Three years ago, kind of on a whim, I put my name in the contest to become a Trustee of the Bitterroot Community College. I’m at an age where I am holding the short end of the stick as to longevity. I thought it would be nice if College Trustee could be inscribed on my tombstone. My great grandchildren might take a look one day and say, "He might have been a fairly bright guy."

I did get elected and it turned out to be a lot of ennobling work. I know serendipity had a great deal to do with the election results. How else could you explain the purposeful dedication of the six people who were elected trustees? The trustees-elect worked closely with the group that started the college effort, which was led by Victoria Clark.

There was no funding for this project and the trustees elect all contributed to keep the effort going. There were trips to Helena to appear before the interim education committee of the legislature. They were sort of the hoopholders. They would put up a hoop and the trustees-elect had to jump through it. They had lots of hoops. The trustees-elect jumped through them all.

Was there any opposition? Of course there was. The Board of Regents, the Commissioner of Higher Education, the University of Montana were all mountains which the trustees-elect were not able to scale.

The Board of Regents held a public hearing at the University of Montana. About two hundred people attended and one hundred and ninety-five spoke in support of and the need for a community college. The Board of Regents denied their support of the effort, and recommended the State of Montana not grant the establishment of a community college in the Bitterroot Valley.

The legislative interim education committee voted to send the community college presentation to the full senate education committee. The establishment of a community college was denied by the full committee by a five to four vote.

The Commissioner of Higher Education’s office and the University almost immediately sought out the defeated group to enlist the group’s support in doing something about higher education in the Bitterroot Valley. A Steering Committee was formed with several people from the initial group and persons from the University and the Commissioner of Higher Education’s office. I was selected as one of the members of the new committee.

I attended meetings. I was very quiet. I merely watched to see how things might go. I didn’t think they were going very well.

The committee decided we should have an interim director who would be in charge of the Higher Learning group that the University had already established in the valley. Two people applied to be the interim director. The University hired Victoria Clark.

The committee’s effort was to get a higher education program started for the 2010 spring term to begin in January. Against difficult odds Victoria and the committee pushed the program from seven or eight classes to fifteen class offerings. They hoped to increase enrollment from the thirty-five the Higher Learning group had attained to at least seventy registered students.

It was nip and tuck through December and the early part of January. For a week or two the college enrollment fluctuated between fifty-five and sixty. Word of educational opportunity in the valley spread and the dam burst. It seemed like in a matter of days the registrations grew from fifty-five to one hundred and fifty. All of the classes offered filled, and several of the classes overflowed.

I neglected to inform you I was elected chairman of the steering committee. I work closely with the Interim Director, Victoria Clark. The hard work and long hours of the Interim Director have opened the educational floodgates in the Bitterroot Valley. Victoria informed me she is interviewing an average of five persons a day who desire to enroll for the fall term. Our benchmark for fall enrollment was four hundred registered students. Like the seventy we were striving for in the 2010 spring enrollment, we believe our four hundred number will be exceeded for the fall semester of 2010.

The Steering Committee conducts a public meeting once a month to which everyone is invited. It is announced in the Ravalli Republic and is usually held on the next to last Tuesday in the month. The County Commissioners have been kind enough to allow us to meet in their conference room. If you are interested in higher education in the Bitterroot Valley do not hesitate to attend. There is always an opportunity for your voice to be heard at the meetings.

If you watch the TV or read the papers you are aware we are going through some dreary times right now. The economy is down. People are out of work. Everyone is tightening their belts. The swing back to good times appears to be a far piece down the road.

I wrote this column to point out that somewhere out in the darkness, someone is striking a match to ignite the lamps that will turn the darkness into light. The success of the effort to start a college in the Bitterroot is a bright light in this valley’s future.

If you are interested in education and want to be onboard this educational train, get on your computer and look up Bitterroot College Program of the University of Montana. That’s our web page, and you will find almost unbelievable educational opportunity right at your fingertips. Success breeds success; we’d love to have you join this educational effort.

Our old cowboy, Will Rogers, said, "If you want to be successful, it’s just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing." The establishment of a Bitterroot college qualifies on all three fronts.

Letters to the Editor

Animal cruelty charges inappropriate

Dear Editor,

On March 2, 2010, there was an article in the Missoulian about a

Victor, MT man being charged for "cruelty to animals" for shooting two dogs he thought were chasing deer through his yard. Did they consider the ramifications of charging a person with cruelty to animals for shooting an animal? The anti-hunting, anti-gun, PETA type groups will have a field day with this if he is found guilty.

If a clean kill is made, there is no cruelty involved with

shooting an animal. Many people use a bullet to humanely euthanize

animals. Are they going to be charged with cruelty to animals? Are all hunters who wound animals now going to be charged with cruelty to animals? Shouldn't the mountain lion hunter, who shot the female mountain lion, possibly causing her yearling kitten to slowly starve, also be charged with cruelty to animals?

