Thanks to legislators for Health Center funding

To the Editor,

The recent news regarding an infusion of $1.29 million in state funds for the new Flathead Community Health Center is a wonderful example of what can happen when dedicated, compassionate legislators get together in a bi-partisan effort to provide much needed services to the community.

Locally, State Rep. Bill Jones, Republican of Bigfork, and State Sen. Dan Weinberg, Democrat of Whitefish, were among the legislators who cooperated to make it happen. We owe them our thanks.

In Flathead County the 2006 Census indicates some 35 percent, or 29,860 local citizens, many of them children, fall below the line of 200 percent of the federal poverty level, meaning they will be eligible for discounted health care at the new clinic. Before the Flathead Community Health Center opened in December, the closest clinics serving the poor were in Libby and Missoula.

With the new funds, our local clinic will have not only a doctor and two nurse practitioners, but will be able to add a medical caseworker along with mental health and substance abuse counselors. Local health care not only makes compassionate sense for those in need, it makes economic sense in preventing more costly emergency care by attending to medical concerns before they reach the crisis level.

Thanks to Rep. Jones and Sen. Weinberg for setting a good bi-partisan example. Imagine what other community benefits we might reap by working together.

Gil Jordan

Coram

On-call dentists appreciated

To the editor,

The administration, physicians and staff of Kalispell Regional Medical Center and North Valley Hospital extend sincere thanks to the following dentists (members of the 1st District On-Call Participating Dentists) who are available when needed to see to the needs of our patients' emergencies:

Dr. Leslie Anthony, Dr. Robert Friess, Dr. Teresa Nelson, Dr. John Atchinson, Dr. Neil Hammer, Dr. Roger Newman, Dr. Dale Bax, Dr. Steve Johnson, Dr. Gabe Perjessy, Dr. Mike Bowman, Dr. David Jones, Dr. Herb Peschel, Dr. Ben Bushnell, Dr. David Keim, Dr. Tom Pittaway, Dr. Dean Calderwood, Dr. Bob Larson, Dr. Ron Potthoff, Dr. Larry Clayton, Dr. Kurt Lindemann, Dr. Laura Raddatz, Dr. Jeff Dalen, Dr. Doug Morehouse, Dr. David Semrau, Dr. Ron Davis, Dr. James Mularczyk, Dr. Connie Small ,Dr. Greg Eller, Dr. Heather Neal and Dr. Rod Spencer.

Velinda Stevens, president, KRMC

Craig Aasved CEO, North Valley Hospital

Does Legislature really know best?

Sometimes it seems to me that most of the laws the Montana Legislature passes are based on one simple, cardinal principle; distrust. Not so much distrust of citizens, but distrust of the supposedly independently elected local boards or governments that the legislature distributes money to. This sets up the unfortunate situation where people become more concerned about messing up and getting in trouble than they do in succeeding at what they're supposed to do.

In the 1972 rewrite of the Montana Constitution the Board of Regents was given virtually total control of their budget and internal affairs of the University System. Of course, the legislature decides how much that budget will be, but once that's done it's pretty much out of legislative hands. This move was prompted by years and years of individual legislators going into the university budget and taking money from one enterprise and putting it into another one that they liked better. It was also possible for a legislator to fire a professor by eliminating the funding for the job.

Has this made things better for higher education in Montana? I'm no expert on the subject, but I think it has. For one thing you don't have legislators with an ax to grind taking it out on the Universities, and you don't have legislators who don't know from silly putty telling college administrators what to do.

School funding is the "on the other hand" example because the legislature is involved in every detail of the process. The legislature also distribute funds to primary and secondary schools with enough strings attached to crochet an afghan.

In an effort to be "fair" school funding has become so incredibly complex that only a very few people understand it with any degree of completeness, and no one understands it completely. Of course, there are rational reasons for some of the complexity, but there are plenty of irrational ones, too

Much of this is designed to make sure that school boards conduct their business within the narrow framework approved by the legislature. But here's a novel thought that most legislators don't understand; school board members aren't dumb. In fact, they know school funding issues better than most legislators; and they know more about the needs of their district than any legislator, even their own. They aren't spendthrifts, either, and shouldn't be treated as if they are.

