March 19, 2024

Letters 07-06-2015

July 2, 2015

Our simple rules: Keep your letter to 300 words or less, send no more than one per month, include your name/address/phone number, and agree to allow us to edit. That’s it. Email info@northernexpress.com and hit send!

Safety on the "Bridge to Nowhere"

Grant Parsons wrote an articulate column in opposition to the proposed Traverse City pier at the mouth of the Boardman River. He cites issues such as limited access, lack of parking, increased congestion, environmental degradation, and pork barrel spending of tax dollars. I would add another to this list: public safety.

There will be no easy access to the pier for emergency vehicles or rescue personnel. From Clinch Park there will be a pedestrian sidewalk along the beach. From Grandview Parkway there will be access via the fishing boat launch on the Boardman and along a narrow sidewalk to be built underneath the parkway bridge on the west side of the river. From Front Street there will be a new pedestrian bridge over the Boardman and a path to the boat launch and the same narrow sidewalk underneath the bridge. Did you follow all that? From the Holiday Inn side of the river? You’ll just have to swim.

The pier will be built directly in front of the Boardman River bridge. Grandview Parkway, M-72, M-37, and US-31 all converge here. There is only a narrow sidewalk for pedestrians and bicycles, and no crosswalks. This is already a congested and high-speed stretch.

Someday someone will be squashed while jaywalking across Grandview Parkway to get to the pier. Someday someone out on the pier will have a medical emergency. Someday someone will drown. Rescue teams will be a half-hour late in arriving on the scene due to heavy traffic and limited access to our "Pier to Nowhere."

I say no to the pier, especially at this insane location. I propose a referendum to allow the residents of TC to vote on this issue. Let the people decide, not the consultants, planners, and elected officials.

Daniel Hendrix, Traverse City

Vote Carefully

A recent poll showed 84% of Michiganders support increasing Michigan’s renewable energy standard to at least 20% from the current 10%. Yet Representative Ray Franz has sponsored legislation to eliminate the standard. This out of touch position is reminiscent of Franz’s opposition to the Pure Michigan campaign and support for increased taxes on retirees.

In a letter dated Jan. 12, 2015, Congressman Dan Benishek stated, "In my view, the single biggest cause of rising prices at the pump is the high cost of crude oil." At that time, gas prices had plummeted to a national average of $2.23/ gallon, down from over $3.75 the previous July. Congressman Benishek went on to say, "Now, [oil] prices have risen to nearly $100 per barrel and continue to increase." In reality, crude opened trading on January 12 at $46.38/ barrel, down from $100 six months earlier.

Benishek isn’t the only northern Michigan politician living in an alternate reality. At a debate in Glen Arbor last fall, the aforementioned Franz reiterated his opinion that global warming is a hoax and said "it’s only a matter of time before we lose a toddler" to wolves if wolf numbers aren’t reduced by hunting.

Since there is no hope of the state hospital being reopened, we can’t house these individuals where they belong. But their positions and statements highlight the importance of voting and make it clear that we must be more careful and pay more attention before voting in 2016.

Fred Cepela, Traverse City

Credit Where Credit Is Due

I think you should do another article about the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund giving proper credit to all involved, not just Tom Washington. Many others were just as involved.

Many of the state’s highest-ranking officials were involved in the debate, including Governor Milliken, Attorney General Frank Kelly, DNR Director Howard Tanner, and Circuit Court and Michigan Supreme Court judges. Representatives from the conservation/ environmental community included MUCC’s newly-hired Tom Washington, Ken Sikkema of the West Michigan Environmental Action Council, Ford Kellum of the newly formed Pigeon River Country Association, Grant Trigger of the Michigan Environmental Council, the Sierra Club and The Nature Conservancy. For the oil and gas industry, the President and CEO of the Michigan Oil and Gas Association, Frank Mortl led the way, accompanied by the likes of Shell Oil, Michigan Oil Company, McClure Oil Company of Alma and various representatives from the business community.

By 1974, the economic and environmental concerns about drilling in the Pigeon remained unresolved. Governor Milliken asked the DNR to prepare an environmental impact statement on the proposed drilling. As a part of this process, Don Inman, a young wildlife ecologist working for Howard Tanner’s assistant, Jack Bails, came up with an idea to mitigate the damage caused by the drilling. Inman’s idea was to deposit the millions in state revenue generated by the sale of oil and gas leases and their accompanying royalties into a special fund earmarked for the acquisition of other recreational lands for the people of the State of Michigan. As Jack Bails described it in Dave Dempsey’s book, RUIN AND RECOVERY, "the idea was to take the assets of oil, and turn them into assets of land."

The idea was brilliant.

Jim Rudolph, Petoskey

I’ve Changed My Mind

The Supreme Court has determined that states cannot keep same-sex couples from marrying and must recognize their unions. This has happened with breathtaking suddenness. It took 246 years for Americans to decide that slavery was wrong and abolish it, but it’s been only a couple of decades since any successful attempt was made to legalize same-sex marriage, and four years since a majority of the American public supported legalization.

Opponents say that the right to same-sex marriage is not written into the Constitution, which is true, but the right for heterosexuals to marry is not in the Constitution either.

In 1967 the Supreme Court decided that Americans of different races had a constitutional right to marry, because denying them a right that was available to Americans of the same race denied them equal protection under the laws. It seems clear that denying same-sex couples a right that is available to heterosexual couples denies them equal protection as well. Although most Americans seem comfortable with the decision, many are not, and I can understand that. Ten years ago I accepted the popular consensus that marriage was a union between a man and a woman, as did most Americans.

But in the last few years my wife’s best friend married her partner and my own niece married her partner, which made me re-think my position. Both couples are happy in their new relationships, which are legitimized by law and which offer them many benefits.

Why should anyone begrudge them that right to the pursuit of happiness promised by our Declaration of Independence, and the right to equal justice provided by our Constitution? So I have changed my mind, and I hope other good people who are now uncomfortable with the court’s ruling will too.

John Lehman, Petoskey

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