Thank you for support of Lighthouse
To the editor,
Dear Flathead community: A big THANK YOU from the Lighthouse.
The Lighthouse Christian Home for Disabled Adults held its third annual Swing Dance Fundraiser on March 1 at the Lodge at Whitefish Lake and your support was "mind blowing." Thanks to our businesses and individuals for helping us far exceed our expectations. Your generosity through donations, time and effort was an integral cog in this wheel of success.
All of the evening's events would not have been possible without the special support of the staff at the Lodge at Whitefish Lake. Our co-sponsors, Mountain West Bank, Midway Rental/Midway Rental Celebrate, Source One Mortgage, Glacier Bank of Bigfork and JCCS Accounting, demonstrated the "heart" they have for the community they serve and deserve everybody's patronage. Thank you Jim Trout, Kent Reimer, Kelly Skare, Deanna McAtee, Susan Williams and Bob Heffernan for your leadership and compassion.
We also want to recognize the talents and support of B.J. Lupton's Swinging On High Big Band and the FHS Swing Dance Club directed by Mrs. Vicki Hyde for donating their time to the evening's entertainment. Our heartfelt "thanks" also go to the many auction donors as well as those who purchased raffle tickets for the $2,000 worth of gas donated by local individuals and businesses. Congratulations to Kip Willis and Sarah Etzler of Kalispell for each winning $1,000 worth of gas. Could it have come at a better time? What a blessing and thank you.
The residents, parents, staff and board members are grateful for the event's "closing the gap" between what we need and what we have for this coming year. We humbly seek the Lord's direction in this coming year, desiring to be good stewards of your gifts. May the Lord favor each and every one of you.
Jim Beranek, event chairman
Lighthouse Christian Home for Disabled Adults
Hungry Horse doesn't need new development
To the editor,
It is such a shame that anyone with enough money can buy land and ruin a town as is being done with the recent approval of the Hungry Horse Villages. What makes it even worse is the developers are out of staters (Irving, Texas, according to the paper) who obviously couldn't care less about the problems it will cause for this community. The last thing the area needs is more development especially so close to the Park and wilderness areas.
Shame on the County Commissioners and Planning Board as well. How many people on either of those boards actually live in or care about our town?
Tony Tidwell
Hungry Horse
Rising fuel costs have impact on education
To the editor,
With the price of fuel creeping higher and higher, there are some serious ramifications that keep showing up in my mind. Among the many areas of our lives that are affected by this is the viability of our school system.
As a school bus driver for the Bigfork School District, I started to make some rough calculations, and the result alarmed me. If the cost of fuel climbs from the budgeted $3/gallon to a predicted $5/gallon, it would increase the cost to provide transportation for the children of the Bigfork Schools by 67 percent. This represents just one area of the school budget.
I guess the questions that occur to me are: At what price point does providing bus transportation for our school kids become unaffordable? How will that affect our present school system? What if fuel is rationed? What if the buses are eliminated? Will some kids have to drop out? Will families begin home-schooling? Will neighborhoods band together to provide schooling on a smaller scale (the old one-room school model)?
Obviously, this is only one aspect of the fuel problem for us to ponder.
The local Essential Stuff Project (ESP) is hosting an evening event at Clementine's in Bigfork on May 28 at 7 p.m. The purpose of the gathering is to stimulate local involvement, and to share perceptions of the changes that the rising cost of fuel, energy and food will bring to our lives.
For more information about the gathering, contact Edd Blackler [blackler@acrossmontana.net], 837-5196; Catherine Haug [cmhaug4@earthlink.net], 837-4577; or Edmund Fitzgerald [edmund@montanasky.net], 837-5548.
Edd Blackler
Bigfork
Do you know Patrick Whalen's whereabouts?
To the editor,
Our son, Patrick T. Whalen, has been missing since November of 2000. He was last seen in Glacier Park. It is old news of course by now, and I hope some of you remember the story in 2001. We have never heard a word about him since and we are now planning a memorial service here in Ohio (his home). He would be 40 years old now.
If you know something about Patrick's whereabouts, please call me at (216) 965-8510 (cell) or (330), 998-6208 (home).
Cynthia Whalen
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Nolan wished the best
To the editor,
I, too, would like to express my appreciation to Gerry Nolan for volunteering on the West Glacier School Board and helping them to get pointed back in the right direction in the short time that he has served on the board. From my previous years on the West Glacier School Board, I know all too well the amount of time, knowledge and dedication that the trustee positions take.
I feel that the St. Ignatius School Board made a great decision when they unanimously picked Gerry Nolan as their school's new superintendent on April 16. I know that he will do an excellent job for them at St. Ignatius as he continues his career in education. Our community's loss is St. Ignatius' gain and we wish Gerry the best!
Casey Heupel
West Glacier
Parker endorsed for Attorney General
To the editor,
Driving home from the annual Child Abuse, Neglect and Family Violence Conference in Missoula, my thoughts turned to John Parker's campaign for Montana's next Attorney General. John is a tenacious Cascade County prosecutor that will absolutely not tolerate perpetrators committing crimes against society. He, as the Democrat House leader, sponsored, supported and passed legislation addressing child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, pornography, methamphetamine production and use, and drug treatment courts.
John and his wife, Carrie, served many years on the board of the Great Falls Children's Receiving Home, an emergency foster care shelter for abused, abandoned and neglected children. Sunday afternoons found John and Carrie playing board games, reading stories or simply listening to the memories of the children's life experiences.
