The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

To The Eagle:

Our mayor's bleak characterization of the Wahkiakum Welfare State in last week's Eagle seems a bit skewed, particularly when he chooses to kick around those old straw dogs "political axes" and "ideological blinders." The "shrill critics" at the meetings we attended were mostly citing real concerns from past local history or thoughtful studies from respected foundations giving mixed reviews of the 27 year history of NHAs or making polite inquiries about the apparent connections between ShoreBank Enterprise Cascade and the Chicago political machine that has influenced our current national administration.

The NHA modus operandi is to set up a board of directors, comprised of so-called stakeholders, which then appeals to local government for zoning restrictions to make their projects work. These are not "false claims"; it's historical fact.

Getting "government off our backs" is not about clear-cutting or resource depletion. It's about our county public works engineer and commissioners having to risk punitive action and personal defamation by the Army Corps of Engineers to effect an emergency dike repair in Steamboat Slough or our local heroes at the Grays River Habitat Enhancement District fighting to save their neighborhood from a well-connected land trust that only knows how to repair computer models. On a larger scale, the general public is horror-stricken watching our administration and congress plunging our country into a perilous combination of crony-capitalism and irresponsible debt -- so it becomes our civic duty to reject a plan taking federal tax money from the National Park Service budget to give to a politically connected non-bank to loan to politically connected business schemes.

It was also interesting to note that the income my wife and I now receive from the social security Ponzi scheme that we were coerced to pay into for 50 years is now counted as a "transfer payment" and the rest of our hard-earned retirement income counted as "rent," all contributing to the "frightening fact" that we are now in a welfare economy, in this "low tax" area where our property taxes have been elevated to approximately twice what they should be. True confession: We were a bit disappointed when the NHA deal fell through, since we were planning to hit up SBEC for a loan to develop CIA-PIGS (Cathlamet International Airport - Puget Island Grass Strip.)

Howard Brawn

Puget Island