Ronan crosswalks would benefit disabled adults
Editor:
I believe that it would benefit a lot of Ronan if there were crosswalks for the many disabled adults in the area, such as myself.
The traffic is almost constant and people very rarely stop and let the pederestrians cross the roads safely. To those that choose to stop and let us cross safely, I thank you. For the rest that choose to keep going past, look at the disability through you own eyes, imagine yourself on that corner waiting to cross the street.
Tina Thatcher
Ronan
Misinformation of media: 'treasonous'
Editor:
The purposeful mis-information of the media is treasonous. I have disconnected my TV Dish until after the elctions.
The lie that there were no weapons of mass destruction flies in the face of a book entitled "Sadam's Secrets" by his former Air Corps General who tells exactly how, when and where they were shipped in Syria.
I have alerted every U.S. Senator via e-mail, but not one confirms having heard it. They have stonewalled the truth for political evils and continue to use the lie to downgrade opponents.
The oil shortage from depending on foreign oil comes directly from the liberals' blocking all American drilling. The job shifts to foreign countries is the direct result of socialistic demands on American businesses, shifting responsibility for education, retirement, health care and safety to employers at the mercy of the unions and congress. Give the liberals due credit.
The cost of the Iraqi war is paraded as our albatross while educating and giving health care and retirement to millions of aliens runs the budget to impossible proportions. The Democrat candidates act like directors of a give away quiz show.
America tried socializing in Plymouth Colony and starved. President Bush's prioritization solves all these problems and is the death knell for liberals.
Ernest Seablom
Ronan
Important for kids to have Big Brothers/Big Sisters
Editor,
I would like to thank all the local businesses, friends and family, and others for their support of my bowling for Big Brothers/Big Sisters.
Each of you made it possible for me to help out. Since I was a Little Sister when I was younger, I know how important it is for kids to have a Big Sister or Brother.
The reason I did this was because my mom always said you can do anything you want if you set your mind to it. She was right.
Catherine Ann Thorp-Duffy
Ronan
Obama lacks conviction
on positions
Editor:
Senator Clinton recently called for a boycott of the opening ceremonies in Bejing. Senator Obama said "he is of two minds about this." In essence, he can't make up his mind where he stands on China's human rights record. Another time an advisor to the Obama campaign, on behalf of Senator Obama, told the Canadian government what he was saying about NAFTA was only "political positioning."
In the debate in Austin, just before the Texas primary, Senator Obama changed his position on meeting our enemies without pre-conditions after he saw the audience response Senator Clinton got to her position on meeting dictators with conditions.
Senator Obama continues to demonstrate a serious lack of conviction to positions he takes on the campaign trail. Words matter, but words without conviction are just empty rhetoric.
Brian Stettler
Tampa, Fla.
Appreciates reporter's 'sense of humor'
Editor,
Just a quick thank you to Jennifer McBride for her article about the importance of local elections. I also appreciate her sense of humor. About Montana potholes: when I lived near Washington, D.C., I thought nothing could rival the D.C. potholes. I was mistaken.
Carol Cummings
Polson
Following fuel spill, time to revive scenic highway movement
Editor,
Thanks to Jennifer McBride and the Leader for your coverage of the latest tanker wreck and fuel spill along Highway 35 next to Flathead Lake.
Thanks also to state transportation director Jim Lynch for at least looking into better ways to control truck traffic along this narrow winding east shore road.
As former operator of a Kalispell concrete business, he is familiar with heavy trucks and may be in a position to talk some sense into truckers.
A couple of decades ago, when more than 900 east shore property owners signed petitions to make the east shore a scenic highway. Spook Stang chaired the legislative committee that killed the bill.
The committee room for the hearing that day was packed with truckers and their lobbyists, so it's no surprise to see Spook now working for the motor carriers to defeat any regulation. He's still trying to whip up fears that all trucks might be banned from the highway, when past proposals have always exempted trucks hauling cherries and making local deliveries.
