Letters to the Editor, 12-25

Thanks to QWEST’s hard workers

The Public Service Commission has accepted an agreement which will result in reducing rates for all QWEST customers and expanded internet service in 27 rural communities around Montana. Part of the reason for the rate decrease was a complaint filed by 30 customers alleging QWEST has been making unreasonable profits.

I’m writing to express my sincere appreciation to two volunteers who worked on the QWEST customer complaint. The first is Denise Peterson of Polson. Denise handled all of the complex legal work, spending countless hours on this case. The other person is Ron Woods. Unfortunately Ron passed away a few months ago. He did not get to see the final result of his work providing the economic analysis which was used in the complaint.

These people were critical to this effort which resulted in significant savings to rate payers across Montana.  They did it on a volunteer basis because they believed it was the right thing to do.  All QWEST customers are better off thanks to their hard work.

Ken Toole, Public Service Commissioner

MME thanks supporters

On behalf of the board of directors, people served and staff at Mission Mountain Enterprises Inc., I would like to thanks the Seventh Day Adventist Church of Ronan for essentially adopting our Mission View Group Home for the Christmas season.

Members of the congregation raked the yard of the home, trimmed the shrubs, decorated the exterior of the home and provided decorations for the interior of the home. Children from the Glacier Valley Christian School and other members of the congregation provided a Christmas program for our corporate Christmas party on Dec. 12.

The group also had a Christmas party for the residents of the Mission View Group Home on Dec. 6.

We really appreciate this tremendous outreach by the Seventh Day Adventist church to our corporation and the people we serve. In particular, I would like to thanks, Pastor Kevin Miller, Russ Jenkins, and of course, all the members of the congregation.

We would like to invite other churches and community organizations to share the same kind of Christmas spirit with our corporation by adopting a home or some part of our program during the holiday season or any time of the year.

Brodie D. Moll, CEO MME

County burning restrictions troublesome

The Lake County Fire Association consists of the 15 fire departments in Lake County, the Lake County Office of Emergency Management, and fire management personnel from the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, the United States Forest Service and the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribe. At our last general meeting held on Dec. 1 there was a motion made to write this letter stating our collective concern and frustration regarding the lack of available open burning days that were allowed this past fall from Oct. 1 through Nov. 30. The motion passed unanimously!

As a result of open burning being closed most of this fall - including all but five open days in November - by the State of Montana Department of Environmental Quality – Air Resources Management Bureau, all of our Lake County wildland management agencies failed to accomplish their needed burning. Within the private sector, various land management interests including loggers, road builders, development contractors and individual land owners were also frustrated with the lack of open burning opportunities to get their needed burning done. The result on private lands was a combination of “doing the burning anyway,” venting frustration to local fire departments or unaccomplished needed burning on both public and private lands.

The Lake County Fire Association has been and continues to be a strong advocate of reducing wildfire risk in the Wildland Urban Interface and in supporting homeowner fuel reduction around structures. The primary economical and readily available method used for landowners and homeowners to reduce fuel loading is to initiate prescribed fire and to burn slash during the fall and spring months - outside of the normal summer fire season. There is a need to educate our public landowners on the how to, where to, and when to do open burning; both to minimize the amount of smoke emissions and to do it safely, but severely reducing the window of open burning eliminates many of the burning options and creates other or additional problems.

There are a lot of complexities to the open burning and smoke management issues and we realize that collectively we all need to work on solutions.  The specific conditions each year and each season suggests that there needs to be flexibility for more localized decision making and problem solving. When the open burning season is highly restricted, maybe it needs to be lengthened into December and/or February. Blanket restrictions over all of western Montana for the majority of the fall open burning season; as was the case this last Fall, is not acceptable to the members of the Lake County Fire Association.

Rick Trembath, president, Lake County Fire Association

Shopping in Polson and Ronan

I would like to thank several businesses in Polson and Ronan for all the lovely gifts I found for Christmas. First of all did you know that the Red Poppy in Ronan has a lot of beautifull gifts all made from local artists, necklaces, dream pillows, dolls, etc? The Cripple Creek in Ronan also has plenty of herbs, jewlery, crystals, etc. In Polson, the Sandpiper Gallery what can I say? Gorgeous paintings jewlery, all made in Montana. The Polson Flower Shop also has the cards you always were looking for but could not find, among jewlery, dream pillows and flowers for your loved ones. You name it, Polson and Ronan have so many creative people that show their talents in numerous ways. Thank you to the local businesses that saved me from going out of town to do my Christmas shopping.

Margaret J. Lawler-Skare, Polson