Letters to the Editor

Celebrate AmeriCorps

In April, Montana was rated #1 in a national index of civic life. Though we're not perfect, there's good in how we vote, help our neighbors, volunteer, and work out our differences.

AmeriCorps members serving in Montana also help foster this civic life. May 13-20 marked the inaugural National AmeriCorps Week. Here in Montana, more than 9000 AmeriCorps members of all ages and backgrounds help meet local needs, strengthen communities, restore the environment, and increase civic engagement with programs including the Conservation Corps, Campus Corps, Tech Corps, Prevention Resources Center, Montana Legal Services, and Retired Senior Volunteer Program.

The Corporation for National Service recently described Montana Conservation Corps as "a model program amongst conservation corps across the country." Here in Helena, MCC AmeriCorps members eradicate weeds, restore streams, enhance wildlife habitat, maintain trails, help community organizations, install weatherization measures in seniors' homes, and mentor teens in the summer MontanaYES program.

Celebrate AmeriCorps in Montana. The next time you see an AmeriCorps member in his or her heather grey or green MCC T-shirt, hard-hat, and grubby Carharts, stop to say thank you. They're serving here to help keep Montana #1 on the index of civic life.

Jono McKinney, Executive Director

Montana Conservation Corps

206 N. Grand Ave.

Bozeman

Censorship

It seems that there is an epidemic of censorship going around the area school districts these days. I thought that the challenging of Fools Crow was bad enough, but the idea that anyone would ask for the cancellation of a high school play (especially Grease), is appalling. What concerns me, though, is not the request of censorship but the school's immediate capitulation to one person's discontent. Jefferson High's promise to review plays before their showing is nothing less than prior restraint, and a clear violation of the 1st Amendment. Censorship in our schools only teaches students not to ask questions and to obediently accept an imposed moral standard, exactly the opposite of what education should be.

Sean Dennison

507 N. Rodney

Government is the problem

Session over. Top of the fold headline in the IR. Thank you, thank you, thank you, now please go home. Anymore "compromises" will only hasten our trip to the poor house.

Now if the IR was correct in the figures it reported our state will see a 22 percent increase in state spending over the next two years. As just a poor old country boy, my simple math makes that out to be 11 percent per year increase. Considering I only received a 3.2 percent increase in my income last year, means that I'm still 7.8 percent in the hole to the state so they can maintain "their" surplus. Oh, that's right, I forgot! The governor threw the working dogs a one time $400 bone to keep them satisfied.

The second greatest president of the 20th Century, Ronald Wilson Reagan, had it right; "Government is not the answer. Government is the problem." Perhaps Representative Rick Jore has a better grasp of this problem than anyone on that hill.

Dan Stewart

2107 Missoula Ave., Apt 5

Thanks for support

The Growing Community Project would like to thank the Real Food Store and all the members of the community who shopped at the Real Food Store on Earth Day for helping us fundraise $500 for our first community garden. The Real Food Store generously donated a portion of their profits from that day to our project. We are truly appreciative of their support of the Helena community.

The money that was generated from this effort will be used to build new community garden beds at Exploration Work's garden site, on the corner of Last Chance Gulch and Lyndale Avenue. This is an exciting new partnership between Exploration Works, AERO (Alternative Energy Resource Organization) and WEEL (Working for Equality and Economic Liberation).

Thanks to allies such as Exploration Works, the Real Food Store, and community members all over Helena, we can help make Helena a more beautiful and vibrant community.

Rachel Conn

WEEL Growing Community Coordinator and VISTA volunteer

32 S. Ewing

Sharpshooters where?

I have read the many ideas of culling the deer in Helena and the latest one the city commision is leaning towards is sharpshooters. I have not read in any of the news stories as to just where this sharpshooting will be done. I among many others I assume will not let anyone trespass on my property to cull the deer with a firearm. I may not own land outside of the city limits or have a ranch where I can say who can shoot there or not, or charge a trespass fee to hunt, but one thing I do know, you can't shoot in my back yard! This may be something for the city commisioners to discuss before passing such an idea.

Greg Paull

2036 Jerome