In short, they know what they are doing where the proverbial rubber meets the proverbial road. So do county commissioners, city council members, and every other paid or unpaid administrative group. This disconnected relationship is the same one legislators grouse about when they talk of "unfunded mandates" from Congress. If we legislators understand what it's like to be on the receiving end wouldn't you suppose we would be sensitive to those other political entities we oversee? Well, apparently not.

One of the issues, of course, is that there is not enough money in the state to fulfill anybody's wish list, including schools, but could what money there is be allocated with general guidelines instead of micro-management? Where I live it seems to me that school administrators have to spend more time figuring out the budgetary complexities visited on them by the legislature than they do on seeing that kids succeed. That doesn't have to be.

Many school administrators are of the opinion that they are better equipped to design a school funding program than legislators of bureaucrats. That may or may not be true, but sometimes I think it's worth a shot. I'm always ready to let the folks in a dispute figure it out among themselves. In fact, it's my basic attitude towards government regulation; "you can figure it out, or the government can figure it out for you; your pick."

I know what my choice would be.

Jim Elliott is a state senator from Trout Creek in his 16th year of legislative service, and is chairman of the Senate Taxation Committee.

Birds of a feather flock together

The Hungry Horse News ran an article about Flathead County Commissioner [outgoing] Gary Hall getting himself elected to chair the Northwest Regional Resource Conservation and Development program. I received a personal letter from U.S. Sen. Max Baucus about multiple-use management for public lands. And, finally, there is Frank Miele's Daily Inter Lake editorial about mapping off-road use of Flathead National Forest.

What do these three people have in common? They all firmly believe that our nation's national forests that are within the borders of Montana, but rightfully belong to all the people of the United States of America, should be under the control of the State of Montana to be used as the personal playground of the local motorized recreational vehicle users.

Their emphasis is not to protect wildlife in their natural habitat but to open that habitat up to recreation for the human species. They have the utmost concern that accessibility to these public lands is an integral part of the lifestyle of this generation of Montanans, and future generations, as a right of heritage.

This attitude generates many questions: (1) Where is the recognition that national forests belong to "the nation?" (2) Where is the recognition that national forests are the final refuge of many species of wildlife that have been eliminated from all the lands on the planet taken over by humans? (3) Where is the recognition that the Lord called for Noah to save the animals while humans were allowed to perish? (4) Where will future generations go to view wildlife if we don't take care to ensure that wildlife survives?

Montana should be merely a caretaker of national forests within our borders. We are supposed to be good stewards of these lands, not destroy them because we want to have "fun" on an oversupply of logging roads in legally designated "roadless areas." Public access is valid if it is non-polluting and non-invasive to wildlife, which hiking foot traffic, skiing, and horseback riding is, since that does not cause harm to wildlife and habitat. The engine noise pollution, leaking gasoline and engine oil pollution, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide emissions, and general destruction and mayhem of machinery to the forest do cause harm.

Bighorn sheep do not breed in the presence of noise pollution like that generated by machinery. Their hearing ability is several times that of humans and what is noise to us is amplified to a severe racket to them. Similarly, hibernating bears can acutely hear from six feet below the snow in hibernating dens when roaring snowmobiles race by overhead. How are they to bear and nurse their young in what is to them incredibly loud noise levels?

There is no sense expecting the Montana residents who are employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture/National Forest Service to come to the assistance of wildlife. Their allegiance is to their human friends and the community they live in, so they will always be supportive of motorized recreational vehicle access. That is how they define "stewardship." Maybe they will be replaced by a new generation in the Forest Service that will foster "change" after this year's political elections? I will work on that.

There is no sense expecting current politicians to ignore their constituencies of voters when seeking re-election. Motorized recreational vehicle users and loggers want access to the national forests, and damn the wildlife and the Endangered Species Act. Since animals can't vote, so be it. Getting re-elected is the priority. Future generations of people who might want to view wildlife do not matter, so it seems. Maybe these politicians will be voted out of office by the "change" movement that is sweeping the nation? I will work on that.

