Commissioners should resign
At the July 8 zoning meeting in Stevensville I asked commissioner Kathleen Driscoll the following questions:
The commissioners want to change the date for approving zoning from it’s original ballot designated deadline to May. November is the deadline for the one-house-for-two-acres ballot issue to end. Will that issue die in November if the date is moved to May? By what authority can the commissioners move the date?
Following the meeting, I asked Driscoll where the commissioners got the authority to move the date. She gave me a rambling “historical” account about “the Indians” claiming more land from “the government” than the government was willing to give them, “forcing” the government to use “police power authority” to limit Indians to 5-acre claims, creating the first zoning in Montana. She suggested I look up “police power authority” in Montana law.
Driscoll’s answers are unnerving. She is saying that one-for-two was used as a stalking horse to substitute an overall development scheme for the entire valley, and that this scheme is being enforced using a fictional “police powers authority law.” Read: tyranny.
It has been publicly asserted, with examples given, that the commissioners are violating Constitutional law. They have violated the oath of office they swore to when accepting their voluntary public service positions. They fraudulently represented the one-for-two measure as being the singular zoning issue on which people were voting. They have proven themselves unfit for public office. The only honorable option left is that they resign immediately.
Brian Wareing, Florence
Please read Bible before making statements about it
I’m writing in reference to the article in the June 21 edition of the Religion section of the paper, “Biblical Garden.”
I can appreciate Rev. Hudson-Knapp’s love for gardens and their seeming importance in the scriptures, for I too plant a garden, although not a biblical garden. Mine is for our table. I plant corn and potatoes, and my wife plants lettuce, green beans, squash and the like. My wife also plants flower gardens for their beauty.
I agree that gardens are a good source of spiritual contentment, for it is relaxing and rewarding to watch things grow. But I wish that people would read their Bibles before they make statements about it.
In Rev. Hudson-Knapp’s example of the apple as the forbidden fruit, I looked in several translations of the Bible, the King James in particular, and didn’t find the apple tree mentioned in Genesis 2; it is called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” and as far as Adam giving the fruit to Eve n it was the other way around. In Genesis 3:6 it says that, “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her and he ate it.” I don’t know how apples got the bad connection with the forbidden fruit. I like apples.
So please read your Bible before you make statements about it. These aren’t such critical errors but others can be eternal in nature.
Pastor Grayling Repke, Superior
Resent having to foot the bill for careless parents
Regarding the recent fire on Mount Sentinel:
Will the parents of the children who have been cited for starting the fire be presented with the bill for putting this fire out? I resent like hell that the rest of us have to foot the bill for parents who don’t keep tabs on their children. What were two young children doing on their own, playing with lighters, without a parent in sight?
I am outraged!
Meredith Sheane, Missoula
Activity this barbaric cannot be rationalized
I find it interesting that every letter submitted in support of trappers and their actions begins by criticizing the anti-trapping community for characterizing trappers as cruel and unethical individuals engaged in a horrendous activity.
None of these authors, however, then go on to actually refute those characterizations in a logical manner. The reason? It’s not possible. An activity as barbaric as trapping cannot be rationalized, explained or justified. Instead, these authors toss out facts, figures and statements which cannot, and do not, logically refute the point at hand.
Is torturing and killing a few wolverines acceptable because it doesn’t affect the overall population? Should trapping be viewed as acceptable because some of its practitioners are young and female? Does the fact that trapping was practiced in the 1800s really have any relevance today? Am I missing something here?
We are talking about the inflicting of needless and unimaginable suffering on our wildlife. We are talking about the wanton placement of devices in our wilderness areas that will indiscriminately kill almost anything unfortunate enough to be caught within them.
If the trapping community wants to teach the public how to release pets from their devices, so be it. But make no mistake n this does not justify or excuse their actions. Their motivation is not born of concern for you or your pets. It is an attempt to divert some of the unwanted attention their “sport” is currently receiving from an increasingly well-informed public.
Like the letters they submit, it is yet another attempt to shift the focus away from the true nature of their activities.
Tim Provow, Footloose Montana board member, Missoula
We pay taxes and have right to pursue what we enjoy
How nice of Betsy Robinson (guest column, July 8) to decide for us what is best for us. It is people like her who make it easy for us to sit back and relax and rely on her to consider our best interests.
The only problem is that she seems to be totally self-centered and totally uninterested in the rights of others.
I am a trapper. It is not just a hobby; it is my life. It is a source of income and it is a passion. It is also a tradition that is far older than the state of Montana.
I pay taxes here and am a resident here, just as I assume Robinson is. We both have the same right to pursue what we enjoy on the same land, yet she would take my enjoyment and my income so that she could allow her dog to run free. Might I suggest that I have more rights than a dog?
Robinson is not the only one on the planet and the world does not revolve around her. I don’t question her right to walk her dog. Don’t question my right to trap.
Terry Clifton, White Sulphur Springs
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