Letters
Published 9:30 am Friday, February 22, 2008
CT security
Increased security is worth investment
Community Transit strives every day to provide our valued customers with convenient, dependable and safe services. Our riders have told us repeatedly that security is vital to them and is a factor in whether they ride the bus. Thus, protecting the security of our customers and our employees is a top priority for Community Transit.
Improving security is the motivation for consideration of a partnership with the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office to provide transit police services. I agree with Community Transit’s administration that in a post 9/11 world, when security is increasingly important to our communities, that the Sheriff’s Office would provide better, all-around security for our riders and employees. Uniformed law enforcement officers provide a higher level of protection and deterrence than available with civilian security personnel. In fact, many transit agencies, including King County Metro and Pierce Transit, use law enforcement personnel for transit policing.
Improved security has its costs and the Board of Directors demanded an in-depth cost study. The difference in cost between having Community Transit employing its own civilian security guards or working with law enforcement personnel has been overstated by some individuals who have addressed this subject. After the transition, it is estimated that the average annual cost would be approximately $2,000 more than what we’d spend for a comparable amount of service. I can confidently say this is a worthwhile investment to improve the security of our customers, employees, and other citizens of the community.
GARY NELSON
Chair, Board of Directors
Community Transit
Edmonds budget
Make sure police, fire services are funded
To the citizens of Edmonds: Our city of Edmonds is experiencing a severe budget crisis. The Mayor proposes to cut the vital services of the police and fire departments 7 to 8 percent, while other departments face even larger cuts. Meanwhile, the mayor is enjoying an obscene $20,000-plus pay raise and his department heads are likewise being lucratively enriched. He is strongly supported by Councilmen Earling, Marin, and Plunkett. Are our police and fire departments to cut vital services so the mayor and a few others can accumulate unearned wealth?
Edmonds is a wonderful city that has been blessed with truly outstanding police and fire departments. Each is loaded with real and potential heroes just like their 911 counterparts. I believe we really need and indeed, demand that these noble men and women be fully supported and by a tax increase, if necessary. Police and fire protection must not be compromised.
The City Council should now:
1. Fund the police and fire fully, including the Block Watch Program, dog catchers, and volunteers with no reductions and no increases.
2. Reduce the mayor’s exorbitant salary to a more reasonable and sustainable amount.
3. Reduce the department heads’ pay increases appropriately on a case-by- case approach.
4. Eliminate this year’s cost of living increases while working cooperatively with the unions to minimize the reduction of jobs and real services.
5. Comb the proposed budget to eliminate excesses such the contribution of public funds to “The Alliance,” an organization purporting to be for economic development but instead seems most interested in raising building heights and increasing density.
6. After completing steps 1-5 propose the necessary tax increase to the people to correct the past two years of shoddy management and poor leadership.
RAY MARTIN
Edmonds
City doesn’t need
any more money
I don’t feel that the city of Edmonds needs more money. The more they get the more they think they need or want. The Mayor and the Council needs to live within its means, as we have to do.
I do not like it when the Mayor compares Edmonds to Lynnwood. Or as the previous mayor compared Edmonds to Bremerton. What a joke. I do not see a Navy Yard or military money coming in. Also Lynnwood has all the businesses. I think a better way to compare is look at the revenue sources. Edmonds has homeowners and a few small business that can’t hardly make it. One thing I found working for a large company when we did not have the revenue coming in we cut the work force, and we got more done with less.
I feel Edmonds has too many employees as well as too many vehicles. The mayor and the Council should look at cutting cost by 20 percent. At the pace Edmonds is building condos and apartments, I would say the city should be awash in money in a year or two.
LARRY DIEU
Edmonds
Tim Eyman
Tax cutting measures
make things harder
I know it is early and the outcomes could change. But I wonder why people continue to support Tim Eyman even after he admitted to paying himself with money from Permanant Offense and passing his latest attack on public transporation I-776 which will wreak more problems for the state budget along with voting down referendum 51 whcih would have improved the condition of our roads now when it is needed along with improving public transportation. It is only going to cost more to fix the problems if moves aren’t taken to deal with these issues now.
Tim Eyman is one of the reasons why the state budget is in crisis, along with tax breaks to corporations. We need to plug the loopholes in our tax systems that allow corporations and the rich to avoid paying taxes. We need a fair tax system to alleviate this crisis, and we need to learn that Tim Eyman is just out for his own agenda and does not care about the needs of average working people with his attacks on public transportation.
The time is now.
PATRICK J. SWITZER
Lynnwood
