Hometown Newspaper
Dear Editor: Thanks for giving Sitkans a quality and unbiased hometown newspaper! My husband voted early for the upcoming election, but I told him I would wait until I read the candidates’ bios in the Sentinel. It’s not old-fashioned or old-hat to me. I like to see the information all in one place.
You continue to provide relevant world, domestic and local news- and great front page pictures. Our refrigerator is always displaying several of James Poulson’s photos of our friends and family on the front of the Daily Sitka Sentinel! A subscription renewal card came in the mail today and I will happily be renewing!
Jill Kisaka, Sitka
Supporting Gara
Dear Editors: I am among many who are glad to see Les Gara run for governor. He is a seasoned legislator and a Democrat with a balanced agenda. Not only does he plan to enhance the job market and equal opportunity by bolstering fishing, fish marketing and tourism through state promotions, he plans to restore and expand our infrastructure, especially the Alaska Marine Highway. He realizes that critics who condemn the ferry system as unprofitable do not understand that the value of any highway, on land or between landings, is in the commerce – whether merchandise or visitors – the commerce generated by access to transportation. Schools and services for foster youths are social infrastructure.
In Les’s support of programs for youths, we see that he is a capitalist who recognizes the wealth in human capacity. We all know that the oil industry is on the way out. Les supports mining that is done with effective safeguards for the environment. This kind of pragmatism, seasoned during his years as a legislator, stands in contrast to the ideologues we have tolerated for years as our governors.
It is about time that we have a governor with Les’s humane and practical philosophy. Les will give us competent management. That is what we need for every issue from COVID to our economy. My vote is for Les Gara. Be sure to check out lesgara.com.
John Welsh, Sitka
What a Privilege to Vote
Dear Editor: Oh, shucks! I had hoped for a resounding NO vote on selling the whole city-owned Sitka COMMUNITY Hospital property to SEARHC. But I am forever grateful that we had the opportunity to vote on the issue.
And let’s rally and urge the Assembly to continue to work with Sitka citizens on shared concerns. We are surely rather exhausted from the emotional toll of our long COVID-coping and the masking mandate. (“Mandate” is a bad term but it is too late to consider a more appropriate one.)
How might we contribute to Sitka, focusing on the impressive intelligence and knowledge and capacity to care for this incredible town? The flurry of thoughtful letters to the editor in the last few weeks was refreshing and provided new insights about our healthily diverse population.
The comments made verbally in the two Assembly meetings addressing maskings also highlighted a keen, and maybe for some, a new interest in “The Science,” whatever that means. It is an honest effort to understand it and sort it all out and apply it to our lives with all the weirdness – and the beauty our shared species, homo sapiens, manages to generate. Our capacity to try to learn new stuff is awesome to behold.
And new understandings, new perspectives, can be fun, refreshing.
Of course, unlearning what may not be appropriate in this modern world is perhaps a bigger challenge.
I’ll try to “unlearn” my hostility to having to go to the web and feeling so dumb and angry about THAT. A phone number, a hard copy of a ticket, would be so refreshing. But I am really, really vintage, and it is okay to feel left out. I have had a helluva lot of good memories to relish from the past. I just have to ask for help, which is kinda humiliating.
Also, let me share what I have learned from disasters of the past: a lot of creativity is generated. How might we focus some of that supportively to each other? We are moving through the disaster syndrome phase of scapegoating, blame, anger at the darn inconvenience this darn disease has created to a “let’s get on with recovery, personal and institutional.”
Finally, here is my one suggestion today: might the leadership of all those committees and commissions that need new volunteers simply reach out and actually invite people to visit their commission. Looking for new energy? Call a new neighbor. Check those fine letters to the editor, and remember the thoughtful comments at the public hearings. Lots of good, sharp citizens in our town. Call them.
’Tis such a privilege to live here; such a privilege to vote. Thank you, dear citizens.
One Vintage Voice,
Nancy Y. Davis, Sitka
