Letters to the editor

Re: "Mixed reactions for new library district," by Polson Leader reporter Sasha Goldstein.

The author of this article solicited my comments after the vote was tallied, which I provided in writing July 29. He then chose to ignore those comments when writing his article. Those written comments were:

Re: your solicitation of my comment in view of the Polson City Library's success in getting 'someone else" to pay for Polson city amenities that residents of Polson no longer supported, and even increasing the number of Polson bureaucrats on the people's payroll.

I stand by the comments I made in opposition to the measure on 10 July 2010.

The vote result shows that nothing is new or different here. Getting 'someone else" to do the hard stuff and pick up the tab has become the American mantra, and the arrogance of government knows no bounds. Beyond our grandchildren's debt, the only thing steadily growing in this country, where half of all households no longer even pay federal income taxes much less state property taxes, is the size of government and the number of bureaucrats on the people's payroll.

Many of us out here are still waiting for other bureaucrats (Montana Department of Revenue in Polson) to be decent enough to respond in some adult fashion to our property tax protests submitted over a year ago, if only to tell us the paperwork was tossed in the trash can.

Even The Lake County Leader is part of this self-serving process, dependent as it is on taxpayer money handed out by city, county and state bureaucrats to publish public notices no one ever reads — government's own public address system. I finally canceled my subscription to the Leader years ago when I counted a total of one published article in 14 years that dealt with life as far north as Big Arm.

So the levy vote result definitely does not surprise me. (end of comments provided to Goldstein)

Going into the third year, the official unemployment rate across the United States is still around 10 percent with no relief in sight, but when you add those no longer drawing unemployment checks and no longer looking for jobs to the part-time temporally employed, you end up with an astounding overall U.S. unemployment rate of 16.8 percent. Interestingly, there are four times as many men as women looking for jobs.

The government "public sector" is the only sector in the nation's economy that has not taken a really severe hit over the past three years. This is primarily because bureaucrats live in their very own special world, among the best compensated people in America with the most secure jobs and almost nothing in common with the normal people who pay their salaries. Those on government payrolls across the country have now benefitted from two really huge federal taxpayer bail-out packages over the past two years designed to keep them on the job at other people's expense.

Many of us out here in the Lake County real world have continued to pay taxes on grossly inflated assessments now for the past three years. And yet Polson bureaucrats now want to add another $100 to $200 a year onto those taxes to pay for even more bureaucrats in Polson — who are essentially employees of a free day care center for Polson area residents. The article cited two users of the library who are supportive of the increased taxes; both spend most of the year outside Northwest Montana. If a library in Polson is so important to people who come to Polson for summer vacations, then it seems to me that they can probably easily afford to pay a user fee of $250 or more a summer for that privilege.

How many Lake County homes north of Polson are vacant, not because of foreclosures, but because the owners have left the state to find work so they don't lose their homes? That seems like a reasonable question for a Polson newspaper to answer, rather than the normal support of Polson bureaucrats' self-serving levy campaigns.

P.S. I'd like to give a nod to all those who contacted me with thanks for my original letter back in July. Unfortunately, I am only one guy, and citizens can't accomplish much in the shadows, especially when there's a very well-manned and coordinated unionized bureaucrat campaign at work. Once again, the people have been had, mostly by emotion about "the children."

Robert J. Lavin

Northern Lake County

Disenfranchised

by choice

Elections are approaching fast and we need to become involved in the process. However, eligible voters are staying away from the polls in droves. In the most recent primary election in Lake County, only 31 percent of eligible voters participated. If this privilege of voting were to be taken away from us, the uproar would be deafening. Folks complain about governments, but don't participate enough to influence desirable changes.

Let's look at the average voter turnout records for the past 20 years. Nationally 54 percent of eligible voters went to the polls in presidential election years. During the "off" year elections, the turnout was only 37 percent. Montana's record is somewhat better, but still not stellar, with 71 percent and 63 percent in those elections respectively. The United States is far down on the list of international statistics. Australia leads the world with 95 percent turnout. (Voting is compulsory.) Western European countries average between 80 and 90 percent. Canada has a 76 percent turnout. What sort of example are we setting when our leaders in Washington go around the world promoting some form of representative government and so many of us are not even interested enough to vote? I've heard it said, "My vote doesn't count anyway." If everyone had this attitude, the results of every election would be 0-0. I appeal to eligible voters to make your voices heard, make your votes count and get involved in promoting better government.

Irvine Milheim

Dayton