John Kennedy, Jr. was often told, "You could be a great man." His reply was, "I'd rather be a good man." John Parker is a good man.
Please vote John Parker for Montana's Attorney General on June 3.
Linda Mettam
Great Falls
Affordability hurting access to higher education
In The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, award winning author and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman observes, "When I compare our high schools to what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I am concerned for our work force of tomorrow. In math and science, our fourth graders are among the top students in the world. By eighth grade, they're in the middle of the pack. By 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring near the bottom of all industrialized nations… The percentage of a population with a college degree is important, but so are sheer numbers. In 2001, India graduated almost a million more students from college than the United States did. China graduates twice as many students with bachelor's degrees as the U.S., and they have six times as many graduates majoring in engineering. In the international competition to have the biggest and best supply of knowledge workers, America is falling behind."
This quote is an all too true example of the problems facing America's education system. As their education progresses, too many future leaders of our country are falling through the cracks and are faced with little or no college education and a struggle to find their place in America's workforce.
Sadly, I'm afraid part of problem is Congress' inability to take the necessary action to help. Whether you agree with the legislation or not, Congress passed No Child Left Behind to help Montana's K-12 students improve their education. My colleagues and I are also constantly attempting to create new opportunities for recent graduates. However, we've yet to find a way to reign in high tuition costs and get our kids through college. Instead, we're left with a gaping hole in our nation's education system.
No doubt the biggest challenge regarding higher education is affordability. Rising tuition costs are a serious problem for many families who are already struggling with soaring gas prices and the overall increase in the daily cost of living. Families shouldn't have to make a choice between sending their kids to college and putting food on the table.
In Washington D.C., there are a lot of actions Congress can take to address the problem; we just need some bipartisan cooperation. To begin with, we must make student loans more accessible and affordable. These loans help alleviate the financial burden on Montana families by allowing them to pay tuition without emptying their pockets.
The most effective student loan program in place is the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program which represents the largest federal source of financial aid for college, including 85 percent of aid for Montana students. The FFEL program relies on a public-private partnership which provides higher education loans supported by the federal government but funded and controlled by private lenders.
To increase the effectiveness of the FFEL program, I recently helped pass the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act. This bill would allow undergraduates who are a dependent of their parents to borrow up to $31,000 in federal loans from the FFEL program, up from a current limit of $23,000, while taking steps toward ensuring that raising these loan limits won't affect the cost of tuition and fees.
Another critical component of affordability is higher education tax deductions. In 2001, we passed The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act which provided a maximum tax deduction of either $2,000 or $4,000 for post-secondary education expenses to families with adjusted gross incomes below $65,000. This deduction expired this year and I've introduced legislation to extend it.
We must also continue to provide additional funding for Federal Pell Grants. More than 16,564 students in the Montana University system rely on these grants for their education and that's why I fought to increases the maximum award from $4,310 to $4,435.
Most importantly, serious oversight is needed over tuition increases by our colleges and universities at a time when costs have increased over 40 percent since 2000, far outpacing inflation and wage increases. Federal financial aid is irrelevant if we can't control the cost of education as we'll only be making it cheaper for students to go into debt.
We have the proper tools in place to give students a leg up going into college. We just need to take advantage of them. A good education ensures our kids are getting started on the right track for future entry into the career of their choice, and will provide more hard-working, well-educated Montana men and women for America's workforce.
Montana Congressman Denny Rehberg is a member of the House Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee.
GOP candidates exaggerate, misrepresent
Lately some GOP candidates have been making sweeping statements that exaggerate and misrepresent state spending by the 2007 general and special sessions of the state legislature. Facts are stubborn things.
For more than a decade leading up to 2004, GOP governors and unfettered GOP legislative majorities neglected K-12 school funding and mental health services, looked the other way as college tuition skyrocketed, ignored opportunities to leverage federal money to fund health care, allowed our teacher retirement system to become insolvent, and our corrections system to decline with no direction or clear management policies.
The 2005 and 2007 Legislatures had no choice but to make significant investments in Montana's future to undo the neglect of the previous GOP administrations. In 2005 Governor Schweitzer and the Democratically controlled Legislature began the process of overcoming the deficiency of state funding for K-12 education. In 2007 with increased resources at their disposal, the Legislature took on these neglected needs. General fund spending did increase 24.9 percent (not the 28.4 percent some GOP candidates are claiming).
Where will the increases go? They are going to make up for the 12 years of neglect prior to 2004.
There is $180 million for K-12 education, continuing to play catch-up; $168 million for public health, caring for more children, offsetting reductions in federal funds and providing mental health care; $105 million for corrections and the growth in inmate populations; and $60 million for the University system, allowing some relief from ever-escalating tuition increases.
Federal funds as a percentage of the total state budget declined from 45.5 percent to 42.9 percent. If the Feds continue to reduce their commitment to human services and health care, any money the Legislature decides to provide to offset the reduction will come from the general fund. The 2009 Legislature will be confronted with more of these types of decisions.
It is easy to sit on the sidelines and criticize the current party in power. It is quite another challenge to honestly confront the difficult decisions facing us, and learn to work together to find the solutions that will do the most good for the most Montanans. Montana is on the move, and much of the progress is a direct result of the last two legislative sessions and the hard work of local legislators like Mike Jopek, Dan Weinberg and Doug Cordier.
They deserve our thanks.
I will represent you fairly and honestly as your senator from the Whitefish and Columbia Falls region in Senate District 2, with a balanced budget as a priority. I appreciate your support.
Gil Jordan resides in Coram.