Obviously, the person who shot the dogs should have been charged with destruction of private property, not cruelty to animals. Some thought should have gone into this, prior to charges being filed.

Hopefully, the NRA will have something to say about this, for the sake of gun owners and hunters.

Judy Hoy
Stevensville

Did you understand what you signed?

Dear Editor,

A few questions to the people whose signature appeared on the “2nd Amendment Declaration” that was printed as an ad in the Ravalli Republic on March 3:

Do you realize that your names are now published in a pledge to “abolish the government” if one more gun tax or gun law is enacted?

Have you considered what “abolishing the government” would actually look like?

Have all of you really visualized and accepted – as many of your mentors and leaders apparently have – a civil war fought for the love of guns (which your “declaration” clearly implies) with all the peripheral anti-family and anti-life damage that usually comes along with that sort of thing?

The disclaimer at the bottom of the ad states that “Celebrating Conservatism” had permission to reproduce your signatures. Is that true?

Some of your signatures are illegible and may forever remain a mystery, but many are very readable and include prominent citizens and quite a few whose signatures appear two or three times. A few of you are people I’ve been rattling around in the Bitterroot with for over two decades. So now that you’re published in such an inflammatory document – apparently with your permission – are you comfortable being associated from now on with an organized movement whose tenet is that God wants our country to suffer through your implied blood-in-the-streets action for the sake of your guns?

Or do some of you, at least, feel buffaloed by this ad?

Hope so.

Bill LaCroix, Coordinator
Bitterroot Human Rights Alliance

Commissioner responds to attack

Dear Editor,

Alan Thompson’s recent letter in the Ravalli Republic (3/4/10) seemed to be a thinly veiled attack on myself and the other non-Republican members of the commission rather than an honest attempt to improve county government.

However, he did bring up something I welcome the opportunity to talk about. I believe that elected officials must be accountable to the public. Citizens should easily be able to find out where we are and what we are doing whenever it pertains to county business. Soon after I was elected, I voiced a desire to have an online calendar containing that information for all commissioners. Having Alan, a partisan commissioner, privately asking our staff to track some of his fellow commissioners’ movements feels inappropriate. The easy solution, and one that is fair to everyone, is to have each commissioner’s schedule easily accessible to the public.

As for the insinuation that I somehow wasted county money by flying to a meeting in Billings rather than car pooling with him and Commissioner Chilcott, Mr. Thompson evidently doesn’t remember all the facts. They were staying for another day of meetings at the county commissioner convention. There was no reason for me to be there the extra day and spend still more taxpayer money for no added benefit. Additionally, three commissioners constitute a quorum and I felt it would be inappropriate for three of us to drive together. As a flight cost little more than driving myself, I chose to fly. Flying was faster than driving, so I was able to spend more time here on county business.

The meeting Mr. Thompson questioned “about the Big Hole River,” was actually 2 weeks after the MACO conference and it was not about the river. It was a meeting to help elected officials understand how to balance the constitutional right to a safe and healthy environment with private property rights.

Since I’ve been in office, I’ve invested a portion of my salary to pay conference fees and travel to meetings that provide me with information that helps me be a better commissioner. I believe that there is a place for government and that the better informed I am, the better I can help county government to be.

I have nothing to hide. Due to the space limitations of the op-ed page, for “the rest of the story” on Mr. Thompson’s other allegations, please visit my website: www.kathleendriscoll.com and click on Letters.

I’m disappointed that Alan, a commissioner I served with, did not take the time to call me and make sure he had his facts straight before he wrote a public letter. As always, I am happy to hear questions or comments from anyone. You can contact me at: kdriscoll@ravallicounty.mt.gov or 375-6510.

Kathleen Driscoll
Hamilton

Scary sight

Dear Editor,

Every morning I wake up, get my breakfast, and open the Ravalli Republic to catch up on the day’s news. This morning I nearly choked on my toast when I saw the front page picture. Four beautiful little girls brandishing guns and holding signs regarding gun rights. I then read the article. I am sickened and sad.

There are so many things wrong with the rally and the Celebrating Conservatism group it’s hard to know where to start.

I am not anti-gun. The meat I ate growing up was wild game and I was taught respect for firearms at a young age. I am a good shot and in fact was on the college rifle team. I am also a mother, grandmother and great grandmother many times over and feel I can speak with some authority on raising children. Giving a child a gun (albeit a play gun), letting them point it at passing cars and giving them permission to yell and scream that it’s their right to have it and use it is a scary prospect. Children have a hard time controlling their emotions and we know schoolyard fights happen. Will one of these young girls bring a gun to school the next time she is teased? Does Hamilton want to be the next Columbine?

