work overtime to put our own spin on
each situation. We don't believe our children can handle
the truth, but sometimes in their black-and-white world
they can deal with reality more easily than we can in
our gray world.
Mr. Clinton is a product of our system, as 'are Congress and
federal agencies. They play by rules we set, meet the standards
we establish. We have low standards, so they can get away
with almost anything. They can afford to be cynical about a
populace with a half-hour attention span that reelects them.
So, what is the man to tell his 12-year-old daughter?
He should tell her that the truth has been taking a beat-
ing in this country for a long time, and if the situation is
going to get any better, she and her generation are prob-
ably going to have to be the ones to change it, because
her elders, collectively, are botching it.
But he might not want to tell her that. That would be the
truth.
- CG
County doing its job in planning
Editor, The ,Journal:
I am writing in response to the
I,tter to the editor from John
Dieh] and the comments of Doug
Sayan to the Mason County com-
missioners as reported in last
week's Jour'no/. It appears that
the commissioners are being ac-
ctlsed of holding up approval of
the:, Mason County Comprehen-
sive Plan by challenging rulings
if the Western Washington
Growth Management Hearings
pretations of the law but just
plain wrong. To disallow industri-
al and commercial development
outside of urban growth areas is
not in conformity with the
Growth Management Act (GMA)
as amended by Engrossed Senate
Bill 6094 in 1997. Mr. Diehl gives
a nice summary of those provi-
sions in his second paragraph.
I suspect I am one of those
"businessmen who focus narrowly
on their self-interest" as de-
[,ard. In fact I believe they are scribed by Mr. Diehl. I would like
jst doing their job, which is to to present my side of the GMA
r'present the interests of all the story. My family owns Stretch Is-
itizens of Mason County: Some hand Fruit, a small business em-
rt.cent rulings of' the GMHB ap- ploying 40 people in the Allyn
pear to be not .just narrow inter- area. Most of our employees live
liluiilllllllllluulu
usPs492800
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Chrles Gay editor and publisher. Newsrom: Carolyn Maddux, managing editor; Steve
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;ocey edttor, county government; Sean Hanlon, police, courts, Port of Shelton, Advertlaing:
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luuuuuuuu
Page 4- Shelton-Mason County Journal- Thursday, February 18, 1999
close to the plant. With my wife
and son I have spent 22 years
growing the business, most of
that time on its present site. Now
I am told that this site has been
zoned rural under the GMA and
tha the business will not be per-
mitted to grow on site. Further-
more, under development regula-
tions passed in response to the
GMA by the previous board of
commissioners, it is so risky to
leave this site that I can't move
the business. I simply can't walk
away from the substantial invest-
ment I have here; after all, the
bank still expects its mortgage
payments. We can't grow and we
can't go. So we're stuck.
Let me draw an analogy to our
situation which a homeowner
should be able to understand. You
own a home located in a rural
area, because that's where you
want to live. You know already (I
hope) that under GMA you will
not be able to subdivide your
property or build your ailing
mother a house unless you have a
lot of property (size yet to be de-
termined under GMA and
MCCP). Say you can live with
that. Now suppose that the coun-
ty told you that, if you want to
sell your house, you have to sell
to a family that is no larger than
your own, so as not to contribute
to suburban sprawl. In addition,
if you move out of your house, you
have three years to sell or lease
it. If you fail to have it occupied
within three years, the property
reverts to its "natural rural char-
acter" and you might as well bull-
doze your house.
What would this do to the val-
ue of your home? Would your
banker be willing to lend you
money to improve the home?
Would you be able to sell it? If
laws were passed which put you
in this situation, you would not
oply complain, you would scream
bloody murder! And yet that is
exactly the status of our noncon-
forming business under GMA and
the Mason County development
regulations. Are these "reason-
able regulations"? I think not.
