Letters to the Editor: November 12, 2021

Legacy lives on

In a time when criticizing others seems to be the norm, it’s nice to reflect on the positive impact one person has had on our community. I was reminded of this when looking at the Vintage N-R photos in Tuesday’s News Register.

One photo shows Erling “Tommy” Thompson watching part of his son’s Life Scout ceremony. As was the case for most Scouting parents, I’m sure Tommy spent time on one committee or another to help make his son’s Boy Scout experience successful.

Just below that photo is one of my classmate, Roy Helser, wishing for a prize bicycle. If you look carefully, you can identify the “BICYCLES” sign in the window of Tommy’s Bike Shop behind him.

If Tommy didn’t donate that bike, he certainly offered it at a huge discount to help support the new swimming pool.

That was 65 years ago, and Tommy’s Bike Shop is still a strong business in McMinnville. My first new bike came from Tommy’s about that time and my latest just a year ago from the same shop, now on Baker Street instead of Third.

When I was growing up, Tommy fixed our lawnmower, sold us model train parts, and kept our bikes running. Tommy didn’t let a life on crutches slow him down, but overcame the handicap to start his own business, and his legacy to our community lives on.

John Dolan

McMinnville

Backing the board

Kudos to the Newberg School Board, which recently decided that politics of any kind — critical race theory, Black Lives Matter and so forth — has no place in the classroom. Last week, the people of Virginia came to the same conclusion and voted in a new governor to achieve it.

In 2013, three Black activist women, two of whom professed in a recently surfaced 2015 interview to have been “Marxist-trained,” started the Black Lives Matter Network.

In 2014, it went global, with more than 40 organizations worldwide now operating under the umbrella of Black Lives Matter. They all have their own social agendas and funding sources, but all agree to defunding police.

Some cities having already begun experimenting with partial defunding, including Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Baltimore and New York. How is that working out?

Last week, Minneapolis voted down defunding, with the strongest support coming from the Black community, which wanted more law enforcement, not less. So just how is the BLM movement making the lives of Black residents better? During virtual teaching this last year, many parents learned just what their children were being taught in school and started going to school board meetings across the country to raise their voices against it.

The National School Boards Association recently requested federal assistance responding to what it termed threats, violence and intimidation directed toward board members, including possible prosecution of offenders as domestic terrorists under the Patriot Act.

Facing backlash, it rescinded the request. But Attorney General Merrick Garland responded by asking the FBI to look into acts of “violence, threats of violence, other criminal conduct” where warranted, and refused to rescind his order.

Learn what your children are being taught in school. Don’t all lives matter?

Donna Lunt

McMinnville

Better communication

It seems at this time that situations are dramatic and drastically changing. We are no longer able to look at the world without having so much to consider.

What we thought yesterday probably does not apply today. It seems to me difficult to take a position on some of these problems, as change is fast and many times it is difficult to be aware of what the problems really are.

We need public agencies to communicate with the population frequently, with updates concerning what they are doing to mitigate the eventual outcome of these issues for the good of all.

Janet De With

Yamhill

Let the people speak

I’m writing as a concerned voter in the city of Carlton. I’ve been here more than seven years, and have voted in every election to support the county and its best interests for our communities.

As we can all see, Commissioner Lindsay Berschauer is not doing her job to provide the help our county needs. She has a pre-agenda that only suits the people who give her the most money.

I briefly volunteered with the recall campaign, and it couldn’t have drawn a better group, consisting of people of all ages and backgrounds coming together. They spent countless days and hours canvassing in the rain, despite facing attempts at intimidation and having their personal addresses posted online.

The signatures collected on e-sheets have been challenged.

Every one of the signatures and printed names that is filled out correctly and represents an active voter should be counted. The county should contact any voter whose signature is questioned and verify its validity.

The citizens want to be heard. They are definitely not heard by Commissioner Berschauer.

Jenny Wilson

Carlton

(Note: The above letter was submitted before Yamhill County Clerk Brian Van Bergen ruled the recall effort had failed.)