Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 896 - 920 of 2504
For nine years in the 1980s and ‘90s I lived and worked in Albuquerque, N.M. It’s a big sprawling city with a large Air Force base and a large university. Traveling north from Albuquerque will take you into some of the most beautiful country in America: an area that includes Santa Fe, Taos and Los Alamos. In 1994, two years before I moved to Dayton, a guy named Gary Johnson ran for governor of New Mexico as a Republican. I voted for him and he won, though those two facts must surely be unconnected. Right? Johnson had never run for elected off...
Libertarian Gary Johnson's plan for capturing the White House hinges on voters following through on polls suggesting they dislike the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees more than in any election year in history. "You know how crazy this election cycle is?" Johnson told Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday." "I might be the next president." First, Johnson, the former Republican governor of New Mexico, has to be allowed into the nationally televised debates that for now are set to...
Dear Editor, Most of the conversations in this town are told through someone, not to someone. Conflicts need to be resolved and then told to the public. It is a sad day when things don’t get resolved. It makes this town weak and incapable of having a strong sense of community. Conflict should be a learning process not the end of relationships. The seed of bitterness has been planted. Now let’s see if it keeps growing. I am disappointed in our city. We need to resolve issues and agree to disagree and move forward. I am hoping for change. Cin...
Dear Editor, Citizens, corporations/companies, and developers interested in Waitsburg, BEWARE!! New “normal” established whereby “MAJORITY” declared by elected officials as he/she who protests loudest, acts rudest/profane/interruptive, and/or displays most signs. Officials acknowledge Waitsburg laws indicate how development should be handled, with Council and Public input only after examination by city staff and planning commission; and that city’s treatment of Nestle was unusual, not how other developments are addressed probably not ethical,...
Any American political strategist or reporter -- I’ve been one for more than four decades -- loves the map: That’s the electoral map that decides the presidential election every four years. Each of the 50 states is awarded electors based on its members of Congress, essentially by population; Washington, D.C., for example, gets three votes. In almost all states it’s a winner-take-all system; there are 538 votes nationally, it takes 270 to win. For about two thirds of the states, including the biggest, California and Texas, the outcome is a nea...
“I went on a really fun field trip today,” our son informed the family over dinner after a science trip to a local river. “We got to row, but not in actual racing shells.” “Racing shells?” my husband inquired. “Well, they were really just rowboats, but rowing with my friends reminded me of the book ‘The Boys in the Boat’ that we were listening to in the car.” Daniel James Brown’s recent bestseller may not have yet made it onto the radar of most seventh-grade boys; it is certainly not a book my son would have chosen for himself. His introduc...
Dear Editor, The actions of Waitsburg City Council during the last few months have been an embarrassment to our city. We are particularly ashamed of the way certain members of our Council, at the last council meeting, appeared to be orchestrating a witch hunt against our City Administrator, Randy Hinchliffe. They had plenty of criticism for his purchase of a $20,000 piece of equipment, however, not one word of appreciation for the $130,000 grant that he successfully obtained. This must stop. Deanne Johnson Waitsburg...
Dear Editor, A couple of weeks ago my wife and I stopped in Waitsburg to stretch our legs on our long wander from northern Washington to our home in southern Utah. We visited the antique store, saw sidewalk art, and had iced tea and cookies at the hardware store. My wife and I like buildings and you folks have a bunch of interesting houses. We spent more time walking around looking at nicely crafted structures. At some point I walked back to our truck parked on Main Street to get something. Just as I pulled my head back out of the cab I was...
Dear Editor, Questions that you may be interested in finding the answers to: What city council person convinced the council to allow him/her to manage the fairgrounds, then hired his/her son from the profits? Which city council person failed to advise the council of this action, and apparently failed to have a “scope of work” contract in place? What city council person is unable to keep his/her personal beliefs from playing a part in his/her decisions that affect the whole city? What city council person has demonstrated a personal vendetta agai...
Imagine what could happen if Donald Trump hadn’t turned the presidential campaign into an argument over who founded Islamic State or whether there should be ideological entrance tests for foreign visitors and immigrants. Then he and Hillary Clinton could have a rational debate over taxes, a serious topic on which they have clear differences. Trump wants to cut taxes massively, especially for the wealthy, which he claims will stimulate unprecedented growth. Clinton wants to boost taxes on corporations and the rich and use the revenue to c...
