Gregoire’s budget lacks compassion

It is quite likely that Snohomish County’s only publicly funded alcohol and drug detox facility will be closing soon. The only publicly funded facility of that kind in King County is definitely going to close soon. I just read that schools will be closing and there will be layoffs. Programs that help incapacitated, unemployable people with housing will be cut. People will be dying on the street. Crime rates will rise.

I urge everyone who reads this who has a social conscience to call our legislative hotline and make our voices heard.

Sorry, Governor, but I don’t buy it when you say that your recent proposed cuts to social services and education were “compassionate” and that you “feel our pain,” so to speak, and that you “had to do it.”

Did you “have to” spend billions on a tunnel that was voted down? A project that really only furthers your own political gains? A project that will be obsolete by the time it is completed? A project that benefits a few and puts badly-needed dollars into the pockets of corporate thieves like yourself? Meanwhile people are going to be on the streets.

Did you “have to” spend a quarter million dollars on your coronation, oops, sorry, your inaugural ball? Although this was a privately funded deal, you could have led by example and put that money back into society. Sorry, Governor, but you are known by your actions. Put your money where your mouth is and walk the talk.

Jim Wikel

Everett