Newspaper editors are in a profit-oriented business to serve their readership and advertisers, not contribute to the welfare of wildlife and the preservation of their habitat. Maybe new competitive daily newspapers will be born or Internet blogs will arise in the Flathead Valley? I will work on that.

Yeah, these birds of a feather flock together. Let's all work on that.

Bill Baum lives in Badrock Canyon.

Recalling 'Charlie Wilson's War'

If you haven't seen the recent hit movie "Charlie Wilson's War," you likely know little to nothing about the colorful 12-term former Congressman from East Texas. However, many people want to know more about both Charlie's antics as well as his extraordinary and controversial efforts to fund Afghanistan in its 1980s war to defend itself against the Soviet Union.

Charlie Wilson, more than any other member of the U. S. Congress, used his membership on the Appropriation and Intelligence Committees to fund, train and equip the Afghan resistance fighters during that destructive and bloody war. During much of the 1970s Wilson convinced his fellow members of the Defense Appropriations and Intelligence Committees to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars, equipment and covert CIA training to the Mujahedeen freedom fighters in Afghanistan. Charlie Wilson was more than satisfied to "kill commies" by shipping FIM 92 Stinger missiles and who knows what other weapons to the rebels. Following years of blood, horror, bravery and America's money, "Charlie's Muj," as the rebels have been called, fought the old Soviet Union to a standstill. The TV series 60 Minutes soon aired a laudatory segment called "Charlie Did It" and that has now been followed with the Academy Award nominated film.

And, lest we forget, many Afghans, Iraqis and Saudis are now firing "Charlie Wilson's weapons" at America and our fighting men and women.

Charlie's personality and his political career represented dichotomies seldom seen even among the characters, past and present, who have walked the halls of the U. S. Congress. Charlie and I served together for 12 years and we left the Congress together in 1997. I came to know him well.

There were actually two Congressmen Charles Wilsons when I first arrived in D.C., and one of them was known as "Good Time Charlie." I soon discovered that "Good Time" was the tall, well-dressed, wise-cracking, Congressman with a smile big as Texas and a beautiful woman on each arm. He was a straight-backed, lean fellow with a genuine swagger — which in comparison makes George W. Bush's Texas swagger look like a bad limp.

Charlie and I probably came to know each other because of the similarities of our Congressional districts. His district in east Texas, like mine in western Montana, was populated with small towns. The boundary lines of our districts were shared by adjoining states. For Texas it is Arkansas and for us it is Idaho. Charlie's district, the 1st District of Texas and mine, the 1st District of Montana had been the homes of an important timber trade and both are places of diverse scenery. The two districts also shared a kind of three legged politics: a healthy blend of conservative, liberal and populist.

I found the most intriguing aspect of Charlie Wilson to be the stark dichotomies of his personality. He was a womanizer extraordinaire but he combined that with a gentlemanly, southern politeness toward all women. He was a defense spending hawk, devoted to "chasing and killing commies." As a member of the Defense Appropriation Committee, Charlie literally forced money down the Pentagon's throat — whether they had requested it or not. No member of Congress was more adept or had fewer qualms about the naked, transparent use of the American flag and patriotism in order to win elections.

He was advancing that generally Far Right policy of unrestrained Pentagon spending and shameless flag-waving while also voting for virtually every liberal domestic policy. Charlie fought hard to protect and expand both Medicare and Social Security. He supported the Equal Rights Amendment. Throughout his political career, which included 12 years in the Texas Legislature, he worked to include more, not fewer, poor people within the Welfare program's safety net. Charlie voted with environmentalists time and again. As a member of the Texas Legislature, Charlie supported John F. Kennedy rather than his own state's more conservative U.S. Sen. Lyndon Johnson.

Following Charlie's retirement in 1997 he again side-stepped conventional wisdom. Rather than stay in Washington, D.C., he went home to Lufkin, Texas. At 74, Charlie hasn't been well and underwent a heart transplant several months ago: Recovering from that surgery is Charlie Wilson's latest war.

Former Montana Congressman Pat Williams is Senior Fellow at the University of Montana's Center for the Rocky Mountain West.