Celebrate your conservatism if you must but keep your children off the streets, teach them respect for guns and gun safety, and teach them some real values – the value of life, cooperation, and peace.

Doris Adam
Hamilton

Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness

Dear Editor,

As I sit here this morning, I cannot help but feel the icy hand of progress.

Having recently been given a refresher course on democracy, or as it works in the real world, majority rule, that stirs up a sense of dread.

Why, a person might ask, should I, living here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, feel a sense of dread?

Having recently been outvoted on an issue concerning our property and my rights on it by my neighbors, made me a bit wary of the future. Majority rules, after all…

Having just been told of an effort to clean up the neighborhood by folks who stand on their soap boxes and shout far and wide, “my rights, my rights, my rights!” I can only meekly ask, yes, I hear you, but what about our rights? How does that play into your picture of our future?

Well, ya don’t need to be a genius to see or understand the answer to the question.

We send folks overseas to fight for strangers’ liberties “we” feel they deserve but sit idly by and watch our own and neighbors’ liberties be extinguished and don’t even mutter an “excuse me” in defense.

Now I’m all for living in a reasonable society, and walking a mile in the other man’s moccasins before judging him. But what I just can’t seem to figure out is when is this country going to wake up and smell the alfalfa. The very folks who are so concerned about progress and their rights are the very ones who are crappin’ on my rights and liberties.

How can we have forest wilderness protection when we let the wilderness just burn for months?

How do we protect innocent Joe and his property when we have the eminent domain laws to protect the masses? Majority rules!

How do we abide by rules to treat sewage and septics, when now it is public knowledge that the crap we collect in a can is openly sprayed into some farmer’s field “on top of the ground” once it leaves our place?

How do we protect our beautiful mountain views when maybe my neighbor collects cars, or tractors, or horses, or even flowers when “I” think it offensive?

In a true majority rule society, we just all band together and run ‘em out, or sue ‘em and force ‘em into financial despair. Or zone ‘em into our way of thinking, or, ah, hell, just shoot ‘em like they did back in the 1800’s.

Ya want to be a civilized society, folks, you’re going to have to start acting like one. Or, with a little luck, you’ll be the one to get outvoted by your neighbors next.

And then the next time you see some homeless family, without a job, or maybe even a prayer, you can sit comfortably back and think, “Oh, that will never happen to me, I’m different…”

You bet you are.

Jess Staat
Stevensville

Sad state of affairs

Dear Editor,

The Tea Party folks are at it again. Angry. Lining the streets, railing against socialism, taxes, and deficits.

It makes me wonder. How many of them are rejecting their big government benefits like Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment or Veterans’ services? These are all socialistic programs run by our federal government. Do they propose cutting or ending them, thereby ridding us of socialism and reducing our deficit?

As for taxes, mine were cut last year, thanks to the economic stimulus. I got an extra $400 from a payroll tax cut and another $400 from my “Making Work Pay” credit on my tax return. My wife’s parents each got an extra $250 from Social Security. But it’s true we’re all lower-middle income earners. I don’t know how much the tea partygoers make, but 95% of Americans got a tax cut. Guess you missed out if you made a quarter million or more.

But don’t fret, conservatives! I can report I’m paying bookoo more for health insurance, thanks to the tea shouters, the gouging health insurers, and the “Just Say No” Republican corporatists.

What about those deficits? When Obama got the Senate to vote on a bipartisan deficit reduction commission to make the hard decisions, guess what? Seven fiscally conservative Republican senators who had co-sponsored the commission voted “No”! It failed to get the 60 vote supermajority it needed to pass. Funny how everything needs 60 votes to pass, not a simple majority of 51. Buy why be fair when obstruction might pay short term political gains? And you wonder why nothing’s getting done in Congress?!

Times ARE hard, people ARE hurting. But anger, fear mongering and deception will only get you so far. At some point conservatives will have to lead, govern, be constructive, not obstructive, and simply put our nation first.

Van P. Keele
Hamilton

Perfectly legal pollution

Dear Editor,

It’s legal! Fear not, good people of the Bitterroot, it’s all perfectly legal. Hundreds of developments, thousands of septic systems, are pushing sediment in the river to an unsafe and harmful level. Now dumping tons of raw sewage on fields overlooking the river can pass muster as being legal within state guidelines. Well, without a growth policy to protect clean air and water, with no zoning in effect to limit the cumulative impact of such “legal” decisions, what’s next?

Economic gurus and greedy loan sharks have left millions in desperate straits under a system of short-term profit, long-term collapse, but legal. Moral? Ethical? Sustainable? Well, you know, it’s my property after all. If it’s legal, so what?

