Letters to the editor

Road on Mt. Helena

It is with a heavy heart that I finished my hike on Mt. Helena this morning. My husband had called me from the mountain on the Fourth of July to tell me there were trucks on the mountain. Today, I saw for myself. The construction has begun on the subdivision that was approved 20 some odd years ago. I can't believe circumstances have not changed enough over the years to justify revisiting the propriety of this development. To build on the mountain side (the south side) of Le Grande Cannon Boulevard, seems like encroachment on Mount Helena City Park. The coverage of this development in the paper has been sketchy, at best, and there has been no call for public comment that I know of. What I do know is that most of what is going on at the site cannot be seen from the Boulevard. You must be up on the mountain to see the road that has been bulldozed around the side of a hill and the huge mound of uprooted trees and piles of dirt that now fill the landscape. One more piece of the mountain has been snatched up and is gone forever n what a shame.

Patricia Lieberg Reichert

1505 Stuart

'Exotic' species?

I was so happy to see a feature story on FWP's efforts to restore Yellowstone cutthroat trout. Perhaps next they will apply this wonderful idea to the removal of some other "introduced" species, and the restoration of bison, grizzly bears, and wolves to eastern Montana. FWP's policy regarding native trout restoration smells faintly of a piscatorial version of ethnic cleansing. All while they continue to happily stock non-native trout, walleye, bass, pike, perch and who knows what other "exotic" species all over the state.

Jeff May

6250 Apache Pine Road

Why kill whole herd?

Again tensions mount over the Brucellosis issue. (Bozeman Daily Chronicle, July 8, 2007)

So again I'm asking the questions: WHY KILL THE ENTIRE HERD? You say you've tested the rest of the herd and it tested NEGATIVE.

Yet you still say the ENTIRE herd must be destroyed. WHY?

Bulls can't transmit, steers don't transmit, the cows came back negative. WHY must you threaten the livelihood of a hard working ranching family?

Why are the powers that be so stuck in the past? By your own words cooked meat and pasteurized milk are NO RISK.

WHY not use that herd as your study group instead of the BISON. Doesn't it make sense to get a "fix" for the cattle industry than to try and "fix" an entire wildlife ecosystem? After you fix the bison are you going to capture all the elk and the deer and the coyotes and the gophers and everything else that carries brucellosis? Or are you just going to go out there and SLAUGHTER all of them too?

If Brucellosis is so DEADLY then WHY are the Bison flourishing and the elk and the coyotes and the gophers etc?

Things just DON'T add up.

Ann Stovall

West Yellowstone

CHS chorale reunion

I hope you can help me with this. My name is Jim Umfleet. I graduated from CHS in 1988. I, along with several others, are in the process of putting together a chorale dept reunion concert to be held sometime next year. Probably around the same time as the class of '88 20-year reunion. Our guest director will be Mrs. Jan VanHook This reunion concert is open to any and all choir members of Capital High School. Right now we are looking for alumni choir members. In August, we will be forming a reunion concert committee and our first meeting will be held the evening of the 12th. Location to be determined later. Anyone interested in attending the concert or being on the committee can contact me via email at chschoralereunion@ yahoo.com. They can also check out my Web page at www.myspace.com/ chschoralereunion.

Any help you can give us will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a bunch,

Jim Umfleet

304 N. Keal Ave

Marion, IN 46952

Treason!

Only a Democrook would contend that the Iraq involvement would be in the existing circumstances were there a totally united front in this nation. Second in command Zawahri's letter to Hamsa Muhajer declaring their nearing victory would never have been a possibility except for the daily acts of treason by unchallenged politicians with the aid of the media.

Sect. 3, Art. III of the Constitution: "adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort," is a treasonous act. The Constitution exacts an oath of many government officials requiring them to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution."

Only a jury of peers can render a determination as to the validity of whether those acts seeking our defeat constitute treason.

What delays the charge, indictment, and trial allowing a jury to fulfill its duty? The memory of Montana men who have sacrificed to obtain victory deserve no less as does the many others.

Fred Randolph

Duck Creek

Townsend

Voting by mail

Congratulations, to the City Fathers for bringing Helena into the big time. I'm referring to using the mail for election voting. I have several relatives in the Portland, Ore. area, who have used the mail for voting for several years. They wouldn't vote any other way. In fact, they use mail voting so successfully they think nothing of it.

It is no different than voting absentee ballot which means no long lines at the polls or guaranteed confusion. Just vote the ballot and drop it in the mail box. Granted, mischief (counting or losing ballots for instance) can still occur, but the odds are so great that will seldom happen.

Thank you City Fathers for pushing us into the Twenty-first Century. This election will prove itself so there is no reason why all future Montana elections can't be safely and economically done by the mail method.

In other states, elections have been proven very costly, unsafe and useless by allowance of all sorts of unmanageable confusion and cheating. Not so in Oregon. Give it an honest and fair trial.

Stan Thurston

2510 Ferndale Lane #13

Saving the day

On Monday, July 9, a fire broke out near the firing range at Fort Harrison. Not one structure was lost, the fire was contained and everyone on the west side of Helena can breathe a sigh of relief. I think all too often we don't tell our firefighters how much we appreciate what they do. Here is one citizen that can't thank them enough.It is important for everyone to understand that when we have a fast moving wild land fire the only reasonable way to fight it is from the air. Fortunately, the State of Montana Department of Natural Resources had air assets that could respond, making short work of what could have been a real major disaster. Our emergency personnel plan, train and maintain equipment countless hours each year. There are endless hours of pure boredom sitting on alert, half-dressed, ready to go to war. We citizens all too often forget about all the guys that sit alert or are on the end of a pager until something like this fire points out their dedication. They deserve our heartfelt thanks for a job well done.

Ted Beck

2734 Shaman Drive

Highway 12 West