The latest fuel spill is no surprise. I have lived 28 years on Highway 35 and drive it regularly. For months I've noticed that certain truck drivers have grown more belligerent and cavalier.
I have no complaint with chip truck drivers, who seem still to drive at moderate speeds and respect other motorists. But a few operators of logging trucks, interstate flatbeds and fuel trucks are giving their industry a bad name with their high speeds and reckless antics.
I was following a double fuel truck a few weeks ago (not the one that wrecked last week) when the driver passed another vehicle on the winding uphill Crane Mountain grade where there was insufficient room to pass and the speed limit drops to 45 m.p.h. He was over the double line near the crest of the hill when he completed his pass. Fortunately, the driver he was passing slowed down, and no one was coming the other way.
Where do fuel companies find drivers like this?
I regularly hear the bellow of air horns echoing down my stretch of highway, when some speeding trucker works himself into a dudgeon because some resident has dared to enter the highway from one of the scores of driveways, many with limited visibility.
Even at moderate speeds, drivers of some doubles find it difficult to control their pups, which swing from center line to shoulder, kicking up clouds of gravel and dust at times into the windshields of the cars following.
My son recently encountered a smaller truck coming down the curving Woods Bay hill in the wrong lane. He was nearly forced into what passes as a ditch at that point. He called the firm that owned the truck and gave them an earful. He was told the driver was new.
When signs prohibiting jake brakes went up at Bigfork and Woods Bay a few months ago, certain truckers took it as a challenge to use their jake brakes as loudly and as often as possible, as if to punish the neighbors who had the bad luck to be closest to the signs.
One of the Bigfork signs was nearly in front of property we own, and the churlish antics were obvious. Since then, the sign has disappeared. It looks as though someone threw a chain around the post and jerked it out.
These are just things that I've observed. Don't take my word for any of it. Ask any east shore resident, and you'll get plenty more anecdotes. Most are less charitable to the truckers than I am. The Montana Highway Patrol has recently increased patrols on this highway, which is good, because truckers are not the only speeders. But the troopers never seem to pull over any trucks. Probably the truckers warn each other by radio. Better enforcement tools are needed.
The state highway department has gone through a very public multi-year process aimed at upgrading and improving the 10 miles of Highway 35 south of Bigfork, replacing the Swan River bridge at Bigfork due to earthquake risks, adding a bike and pedestrian path and doing other things to widen shoulders and increase sight distance. I served on the volunteer citizen advisory committee. The study isn't even finalized yet.
But after a couple million dollars in consulting fees, the state engineers quietly announced last summer that there was no money to continue the project because Highway 93 improvements were costing too much.
Bottom line: Highway 35 along Flathead Lake will remain a narrow rural residential road for years to come. It is inadequate for heavy truck traffic. It is unsafe for unprofessional truckers who insist on speeding and being scofflaws.
Highway 93 on the west shore of Flathead Lake is a federal highway, built to higher standards, with wider lanes, passing lanes, fewer driveway entrances and a higher speed limit. Truckers who are compelled to go faster should use Highway 93.
The residents along that highway don't want the mavericks and scofflaws, either, and who can blame them? But Highway 93 is far more suitable for larger, heavier, higher-speed trucks, because it was built for them. How many fuel and hazardous materials spills have there been on Highway 93? The number zero comes to mind.
Though the scenic highway bill got run over back in the 1990s, it did some good. Some trucking outfits cleaned up their acts. Chip trucks slowed down noticeably. After a near-collision one winter between a school bus and a jack-knifing semi just a few hundred feet north of my house, truckers even agreed (for a time) to stop using Highway 35 during school bus hours.
Now, truckers once again need to take responsibility for their industry, get rid of the bad actors, and start paying the good ones decent money so they will respect others and not risk lives trying to beat soaring costs.
There are already many east shore residents who would like to revive the scenic highway movement.
Don Schwennesen
Bigfork