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Letters to the Editor: March 10, 2017

Good work, crew

I live on Turner Creek Road outside of Yamhill. The edge of the bridge over Turner Creek, by my driveway, developed a sinkhole five feet across and right down to the creek on a Sunday afternoon.

I became aware at 2 p.m., and when I got there to look, the fire department had closed the road and people were standing around staring. The Yamhill County Road Department officials showed up and developed a plan. They expanded the hole and filled it with locally sourced boulders, gravel and fill. By 7:30 p.m., they were gone, and the road was open.

This is an incredible performance when we think of all the whining we do about government workers being slow, lazy and inefficient. From discovery of a crisis to a perfectly fine solution in five hours ona Sunday is just amazing. My hat is off to these fine men and women who kept the road open for school buses and log trucks the very next day with no interruption of service to anybody and on their day off.

Three cheers for our road team. There are only nine people in the county road crew now, down from 55 a few years ago. They could have put a steel plate across the hole and called it good for now, but they stepped up to the challenge and solved it.

David Lombrozo

Yamhill

 

Important regulations gutted

Brenda Butterfield’s March 3 letter saying her support for Donald Trump was based in part on his promise to repeal regulations.

She wrote he’d only repeal the needless ones, not those protecting us. She must have missed a couple. He repealed a law that prohibited coal mines from dumping waste into our streams. Needless? He repealed the regulation that saved FHA home loan holders $600 a year.

He repealed a law that denied gun ownership to the mentally ill. As a gun owner, I support the Second Amendment, but I prefer people with dangerous mental illnesses not to have firearms. This one isn’t as straight-forward as it seems. If your mental problem is a fear of driving over bridges, then there’s no reason you should be restricted on gun ownership. However, if you hear voices telling you to rid the world of certain people, then no, you shouldn’t have guns.

Repeal was wrong here when what was needed was improvement.

Getting rid of the regulation that required financial advisers to work in the interests of their clients rather than themselves was also a move that hurts consumers and was surely not needless. You have to wonder exactly what motivates the repeal of a law that forbids fleecing consumers.

I agree that there are loads of stupid and counter-productive regulations, but so far, Trump seems more interested in catering to big business than looking out for average Americans.

Fred Fawcett

Lafayette

Comments

Mudstump

Fred Fawcett - It seems that republicans have been saying that we should deal with mental illness instead of enacting tougher gun laws. Now they vote to lift any restriction on those that have been "adjudicated as mentally ill" by a court of law to obtain a firearm. I don't see how you can "deal" with mental illness and gun violence if you allow those people to buy a gun.

kona

mudstump, to continue your line of thought. Three times as many people are killed each year directly from the use of alcohol than those killed by the use of guns. Would you support the idea of not letting anyone with mental illness have the access (or buy) alcohol?

kona

My opinion is that no one "adjudicated as mentally ill" should have access to guns nor alcohol.

Seabiscuit

"I prefer people with dangerous mental illnesses not to have firearms."

Reality,
(NPR) "Those who have been deemed mentally incapable of managing their financial affairs — roughly 75,000 people — would have been affected by the rule."

(Newsweek) "Four Democratic senators and an independent who are up for re-election in 2018 sided with their Republican colleagues on Wednesday by voting to revoke a two-month-old Obama administration gun regulation...mental impairment and can’t manage their own Social Security financial benefits, and thus make them ineligible to buy guns. The thought is that those certain Social Security recipients could pose a danger to themselves or others."

"repealed the regulation that saved FHA home loan holders $600 a year."
A last second bomb shell agency regulation left as Obama's HUD Secretary walked out the door.

"Ginnie Mae estimated the average new borrower would have saved $500 per year..."

The regulation would only have affected NEW FHA loans setting up a new "housing bubble". It would have lowered mort. premiums for the risky mortgages and was an illegal order anyway as the law the order sought to change required a cushion of a certain percentage in the reserve funds that had not been obtained nor reached.

Bloomberg: "The cut would have reduced the annual premium for someone borrowing $200,000 by $500 in the first year."

USA Today: "That cut would have saved home buyers about $29 a month on a $200,000 mortgage. U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said the cut equaled an average of $500 per year."

It would not have affected existing FHA loans and would not have saved me one single penny on my FHA Mortgage.

Mudstump

If a court of law has determined that a person is mentally ill then they should not be able to purchase a firearm. Its just common sense.

kona

Mudstump, I agree. I did notice that you did not address mentally ill people having access to alcohol. Wouldn't that also be "common sense" since three times as many people are killed annually directly from alcohol as with guns (90,000 vs. 30,000). Also, there are similarities with mental problems in both cases.

Mudstump

kona - Driving while intoxicated above a certain limit is already addressed under the law.

kona

Mudstump, that is a common misconception that DUI are the primary cause of death directly from the use of alcohol. Since three times as many people die directly from the use of alcohol each year than from guns would it be appropriate to legally limit the use of alcohol for mentally ill people? I only ask because alcohol is always glossed over because so many people like to use alcohol and easily rationalize its use regardless of the collateral damage it causes.

"Alcohol-Related Deaths:
An estimated 88,0009 people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women) die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the fourth leading preventable cause of death in the United States.
In 2014, alcohol-impaired driving fatalities accounted for 9,967 deaths (31 percent of overall driving fatalities) and only about 11 percent of alcohol deaths." (National Institutes of Health)

Mudstump

Oh my goodness, something strange is happening. I think that I'm agreeing with you. lol

Kona, I don't drink alcohol anymore because of the many negative health related issues alcohol can cause and it's expensive too. Plus, I just don't like feeling buzzed anymore. If folks are going to drink....PLEASE don't drive. Call a cab or take public transportation.

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