It has a chubby little body, a big head and floppy little limbs. It has high, babylike voice, a button nose and a little mouth. It has big bright eyes and rosy cheeks. It giggles and squeals. But unlike a human baby, it is also bright yellow and makes a springing noise when it hops. Of all the “pocket monsters” that people can hunt in Pokémon Go, the popular mobile game that has swept the world, the most universally beloved is Pikachu, the yellow “rodent Pokémon” that is the franchise’s mascot. Pikachu’s popularity is no accident. Wit...
When I was in high school in the outskirts of Vancouver, Wash., our football team sucked. Actually, most of our sports teams did. And I always thought it would be a lot more fun to be at a school that won the state championship. Waitsburg got to experience a state championship five years ago, when coach Jeff Bartlow led the Waitsburg-Prescott Cardinals to victory in the Tacoma Dome in 2011. In the 2B state championship game that year, the Cardinals crushed Morton/White Pass 33-7, to cap an...
RIO DE JANEIRO - During the Opening Ceremonies, they would have waved a green flag that featured a cartoon duck and marched between the small Olympic teams from Oman and Pakistan. They would have had more athletes than either country. In fact, had the University of Oregon seceded from the union or somehow been granted sovereignty and entered these Rio de Janeiro Olympics as an independent nation, it’d likely fare quite well. With 18 current and former Ducks competing in track and field events here, the school can lay claim to more Olympic a...
Overlooked so far is how some folks gained information of Nestle’s interest in Waitsburg’s water. “Rumor has it” was the reference given in a letter to the editor which appeared in the June 30, 2016 edition of The Times. If Nestle’s interest in Waitsburg was discussed during Executive Session at the June 15 Waitsburg City Council Meeting and the “rumor” mentioned in the June 30 letter-to-the-editor came from an attendee within that executive session, that is troublesome, since the purpose of an executive session is to allow confidential...
Dear Editor, A reasonable and mature individual, purporting to have the community at heart, upon hearing that a major corporation is interested in establishing a widget factory in their city would and should be gaga, as in Lady Gaga. Heck, color me William Gaga. I see Waitsburg as the lonely school girl sitting against the wall at the ‘sock hop,’ just a wishing and a hoping someone will ask her to the dance. Hoping someone will think her worthy of at least one dance. In her mind she says, “Won’t someone see me and care?” In my mind I see her l...
My name is Ian Smay, and for the last three months, I have spent my summer break as an intern/freelance writer for The Times. In less than a week, I will move back to Pullman to start my sophomore year at Washington State University. I attended Dayton High School where I graduated with the class of 2015. When I was younger, journalism was not the route I had planned in life. I wanted to work in sports as a trainer. Sometime around my freshman or sophomore year of high school, that changed....
There has never been a worse time to declare your politics publicly, according to a new and nationally representative online poll conducted by the Rad Campaign, Craig Connects and Lincoln Strategies. This year’s survey, the second in a biannual series, found that nearly a third of all Internet-using adults self-report that they’ve been “harassed online for expressing political opinions.” That abuse is highest among Democrats, the highly political and those ages 55 to 64. It’s also nearly double the rate of political harassment that users report...
I was one of those who attended the community meeting last Tuesday, August 2nd. I found it really ugly. It is really sad to see the Waitsburg community torn apart like this. But a few things I noticed – one woman stated she did not want a water bottling plant in the Walla Walla Valley. Until one is planned for the Walla Walla Valley, I am not sure if she personally has anything to protest. Waitsburg is in the Touchet River Valley. I heard one woman say she wants to keep Waitsburg the way it is and does not want it to change. It is too late – Wa...
I don’t live in Waitsburg, but I own a business here, and I definitely have a stake in its economic future. So it’s been puzzling to me to see the reaction of many Waitsburg residents to the news that Nestle Waters is considering purchasing water from the city and building a bottling plant here. This has the potential to provide new revenue for the city, create some good new jobs and increase the tax base. The outrage started as soon as word got out that there might be rumors that Nestle mig...
The Democratic line on Donald Trump is beginning to sound - bear with me on this - a little like arguments made for continued government funding of public broadcasting. One the one hand, we’re told, public money makes up only a small part of the Public Broadcasting Service’s budget. On the other, cutting that allegedly small amount would do irreparable harm to American civilization. You understand what’s meant by these arguments, but you want to say, “Well, which is it?” Hillary Clinton’s general-election campaign hasn’t begun in earnest, but...