Dumping the raw sewage was declared legal, but public reactions called for further deliberation. Perhaps those sticky notions of cumulative impact and sustainability will temper the urge to do whatever’s legal. Maybe this period of grace, this slowdown in the surge of development, will give breathing space to good people and public officials.

Innocent men and women have been convicted and executed by legal means. Our air, water, the Bitterroot River, jewel of the valley, could die from a thousand legal cuts. Let’s take the long view. Let’s consider the cumulative impacts of these legal moves, and move toward a sustainable future for the good people of the Bitterroot.

John Carbin
Stevensville

Wolves and elk

Dear Editor,

Activists who oppose common-sense management of wolf populations are misusing statistics from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to support their own agenda. We will not let it go unchallenged.

Defenders of Wildlife, Western Wildlife Conservancy, Endangered Species Coalition and others would have you believe that restored wolf populations are somehow translating to growing elk herds. That is, of course, far from accurate. Our population data, which come from state wildlife agencies, show that elk populations are expanding the most in areas of the northern Rockies where wolves are not present. However, where elk share habitat with wolves, such as the Yellowstone area, some elk populations are declining fast. In fact, since the mid-1990s introduction of gray wolves, the northern Yellowstone elk herd has dropped from about 17,000 to 7,100 animals—a 58 percent decline. Other localities in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming also are documenting precipitous downward trends.

Additionally, some research shows that the elk remaining in areas of concentrated wolf populations are suffering nutrition loss, lower body weights and decreasing birth rates.

An unemotional, rounded view of the research is why we strongly support state-regulated wolf management via hunting and other viable methods. Last year we got involved in the ongoing litigation over wolves, filing legal briefs used in federal court to delist wolves and allow hunting to help control local wolf populations.

Groups who oppose wolf management ignore these facts, by design.

David Allen, President and CEO
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation

Thanks to animal health providers

Dear Editor,

In December something strange happened to our family cat, Malyka. She was 15 years old, extremely healthy and never went to a vet except for her scheduled shots. Whatever had happened, she was in a lot of pain and crying.

It was close to midnight and we had to call a vet. We ended up calling Noah’s Ark in Victor, which we knew nothing about.

Dr. Shura Bugreeff met us at her office and proceeded to do what she could at the time. Dr. Shura took Malyka home with her every night.

After several days, Malyka came home with conditions: doing therapy at home and back to the office twice a week for therapy. Going there every other day you really got to know the whole staff. They all treated Malyka and us like family. Their rooms don’t have tables, they have couches so you and your pet can feel like your home. Dr. Shura and her staff went far and beyond to help Malyka.

After a month of vigorous tests and treatment, Malyka lost her leg from a flesh-eating bacteria, but no one gave up. Dr. Shura tried many different treatments not wanting to give up on her, where most vets would have suggested putting her to sleep because of her age. Dr. Shura saw Malyka’s will to live. Dr. Shura and her staff told us that Malyka would be “their car” until she was well enough to go home. When we went to visit she got excited, so they felt it was time for her to come home.

Malyka put up a hard fight with a lot of help and support from Noah’s Ark and determination of a veterinarian that feels every animal, whether a dog or cat, has the right to live. We lost Malyka February 6, but our family knows Malyka had the love and care and all the help that could be given.

Thanks to Dr. Shura Bugreeff and your whole staff for doing what you do best and being so caring and compassionate.

Dennis, Denny and Patti Tipps Family
Stevensville

Hollow promises

Dear Editor,

We’ve been hearing a lot of talk about job creation lately from the President and Congress. I think that rhetoric rings pretty hollow considering the numerous job killing provisions of the new proposed federal budget.

The 2011 budget proposal includes a significant tax increase aimed at energy producers. The total estimated effect of this change will be a whopping $31.5 billion. This, in addition to the capital intensive nature of the energy production business, will not only raise the costs for consumers but will significantly harm job availability within the energy development and production community.

Contrary to popular belief, the oil and gas industry is not one dominated by large corporations with greedy CEOs, rather it is one governed by small, independently owned operations that are feeling the stress of the poor economic climate. Because these small oil and natural gas operations are stretched financially, many of them will be forced to layoff employees and downsize in order to maintain operations. Because such a large part of our Montana economy is driven by the energy industry, the budget’s proposed tax hike would hit our state especially hard.

What’s worse, as a result of higher taxes and the increased cost of production, not only will the now 10% of Americans who are unemployed feel the detrimental effects of a huge increase in energy prices, but all individuals and small business owners will be forced to face the financial repercussions. That adds up to fewer jobs.

So, while President Obama continues to make claims that he is going to help small businesses and promote job growth, his actions speak much louder than his words.

Jenelle White
Missoula

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