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Auction buyer kudos
Thanks to the businesses and individuals who supported the 4H/FFA
Auction on July 28. The kids were again spared the harsh reality of
how difficult it would be to make money ranching on a small scale.
Raising, caring, showing and marketing an animal is a lot of work.
The gross sales this year were $111,220, up 17 percent from last year.
The number of buyers this year was 260, up 100 from two years ago.
Special thanks to Mid-Valley Market and Columbia Agriculture for
buying my kids’ animals this year. Thanks to all the participants in
this year’s auction.
I hope you will return next year and bring a friend.
Tony White
Hood River
A vigil for peace
To remember those killed by war in Lebanon, Israel, and indeed in
Seattle in recent weeks, a vigil will take place this Friday
evening, Aug. 11, 5-6:30 pm, at Overlook Park, 2nd and State
Streets, Hood River.
The vigil also commemorates those dead in the past years’ wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as those “excess dead” in Oregon,
Washington, and the rest of the United States from homelessness,
lack of health care, and lack of social services and transit while
funding goes instead for war.
Participants are urged to bring candles, homemade signs, and a
spirit of nonviolence.
For further information, contact the Columbia River Fellowship for
Peace, 541-352-7274.
Paula Friedman
Parkdale
Unionists in Gorge
A recent letter to the editor was opposed to the Warm Springs
Casino; the author stated she didn’t know of any union
construction workers in the area.
Nothing could be further from the truth. A survey of our
membership shows that there are over 350 union building trades
members in all trade classifications that live in the Gorge, from
Cascade Locks to The Dalles, Skamania to White Salmon.
These men and women are your neighbors, pay taxes, and support
local businesses.
They are part of a highly skilled work force who have built the
dams, locks, roads and bridges, and the majority of the commercial
and industrial facilities in the Gorge.
We are proud to be community builders.
John Mohlis,
Executive Secretary-Treasurer,
Columbia Pacific Building
Trades Council
Portland
Report on scoping
Why hasn’t the Hood River News reported the withdrawal of the
“Scoping Report” for the proposed Cascade Locks casino?
It reported the Bridge of the Gods Columbia River Resort Casino
naming by the Warm Springs Tribe. However, this and the withdrawal
by the Department of Interior were reported at the same time on
television and other media.
Readers expect to be fairly informed on issues so important to the
Gorge communities. Instead, this vital information was revealed
through the excellent letter (Aug. 4) written by Peter Cornelison.
The memo from the Bureau of Indian Affairs contained specific
directions. The notice was to be made public through media that
the scoping is withdrawn and has not been reopened, and the
Department is seeking no further comments on the “Scoping Report.”
Revision of the “Scoping Report” requires that the Warm Springs
Tribe refine the Purpose and Need identified in the Scoping Report
and that at least one additional alternative be identified for
analysis. When a new “Scoping Report” is finalized the public will
be notified through the press and copies will be available for
comment.
Betty Foxley
Hood River
Casino illusion
Apparently the Warm Springs Tribes’ PR team is in need of a civics
lesson when it comes to legislation and how a bill becomes a law.
Len Bergstein, PR spin-meister for the Gorge casino proposal,
somehow convinced the Hood River News that when a bill passes
through a committee it becomes a law (see “’Green light’ seen in
new casino bill,” HR News, July 29, 2006). This laughable
interpretation of the bill and the legislative process only
reveals how desperate pro-gambling advocates have become to keep
their ill-fated casino proposal alive. In July, they watched their
Gorge casino scheme experience yet another major setback when the
Department of Interior rejected the environmental report for the
Gorge casino and told the Tribe to go back to the drawing board.
This action was not reported by the Hood River News, but was
carried by the Oregonian, the Associated Press, KGW-TV and other
newspapers in the Columbia Gorge and around the region.
The House Resources Committee did pass a bill, HR 4893, amending
the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. H.R. 4893 does exempt some
casino proposals from the bill’s prohibition of off-reservation
casinos, but the exemption won’t apply to the casino proposal in
the Gorge, nor does the bill approve any casino proposals.
The Gorge casino proposal fails to meet the grandfathering test in
the bill, because the Tribes’ “primary geographical, historical
and temporal nexus” is in Warm Springs, NOT Cascade Locks. If this
bill becomes a law, it is likely that the Gorge casino proposal
will be prohibited as a matter of law.
However, it is unlikely that the bill will even come up for a
floor vote in the House this session, let alone pass the Senate
and get signed into law.
Regardless, the Warm Springs Tribe should finally read the writing
on the wall, build a new casino on their 640,000-acre reservation
along Highway 26 and accept the Grand Ronde Tribe’s offer to help
finance the development. The Gorge is the wrong place for a
mega-casino resort.
Michael Lang, President
Friends of the Gorge
Portland
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