Health care

One plan for them, another for us

Isn’t it ironic the very health care system Sen. Ted Kennedy demands for us would have meant his own death?

Yes, under the proposed health care plan, dear Ted would have been sent home with pain pills to die.

Except, I forgot … the national health care plan in the works would not apply to Teddy.

In fact, it would not apply to any congressman or congresswoman, or any federal employee, or any union employee (as payback for campaign contributions). It only applies to the rest of us peons.

Maybe a truly fair plan would be one all us Americans would be covered under. Maybe if the politicians had to suffer with the rest of us, they would make better decisions for all of us.

PAULINE CORNELIUS

Olalla

Education

We can’t ignore

responsibility

The 2009 Washington State Legislature dealt with our state’s fiscal crisis in a way that sought to avoid lasting harm to public higher education.

However, deep budget cuts and steep tuition increases have led some to speculate we’ve crossed an important divide.

This biennium, four of our six baccalaureate institutions will receive more than 50 percent of their operating revenue from tuition and fees.

Have we started down the path to privatized funding of our public higher education institutions?

We hope not.

Broad and affordable college access enables societies to compete in our complex and integrated world.

Many states and nations are making these investments. Washington is failing to meet the challenge.

The state’s master plan for higher education calls for a 40 percent annual increase in degree and certificate attainment by 2018.

We believe this goal is still attainable.

A new System Design Plan authorized by the Legislature will provide rational rules for growth to help expand higher education access to the communities and populations that need it most.

Now is not the time to sit on the sidelines of this discussion.

We need advocates to explain the importance of higher education to all the people of the state.

ANN DALEY

Washington

Higher Education

Coordinating Board

Montessori school

Commissioners just emboldened NIMBYs

The Kitsap County commissioners had a chance to do the right thing on Monday night, but they blew it.

The Hearing Examiner’s decision to deny the permit for the Montessori Farm School in South Kitsap was riddled with errors.

Commissioner Charlotte Garrido read them off one by one. Yet the commissioners took the easy way out. They remanded the ruling back to the hearing examiner for re-consideration. They should have overturned the ruling.

Appeasement — isn’t that nice?

And everybody lived happily ever after.

The neighbors of the Montessori school who are trying — and so far have been successful — in denying the school’s permit to operate are not the type to compromise. That option has already been offered to them and they have refused mediation.

These people are classic “I’ve got mine — you don’t get any,” “Not in my backyard” (NIMBY) and I’m glad they are not my neighbors.

Gutless decisions like the county commissioners made Monday just embolden people who think they have the right to tell other people what they can and can’t do with their own land even when property owners are seeking lawful use of their property.

VIVIAN HENDERSON

Kitsap Alliance

of Property Owners

Port Orchard