We have tried to address our
concerns through proper local
channels. The Allyn Subarea
Planning Committee, the Mason
County Planning Commission
and our county commissioners all
recommended inclusion of our
business site in the Allyn Rural
Activity Center. The petitioners
challenged the plan and the re-
sult is the latest round of rulings
by the GMHB. It is the petition-
ers, not the county commission-
ers, who are holding up the pro-
cess. Yes, it gets expensive. And
folks, it's your money.
To Jay Hupp and the members
of the Mason County EDC, I say
thank you for continuing to press
for fairness and reason in the
MCCP. To our county commis-
sioners, I say shame on you (or
your predecessors) for passing
those punitive sections of the de-
velopment regulations to which I
refer. But congratulations to you
for resisting the efforts of the pe-
titioners and the GMHB to rain
down our throats an interpreta-
tion of the GMA which most citi-
zens of Mason County do not sup-
port.
Ron Sagers0n
Grapeview
A brief treatise on men
By DAVE BARRY
From time to time I receive let-
ters from a certain group of indi-
viduals that I will describe, for
want of a better term, as "wom-
en." I have such a letter here,
from a Susie Walker of North Au-
gusta, South Carolina, who asks
the following question:
"Why do men open a drawer
and say, 'where is the spatula?'
Instead of, you know, looking for
it?"
This question expresses a com-
monly held (by women) negative
stereotype about guys of the male
gender, which is that they cannot
find things around the house, es-
pecially things in the kitchen.
Many women believe that if you
want to hide something from a
man, all you have to do is put it
in plain sight in the refrigerator,
and he will never, ever find it, as
evidenced by the fact that a man
can open a refrigerator containing
463 pounds of assorted meats,
poultry, cold cuts, condiments,
vegetables, frozen dinners, snack
foods, desserts', etc.,' alid ask, with
no irony whatsoever, =Do we have
anything to eat?
Now I COULD respond to this
stereotype in a snide manner by
making generalizations about
women. I could ask, for example,
how come your average woman
prepares for virtually every up-
coming event in her life, including
dental appointments, by buying
new shoes, even if she already
owns as many pairs as the entire
Riverdance troupe. I could point
out that, if there were no women,
there would be no such thing as
Leonardo DiCaprio. I could ask
why a woman would walk up to a
perfectly innocent man who is
minding his own business watch-
ing basketball and demand to
know if a certain pair of pants
makes her butt look too big, and
then, no matter what he answers,
get mad at him. I could ask why,
according to the best scientific es-
timates, 93 percent of the nation's
severely limited bathroom-stor-
age space is taken up by decades-
old, mostly empty tubes labeled
"moisturizer." I could point out
that, to judge from the covers of
countless women's magazines, the
two topics most interesting to
women are (1) Why men are all
disgusting pigs, and (2) How to
attract men.
Yes, I could raise these issues
in response to the question asked
by Susie Walker of North Augus-
ta, South Carolina, regarding the
man who was asking where the
spatula was. I could even ask
WHY this particular man might
be looking for the spatula. Could
it be that he needs a spatula to
kill a spider, because, while he
was innocently watching basket-
ball and minding his own busi-
ness, a member of another major
gender - a gender that refuses to
personally kill spiders but wants
them all dead - DEMANDED
that he kill the spider, which nine
times out of 10 turns out,to,be, a
male spider that was minding its
own business? Do you realize how
many men arrive in hospital
emergency rooms every year,
sometimes still gripping their
spatulas, suffering from painful
spider-inflicted injuries? I don't
have the exact statistics right
here, but I bet they are chilling.
As I say, I could raise these is-
sues and resort to the kind of neg-
ativity indulged in by Susie Walk-
er of North Augusta, South Caro-
lina. But I choose not to. I choose,
instead, to address her question
seriously, in hopes that, by im-
proving the communication be-
tween the genders, all human be-
ings - both men and women, to-
gether - will come to a better un-
derstanding of how dense women
can be sometimes.
I say this because there is an
excellent reason why a man
would open the spatula drawer
and, without looking for the spat-
ula, ask where the spatula is: The
man does not have TIME to look
for the spatula. Why? Because
HE IS BUSY THINKING. Men
are ALMOST ALWAYS thinking.
