Turned away in effort to help at avalanche scene

To the editor,

On Monday I went up to Canyon Creek with a friend to help with the avalanche search efforts, because last night (Sunday) we were there and talking to search officials and they said they would appreciate us coming tomorrow to help.

I took the day off work and showed up at 8 a.m. with all of the right gear and signed in after getting permission from the lead coordinator. By 9 we were on the trail up to the avalanche site. After waiting two-and-a-half hours for them to blast the rest of the possible avalanche sites we were approached by Scott Cheff, and he asked us what search team were we with. I told him I was not part of any search team and I was just a volunteer helping out. He told me that I would have to leave. When I arrived back at the staging area at the parking lot and signed out the people there asked me why we were back so early, so I told them that I was instructed to leave the area and was not allowed up there. They informed me that Scott Cheff has no authority to tell me to leave and we have every right to be up there as long as we had all of the right gear, which we did.

I am very disappointed with Scott sending me and other volunteers away. I was impressed with the whole search organization, and personally I would want as many qualified volunteers searching for me as possible. This experience leaves a bitter taste in my mouth knowing that two people could have helped and made a difference, but due to somebody’s power trip we were unable to assist. Thoughts and prayers to the families.

Brandon Whitworth

Columbia Falls

Fire Suppression Interim meeting needed locally

To the editor,

Last fall’s special session of the Montana Legislature created the Fire Suppression Interim Committee to address firefighting operations and costs on our public and private lands. It is asking for ideas from Montanans to address upcoming fire seasons since the 2007 fires cost over a whopping $100 million and burned three quarters of a million acres in our beautiful state.

Sen. Cobb, chairman of the committee, is asking all of us for input for possible solutions “because we need their help and advice.” He has also scheduled meetings across the state as a follow-up. There are no Flathead meetings scheduled on the list of cities so I encourage each of you to send your suggestions and urge the committee to have a local meeting.

You can have your voice heard by: E-mail to lheisel @mt.gov; regular mail to Fire Suppression Committee, c/o Leanne Heisel, Legislative Services Division, P.O. Box 201706, Helena MT 59620-1706; or via the Web: www.leg.mt.gov/interimstudies.htm and click on the Fire Suppression page where you can contact the office directly. The comment period ends Feb. 1.

We don’t think much about wildfires in Montana during the winter though we realize they can happen (as eastern Montana has come to know this month). We can use these long nights to come up with some ideas this committee will implement. Your ideas may well be part of the solution to ensure keeping a clean environment, saving some wildlife and lowering the costs to Montana taxpayers.

Our clean air and water are threatened every time one of these huge fires rolls through Flathead County. I hope you’ll join me in writing to them with some ideas on future solutions to a devastating problem in our state. Montanans are good problem solvers. Let’s work together to solve this one!

Dee Brown

Hungry Horse

Thanks to couple that bought us breakfast

To the editor,

The Bold, Beautiful Babes Red Hat Society members of Columbia Falls would like to thank the couple that was at Nickel Charlie’s on Nov. 24. What a surprise when we asked for our tickets (checks) for breakfast, and we were told that this special couple had picked up the ticket for breakfast for our whole group.

We’re sorry that we didn’t get to say thank you in person! It really made our day!

Also, thanks to the management and our waitress at Nickel Charlie’s for making our breakfast outing so enjoyable.

Bold, Beautiful Babes, Red Hat Society from Columbia Falls

Thank you for your help with Habitat project

To the editor,

To all those who helped me, I thank you for your generous donations, time and help landscaping two Habitat for Humanity homes in Columbia Falls. Thanks to all of you, my Boy Scout Eagle Project went smoothly and turned out great. The two families I did the project for were awestruck when they saw the newly landscaped houses, and all that was possible thanks to you.

Businesses and groups who donated materials, services and/or volunteer work included: Green Valley Sod, LHC Inc, Western Building Centers, Great Northern Bark, Angie's Greenhouse, Columbia Nursery, Lowe's, Jim & Diana Jones, Troop 41 Scouts and parents, Flathead Valley Youth Court and Bruce and Colleen Lutz of Sitescape Associates, landscape architects.

Thank you also to construction supervisor Skip, as well as Mr. Dave Williams and Ms. Patti Gregerson of Flathead Valley Habitat for Humanity.

I can't thank you enough.

Jon Riffey

Troop 1941, Columbia Falls

A greater Whitefish in the best interest

The people of the greater Whitefish area are united in our love for the land and water. From Happy Valley to Big Mountain, around the lake and all along the Whitefish range we share a common bond. We love our hills, lakes and streams. We are truly grateful to the heart of downtown, to aquatic centers, ice rinks, theaters and the skate parks.

