Sitka Dining
Dear Editor: We arrived in Sitka a couple of weeks ago on our boat planning to stay for the winter. Sept. 11 is our wedding anniversary and at 41 years we wanted to have a nice dinner out. We haven’t made many contacts in town yet but we started asking around for a good place in town to go for a special night-out dinner.
The only consistent recommendation was for Ludvig’s, but she had put out a sign that very morning that she was closed for the season.
The Pub was recommended but didn’t seem to us to fit the bill for a quiet “special” dining experience. We asked about the Westmark and were told by a couple of folks that it was known for “hotel food” and no one we talked to had actually eaten there.
We did end up going to the Westmark with the expectation of “hotel food” and were in for a very pleasant surprise. We both ordered a halibut piccata dish which was not inexpensive but the price was in line with what we were used to paying in the Seattle area for a nice dinner. The meal arrived very attractively presented with a huge (by Seattle area standards) piece of halibut covered with capers, pine nuts, garlic and other spices in a white wine sauce on a bed of nicely cooked and flavored potatoes with roasted Brussels sprouts and caramelized onions. I make no claim to be a food expert of any kind but we both found the flavors to be wonderful.
The wait staff had learned that it was our anniversary dinner and presented us with a crème brulee that was a really delicious finish to a fine meal.
I later had a chance to speak to an employee of the Totem Square/Westmark group who reported that indeed the Westmark had recently employed a new chef who had upgraded the dinner offerings considerably.
I write this because we plan to be here for the winter and we plan to return to the Westmark while we are here and we hope that others in town who are looking for a not inexpensive but delicious dining experience know that the Westmark is no longer serving just “hotel food”.
Norman and Clarice Gregory
MV Salish Aire
Candidate Views
Dear Editor: Arthur Godfrey once quipped, “I’m proud to pay taxes in the U.S., the only thing is I could be just as proud for half the money.”
Americans have a long history of complaining about taxes, sometimes lightheartedly and sometimes with deadly seriousness. It’s actually part of our tradition. I respect that.
But I have to admit that I don’t much respect it when an Assembly candidate strays from the norm and decides to invent stories about taxes for the sole purpose, apparently, of gaining sympathy and support from potential voters. It’s easy to generate a following by saying bad things about taxes. It’s more difficult to do so while remaining honest and thoughtful.
I like Sheila Finkenbinder. We served together as Cape Decision Lighthouse Society board members a few years back, and I appreciated her contributions. But I take exception to what she writes in her Advocacy Statement on the City of Sitka Assembly Candidate Information web page. Here she claims, “No municipality has ever taxed its way to prosperity.”
What hackneyed ideological pap! Of course municipalities can tax their way to prosperity! How else do good schools get built, harbors maintained, utility services provided…how do towns and cities all across this country manage to do all the things they need to in order to provide for the common good and ultimately generate a sense of general prosperity?
They do it, in large part, through the application of appropriate taxation. By appropriate I mean progressive, and by progressive I mean the kind of taxation where folks who can afford to pay more, do, and folks who can’t, don’t. Being business friendly is good too, for sure. But being fair and honest to as many taxpayers as possible is even more important.
I’m looking forward to attending the Sitka Assembly Candidate Forum at the Centennial Hall on Tuesday evening. I hope to hear more about how candidates intend to address some of the challenging issues facing Sitka…along with a minimum of empty posturing.
Joel Hanson, Sitka
