Your Views: Letters to the Editor

State employees are asked to do more with less

It seems our state senators are having too much whine with their meals.

I am a regular state worker. While I'm swallowing my own disappointment for not receiving a pay increase this year, I am even more disappointed in our elitist elected officials who bemoan the temporary loss of their comfy dining accommodations.

Many state workers, including myself, are also used to private lunches, but these are eaten at our desks and cubicles while trying to catch up on our increasing workload.

Our public-employee mantra has been the same for the past several years: DO MORE WITH LESS.

I hope that Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver, can begin to understand that sentiment, stop griping about his lowered working standard and just get over it.

Sharing a meal with his colleagues should be the least of his worries.

Kate Severson, Olympia

Public must stop giving money to panhandlers

I want to commend Michael Burnham and The Olympian for the straightforward information and public insights given in the story, "Downtown safety issues not easily defined."

I am both impressed and hopeful that the issues of safety, vandalism and antisocial behavior in downtown Olympia are being addressed. It is true that the passing of city ordinances and laws that regulate these issues, particularly panhandling, are steps in the right direction.

However, I am of the belief that the true solution lies in our citizens. I must urge the public to stop giving money to panhandlers. This is not a solution but a practice that encourages the behavior.

The Olympian has reported that word has spread nationally that Olympia is the place to go for panhandling. I can see why.

Olympia City Councilwoman Jeanette Hawkins has also made this plea to the public as well.

I understand the transients and panhandlers can be intimidating and giving them your spare change of a couple of dollar bills may make you feel like you are doing some good. Please take comfort in the fact that there are agencies in our city that offer services and caring to those in need.

Please do not magnify this problem by encouraging this behavior to continue.

Christine Hawkins, Olympia

Officials shouldn't put sex offenders in motels

I was shocked to hear that Level 3 sex offenders have been put in hotels and motels without notification to other guests. I no longer feel safe going to a motel for a night. No one knows who could be on the other side of your wall.

I find it extremely inexcusable that we are just learning about this information now. The fact that the Department of Corrections has been quietly placing over 90 high level transient sex offenders in motels and has been paying the bill with a state credit card forfeits my trust as a citizen.

I know that the jails might be overcrowded, but there is no excuse to leave sex offenders to roam around where there are other innocent people who can be harmed.

To add to the thoughtlessness of the whole idea, these sex offenders that are being put in motels are deemed most likely to reoffend.

In another sense, I am also glad that there are other people out there who are taking a stand against this. It is great that Rep. Ida Ballasiotes, R-Mercer Island, is trying her hardest to protect the families and all other innocent citizens against these harmful sex offenders.

Thanks to her and her effort to pass a bill requiring hotels that lodge sex offenders to notify other guests, I will feel much safer the next time I visit a hotel or motel.

Shelley Warlow, Olympia

President, Congress must solve health care crisis

Thousands of Americans dead: President and Congress do nothing.

This could be the headline in any newspaper in the United States on any given day. Why? Because of the growing health care crisis.

Hospital closings, doctors leaving practices, soaring malpractice insurance rates, nursing shortages, escalating prescription drug prices, rising numbers of uninsured and the aging population are just some of the problems facing all Americans that the president and Congress are unwilling to challenge.

Since Sept. 11, our leadership has spent billions upon billions to confront terror and protect us from future attacks. The president's approval rating has soared as he extracted revenge in Afghanistan and around the world.

But the president is putting more Americans at risk of premature death than a terrorist could ever dream of by ignoring the health care crisis.

How do we get the president and Congress to focus on these issues?

Well, they seem to respond to high body counts. If the body of every person who died in the United States each day for lack of necessary care were brought to the White House, and the caskets stacked like cordwood, maybe that would get the needed attention. In just a week or two, the stack would circle the White House 20 feet high.

Or maybe we should just take away their health insurance.

Paul J. Elmore, Olympia

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