Traffic safetyElectronic billboards distract drivers
Consider the impact on traffic safety if an electronic billboard were erected along North Reserve Street. New ads could appear every six seconds, slowing traffic to a crawl as drivers pause to see the next brightly lit ad. North Reserve Street, as every Missoula driver knows, is one of the busiest roads in the state, has the highest accident rate in Missoula, and is a prime site for Lamar Outdoor Advertising to erect one of the estimated $150,000 lighted billboards it plans to put in Montana.How safe are electronic billboards? The billboard industry's own poll found drivers were 6 times more likely to be distracted by SiliconView, an electronic billboard, than a standard one. A 2001 Federal Highway Administration report found that, “Motion is a highly likely candidate for an attention grabber Š the motion component of an EBB or tri-vision (electronic) sign may be more of a distraction than message content or pictorial arrangement.” Eyes drawn off the road are eyes not on the road in the high volume, 45-mph traffic of Reserve Street.
Montana's Department of Transportation wants to allow electronic billboards in Montana because they could occasionally display Amber Alerts. However, Amber Alerts are already broadcast automatically on every radio and TV station in Montana, reaching a greater audience than one or two billboards ever could.
Help keep electronic billboards out of Montana unless scientific studies can verify they don't compromise traffic safety.
Sara Busey, Missoula
Missoula assaultsCity officials can make downtown safer
Our new mayor's first priority ought to be to dramatically increase police patrols downtown at night in order to protect Missoula's residents from the recently increasing number of violent attacks.The county attorney needs to find some way to charge the offenders with something more than a simple misdemeanor. Missoulians deserve to have a community that is a safe place to live, no matter the time of day or night.
Pat Thane, Missoula
Brennan's WaveConstruction has helped clean up river
Erin Kelly (Missoulian letters, Feb. 23) states she has always considered herself to be genuinely aware of our environment. Her letter then goes on to show how unaware and uninformed she is. I don't claim to be a know-it-all on this subject. I have been informed by various news sources in our city as the Brennan's Wave project developed over the years as well as people who have discussed, debated, written their qualified opinions, and seen the work being done in the river.Kelly's letter states she witnessed “the destruction of the Clark Fork River for Missoula residents' recreational pleasure.” My understanding is there was support from the Clark Fork Coalition, the Missoula Whitewater Association and many in the community who would not be using the structure for recreation. This support was based on the fact that the existing pollution, consisting of concrete, rebar and metal, should be replaced, that some structure had to be there for the ditch company, and if it could also provide a whitewater park it would be approved in this one instance.
Kelly then states there has been “permanent ecological damage done to the river” and there will be “inevitable mass pollution and littering.” This project did not go to a part of the river that had not been touched and destroy it as she would try to lead us to believe. On the contrary, this project cleaned out semi-truck loads of existing pollution and built a safe whitewater park that can be used for swift-water rescue training and recreation alike. My guess is people who will use this will see it as a part of the overall downtown parks system and take pride in trying to keeping it clean.
Shaun McChesney, Missoula
Missoula governmentCity in need of professional leadership
Surely you must be getting your ink for free these days to waste it on that “Focus is essential for government study” editorial of Feb. 23.You go on and on about the fact that there is serious disagreement between the rest of the Local Government Study Commission and member Jane Lewis Rectenwald without ever managing to discuss the issue that divides them, namely: Were some recent actions by city government so poorly executed that they illustrate how Missoula needs a more professional city leadership than we get when the mayor alone simply appoints basically every leadership position in city government? In other words, should we make do with a primarily political government, or might we do better with a more professional one?
Decisions about the rebuilding of the aquatics facilities are one example Rectenwald gives to illustrate the dysfunction of the city (not the “dysfunction” of the study commission). Instead of a big community discussion to determine whether to replace the old pools with an aquatics-amusement park type facility or just old fashioned swimming pools, an outside consultant and a small group of citizens made the recommendation. Worse, the consultant's projections of a five-fold increase in fee-paying users was relied on to sustain the project after it was built, yet if this does not occur, facilities may have to be shut down or funded directly by taxpayers - and other cities with aquatics projects have seen less than a two-times increase. Worst of all, the aquatics bond funding all this was passed proclaiming in its ballot language - which every voter read and relied upon to pass it - that it included building a 50-meter pool. The bonds were sold stipulating that they were to be used for aquatics facilities including a 50-meter pool. The voters voted for it, the bond holders are financing it, but the city isn't building it.
William H. Clarke, Missoula
City Web site also lacked budget
Thank you for encouraging the mayor's efforts to provide the quarterly reports to the City Council and residents (Missoulian editorial, Feb. 27). I know Mayor John Engen wants to provide the right leadership for our city, and I support his good intentions. I just hope he has the right tools to do that.A point of clarification in the editorial is that in addition to the budget not being available in hard copy six months into the fiscal year, it was also not on the city's Web site at least in early December. I don't know when it finally got it on the Web site - maybe sometime after the January meeting when the council passed an amended budget. What were available were the minutes of the August meeting where the City Council passed the budget resolution with an attached resolution and expense schedule, but you had to scroll through the resolutions to find that. The prior year's budget (fiscal year 2005) was available on the Web site, but if you didn't know that the fiscal year ended at the end of June 2005, you might think it was the current one.
The preliminary 2006 budget passed in June was on the Web site. Without an income statement we still don't know where the revenues are coming from in any of the budget versions.
Jane Lewis Rectenwald, Missoula
Endangered Species ActWe don't want expanded lynx habitat
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is once again telling the public that its proposed 27,000-square-mile, state-and-private-lands critical habitat plan under the Endangered Species Act for the Canada lynx will have no impact.While everyone who has heard this claim before knows that it is just a downplaying of future impacts through litigation, the agency itself seems confused about its own conclusions.
The agency openly admits that these designations provide no benefit to species and that the process just lands it in court fighting battles instead of on the ground protecting animals. The agency makes it clear that the only reason it is making the designation is because a panel of judges in California is forcing it. And yet, during the current public comment period, the agency is asking for information that would let it not shrink but expand the lynx critical habitat areas.
If the current proposal consumes valuable resources and does not benefit the lynx, why in the world would it look to expand it?
We need to let the agency and our elected representatives know we are tired of these games.
Dan DeCoite, Missoula
Off-road vehiclesRecreation trails should be open to all
I'm tired of reading about all those folks coming down on the motorists abusing the great outdoors. The areas that we are allowed to ride get smaller all the time because of a small number of folks who want to close down more trails for their type of use only.I've ridden trails around Blue Mountain, and I have never once seen a hiker back there, much less a cow. Never have I seen or chased any deer, elk or moose on my motorcycle, nor have I seen any one else doing that. Most of the terrain is rocky, anyway, so you have to stay on the trails or old logging roads. And what about the people who are elderly or handicapped in some way and the only way for them to enjoy the mountains is on an ATV or snow machine? Why can't we all enjoy the same trails without anyone pitching a fit about it? Do you think that you have more right to the trails just because you're not riding on a motorized machine?
More areas should be opened for riding around here, Deep Creek being one of them. You know, if you want to live in a place were everything is regulated, the beautiful state of California might be a good place to move.
Garrett Venters, Florence
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)