When you look at a man who ap-
pears to be merely scratching
himself, rest assured that inside
his head, his brain is humming
like a high-powered computer,
processing millions of pieces of in-
formation and producing import-
ant insights such as, "This feels
good!"
We should be grateful that
men think so much, because over
the years they have thought up
countless inventions that have
made life better for all people,
everywhere. The shot clock in
basketball is one example. Anoth-
er one is underwear-eating bacte-
ria. I found out about this thanks
to the many alert readers who
sent me an article from New Sci-
entist magazine stating that Rus-
sian scientists - and you KNOW
-, these ,are guy scientists - are try-
ing to solve the problem 0f waste
disposal aboard.,spacecraft,: by
"designing a cocktail of bacteria
to digest astronauts' cotton and
paper underpants." Is that great,
or what? I am picturing a utopian
future wherein, when a man's
briefs get dirty, they will simply
dissolve from his body, thereby
freeing him from the chore of
dealing with his soiled underwear
via the labor-intensive, time-con-
suming method he now uses,
namely, dropping them on the
floor.
I'm not saying that guys have
solved all the world's problems.
I'm just saying that there ARE so-
lutions out there, and if, instead
of harping endlessly about spatu-
las, we allow guys to use their
mental talents to look for these
solutions, in time, they will find
them. Unless they are in the re-
frigerator.
l00eaders ' 00lournal:
Let's talk about education
Editor, The Journal.
I wanted to take a moment to
respond to your editorial, =Drive
Your Bus," in which you urge the
citizens of the community to en-
gage in a civil discussion about
education. Speaking for the
school district, we second your
motion!
While I am relatively new to
the community, I absolutely agree
that Shelten is a wonderful place
to grow up and go to school. It is
our desire to make it even better.
We can not do that without the
help of the community. We
strongly believe we are stewards
of our community's priceless re-
source -our public schools. The
community should expect nothing
short of wise, effective and effi-
cient stewardship from us. We
join with you in asking for a dia-
log in order to specify what that
stewardship should look like.
We have taken some specific
actions to further this goal. In ad-
dition to forming the Council for
the Improvement of Student
Learning, we have established a
Citizen's Budget Advisory Com-
mittee and are forming a commit-
tee to advise us on activities and
athletics. Each school has a Site
Council which deals with gover-
nance of the school and several
are looking for parents and other
community members.
Finally, I am in the process of
designing a series of interaction
topics which we hope to use to en-
gage the community through
groups such as service clubs,
church groups and other organ-
ized groups. All of this is import-
ant as we attempt to reflect com-
munity values while building
upon the tradition of excellence in
the Shelton School District. We
extend our thanks to The Journal
for your advocacy of this civic ac-
tivity.
William W. Hundley
Shelton Schools Superintendent
Reflections about neighbor
Editor, The Journal:
Last week the last of the "old-
timers" of Dayton was killed go-
ins to get her mail. It's sort of
ironic. Several years ago, if you
drove through the Dayton cross-
roads, you might see a little lady
and her two dogs along the road.
That was Vivian Buechel. Being
the type of lady she was, she
couldn't just walk for exercise,
she had to be cleaning the road-
side. Her neighbors would fear
that she or one of the dogs would
be hit by a chip truck. Her hear-
ing was failing and she would be
oblivious of traffic. She kept the
crossroads area neat and clean for
several years, with no mishaps.
I am writing this out of guilt. I
was always going to stop in and
see her and tell her how nice the
roadside looked. Or when her son
Joe was killed, I was going to
drop her a note to tell how bad :I
felt for her. I saw ambulance
in her yard last year and I was
going to call her family so see ff
she was all right. None of these
things did I find time to do, and
now it's too late.
I'm sorry, Vivian, that I wasn't
a better friend and neighbor.
Good-bye, I will miss you.
Vera Lorenz
Matlock