We are blessed to golf at the south end of Whitefish Lake and to disk golf at the north. To ride bikes and horses at Spencer, swim at Les Mason, fish at Beaver, enjoy great snow on the hill, and ski and hunt in Haskill and the Stillwater. It’s increases our quality of life and it’s great for our economy.

Folks like myself who live in the greater area, just outside Whitefish proper, are lucky that our school districts and planning districts are similar in shape and size because a stable tax base is good for business, local education and emergency services.

We all want to do right by the area, because it’s our home. It’s where our families live and our kids go to school. Cooperatively, we’ve spent years developing a public trail system which envelopes our town. It is the path that connects city dwellers and rural residents.

It’s time to talk with our neighbors, to find solutions to how we govern. Other areas have been very successful with home rule concepts of townships. It’s where rural neighborhoods elect members to be seated on the city council in a cooperative effort. It’s but one idea, with a spark of individuality brought forward by the Whitefish Council on the first meeting of the year.

It’s nice to see the new Council moving on these ideas. They should be applauded for their efforts, as compromise is truly the art of community. Giving rural folks a greater say on how and when their neighborhoods are developed or when roads are improved is good for property rights and good for community.

Whitefish is fortunate that its citizens enacted home rule authority, back many years ago, giving it the ability to work on these types of ideas. While I am happy to enact better rural representation thought the Legislature, any solution from Helena would no doubt have to also work for areas like Bigfork and small towns of eastern Montana where services are in dire need.

As the simple concept of breathing often refreshes our minds and calms our soul, so is it important for us to focus on those issues that unite us. To remember that our kids go to the same schools, we shop at the same stores and eat out at the same restaurants. Planning for growth in the overall Whitefish area is in our best interest.

Whitefish is blessed to have good citizens and elected officials in the County willing to work with Whitefish. Fighting serves no one. As the folks of Whitefish, both urban and rural continue to talk, we should embrace a climate of compromise.

Let’s forget and learn from the things we’ve done wrong and remember the ones that we’ve gotten right. The solutions are quite simple: Talk to each other, love and respect our neighbors. And to the visionaries who keep our valley united, our bonds strong and our families together; I say thank you. You are the true heroes.

Rep. Mike Jopek is a rural and independently minded Whitefish farmer serving the area in the State Legislature, currently as a Democrat.

Roadmap to health care reform in focus

We’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: Small businesses have said consistently for 20 years that access to affordable health care is their biggest concern and the problem is even greater today.

We’ve seen nearly 100 percent increases in premiums since 2000. On average, small business pays 18 percent more than large business for the same health care benefits. It’s clear that the bottom line for small-business people is the cost of health insurance and the growing expense of health care. And they go hand-in-hand.

Add to that the fact that small business creates approximately 70 percent of all new jobs in this country, and it’s clear to see we have a health care crisis on our hands, and not just for small businesses, their employees and their dependents, but for everyone.

Discussions to date have focused on affordability, coverage or quality. To small-business people, this is not a multiple-choice question. The answer is “D, all of the above.” We simply can’t address the health care crisis unless we address affordability, coverage and quality as part of a total solution.

For that reason, the National Federation of Independent Business has developed a set of 10 principles that must form the foundation for any comprehensive health care reform effort. We have built upon our extensive research and brought in some of the best and brightest health care policy experts from across the political spectrum to gain their perspective on health care reform.

We’ve taken the best ideas to form these principles. As an example:

? Universal Coverage: This does not mean a government-run, single-payer system. It means that everyone should have access to quality care that is affordable and that provides protection against catastrophic costs.

? Affordable: We want to provide access to quality care for all Americans, so we’ve got to address both the cost of health insurance and the increasing cost of health care.

? Private and Competitive: Health care reform needs to take place within a private and, most importantly, a competitive marketplace with real choices for consumers.

? Portable: Americans should be able to go from job to job without the risk of losing their health insurance. Otherwise, you have a form of “job lock” where people are reluctant to go out and start a new business for fear of losing their health insurance. That is fundamentally unhealthy for the American economy. We want people to go out and start new enterprises, to have new ideas and take risks, so that our economy can continue to create jobs.

Our message? When the health care system is fixed for small business, it’s fixed for all Americans.

To read more about health care reform and all 10 principles, please go to www.NFIB.com/healthcare.

Todd Stottlemyer is president and CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business in Washington, D.C.