Letters and Comments for May 29, 2009

Money loser since day one

To the Editor:

It is interesting to find that the commissioners from Wallowa and Union counties have chosen to destroy the pristine beauty of Wallowa county and Joseph with the storage of 30 miles of unused rail cars. To dump these sorrowfully looking rail cars on Wallowa County is a total injustice. There should have been public meetings held to address the issue before arbitrarily dumping this onto the residents of Wallowa County.

This was done for no other reason than to save their bacon for making a bad decision in the first place to acquire the WURA. This railroad has been a money loser since day one and will never be solvent.

The commissioners of Wallowa County need to be recalled for not bringing this to the public before moving ahead.

Not only are the residents of Wallowa County being dumped upon as a result of this rail car decision, we here in Union County are also having to deal with serious delays at all railroad crossing. On May 22, a holiday weekend, the railroad decided to move a large contingent of rail cars at 11:30 a.m. where all railroad crossings from the viaduct to Island City were blocked with the train moving at a snail’s pace. How inconsiderate by Idaho Northern and our commissioners to let this occur, especially on a holiday weekend.

Mike Hayward commented that no summer excursions would have been possible without this storage program — so eliminate the excursion, they are money losers anyway. Commissioner Davidson commented that locomotive 2085 is in need of an overhaul which would provide a backup locomotive — this is nothing more than throwing good money after bad.

This railroad should have been scrapped when the price of scrap was high last year. As a result this mess would not be occurring.

Dennis Wilkinson

Cove

All who serve are heroes

To the Editor:

Another Memorial Day, a day set aside to remember those who have answered the final Roll Call. No matter how they left us they were, no, they are all heroes.

Sorry to say, there will always be war. We may wish it not so. God’s word tells us sinful man will always hate and wish to harm, yes, even to kill.

My dad and I were in WWII, two sons in Vietnam and now a grandson, a great-grandson and a great-granddaughter are in the service. They may never see a day of battle. We pray for them, battle or not — they and all who serve, they and all who have served — they are all heroes.

Roy and DeLeva Hills

Island City