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Columbia Falls not right place for the new jail

Imagine for a moment that Whitefish was the location of the proposed site for a new county jail. There would be a tremendous uproar about the potential for decreased property value, the lost revenue from the tax-exempt land and buildings, and the negative reputation that a new jail would bring to that attractive, vibrant, successful community. Whitefish would not stand for it.

Well, Columbia Falls, we are absolutely thriving right now and are progressing rapidly to be just as attractive and vibrant as Whitefish with our own unique brand of success. We certainly do not need the proposed new county jail dragging down our rising town. What we need is an UPROAR!

Having the advantage of coming from a law-enforcement family, I can enthusiastically say that I appreciate the quality of our local officers, deputies, and detention center personnel, so I believe Sheriff Curry when he says that the jail is a good neighbor from the standpoint of SAFETY. However, I wholeheartedly disagree that a new jail would be a good neighbor from a financial and aesthetic standpoint. A jail in our area would seriously damage the charming character and appeal of Columbia Falls and set us back years in our hard-fought development.

Therefore, I call upon members of the Columbia Falls business community and Chamber of Commerce to protect your investments in our recently revitalized town. I call upon residents of Columbia Falls and the surrounding areas to safeguard the appeal of your properties. I call upon the Columbia Falls mayor and members of City Council to stand up for the progress of our city and tell the commissioners to upgrade the jail where it currently stands or to think outside of the box for a location. There are many other more innovative options, especially when working with the roughly $40 million to $50 million that the county anticipates they may need for a new facility. Make a short phone call or type a quick email to the county commissioners. Send a brief letter to the editor of a local paper. Post your opinion on Facebook. But do it TODAY. You may not realize that the county has already entered into a buy/sell agreement with Weyerhauser for the Columbia Falls land where they appear to favor locating this new detention center. Time is very short to stop the deal. A five-minute investment now could prevent years of negative impact in the future.

Does the Flathead Valley need more jail space? Most emphatically, yes. Is the Columbia Falls community the best option for that jail space? Absolutely, positively, no. If the county is having trouble developing and pursuing some of the decidedly superior and innovative alternatives to our town, I would challenge you to ask for a working group of volunteers from our practical, creative, forward-thinking Columbia Falls population. We have become really good at that sort of thing, and I am confident that many of us would be more than happy to help you out. —Jenny Jarvis, Columbia Falls

Time to cut off our foreign aid

Every year our government gives billions of dollars to Egypt and Israel, and an accumulation of billions more to other nations. At the same time our government has considered cutting the budgets of our National Park Service, veterans hospitals and Medicare/Medicaid.

Isn’t it time we tell those countries we can no longer afford it, as we have vital commitments to rebuild the devastation that Harvey caused in Texas and Louisiana, our infrastructure and medical care for our citizens.

What we need is a balanced budget and to start paying off our national debt of trillions of dollars. —Poul Houlberg, Kalispell

Children can’t be responsible for crossing border illegally

A time-honored principle of justice in English and Americans common law is children are not responsible for the crimes of their parents.

If parents bring their kids along when they rob a liquor store, are the kids to be charged with armed robbery? I don’t think so.

Then if parents bring their kids along when they cross a border illegally, why are their children charged with illegal immigration?

If defenders of DACA would have made this justice principle the foundation of their defense and remained focused on it through all the years of arguing immigration, then the argument would be over and won by defenders of children of illegal immigrants.

Don’t ask me why DACA defenders haven’t argued this unassailable argument. Don’t ask me why a lot of things American these days. —Dave Host, Kalispell

Making full use of the new Sustainability Center

Construction of the new Sustainability Center in Whitefish has gone way over its initial estimate (conflated costs from $80,000 to around $2.3 million). This is significant because it serves as a benchmark for the social and economic health of Flathead Valley in the future.

With this in mind, it is not too late to procure this investment by expanding the scope of its outreach so that it may take a more central role in our community than originally intended. In maximizing its potential, we not only justify the expenditure of going over budget but we learn a valuable lesson of interdependancy.

The question we should be asking is, how is it that the Sustainability Center can cross-pollinate different industries? Such as the sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling and transportation sectors. The underlying principal for localized sustainability is it’s win-win for community, not single minded capitalism driven by profit. How well are we actually managing our resources in the Flathead Valley? How can we continue to compete as a progressive “green” city? These are all important sociological issues that the Sustainability Center can take on in order to enhance our quality of life through community development.

The Flathead Valley should be among the leaders of the country in becoming stewards to the ecological environment because of our involvement with it. Motivation is key to transitioning into a sustainably secure future. If we wait for our youth to take this on, we may be finding ourselves in hot water (both financially and environmentally). The Sustainability Center is our opportunity for sharing accountability with the upcoming generations. And with that, we develop grit, resiliency and a more robust and integrated community. Sustainability should equal affordability because it is community based in self-reliance not globally resource dependent. Self-reliancy is empowerment. Remember the slogan “think global, act local” from the early 2000s? After going so over budget to build this Sustainability Center, it seems as though we are sloughing off our responsibility to the upcoming generations. Sorry in advance if any Trump supporters are offended. —Jon Hanzen, Martin City