Letters to the Editor for June 10, 2009

Another search for the truth

Jay Boman raised some interesting questions about all the conflicting views between the Bible and science. It does make it hard to know what to believe sometimes. For those of you really wanting some answers I would recommend the Truth Project. It addresses those fact or fiction questions that come up in daily living. The Truth Project is put out by Focus on the Family and many of our local churches are holding small group Truth Projects. You can look it up on line at www.truthproject.org to find a local group and you can also check with the Christian Church, Harvest Christian Assembly, the Nazarene Church, or Calvary Baptist to see what classes are going to be starting this fall.

The Truth Project poses this question: “Do you really believe that what you believe is really real?” It looks at that credibility problem in a serious but very interesting way. 

Billie McClure

Baker City

Do you want to pay for all services?

To the editor:

Your paper’s editorial on state workers’ health benefits irritated me. You compare them to the private sector. I know people in the private sector who have their health care paid. You say state workers should have to pay for most or all of their health care — then pay them what they would make if they did the same kind of job in the private sector!

I don’t know too many of the state workers (other than maybe the legislators) that got a 5.7 percent raise last year. Health care benefits are a way for government to compensate employees in an effort to keep them, because they sure can’t pay them what they would make in the private sector!

You call this spending “reckless” and “unconscionable.” I call it good practice. After all, according to private sector thinking “You get what you pay for.” Don’t employees’ salaries only amount to approximately 20 percent of the state budget anyway?

You want to look at reckless spending? What about the the fact that the state rents the vast majority of its offices instead of buying/building them? How many state offices are there in Baker City alone? At least six, with a conservative estimate of over $20,000 a month spent on rent. At that rate, how long would it take to pay off a building big enough to hold all the state offices in town?

People should remember that government is not a “for profit entity” like the private sector. Yes, spending must be controlled, but we pay taxes to get the full gamut of services. If you want to keep comparing the two, then maybe we should go to a fee-based government where we would pay for only the services we use. You need food stamps, you pay the fee and they will process them for you. You want a detective to find who stole your car, pay him the fee and he will work on it. That is how the private sector works.

Most state workers do the best job they can under the circumstances they are placed in.   

Doug Evans

Baker City

Cemeteries looked so good

To the editor:

My sister was here from Lewiston, Idaho, and we visited Mount Hope Cemetery on Memorial Day. To the ones keeping the grounds — it looked really good. Thanks. Also, as we went to my husband’s niece’s grave in the baby cemetery it was so heartwarming to see that not one baby had been overlooked. Tiny nosegays of baby’s breath, how fitting, all tied with blue ribbons. I don’t know who did it but I want to say thank you.

We visited the Rock Creek Cemetery and the Haines Cemetery. To Connie and Betty Brown, we would say thank you. The grounds are always looking so good. It’s a lot of work.

The Avenues of Flags at the two cemeteries make us remember those whose lives have been cut short. May we never forget. God bless.  

Evelyne Fisher

Baker City