Quincy Valley Post-Register

• Home
• News
• Sports
• Obituaries
• Opinion
• Blog
• Photos
• Our Neighbor
• Schools
• Classifieds
• Churches
• Businesses

Letters - 1/12

various
Jan. 12, 2012

City should keep NCRL’s service

You realize how much you appreciate good service when you receive not-so-great service. Our family discovered that over the holidays at stores and restaurants where we received service that was definitely not up to par. Sitting in a restaurant for over an hour without any food. Being charged for items we never received on three different occasions. We tried not to let it bother us as we trudged back to stores for refunds, and listened to grumbling stomachs, but it did try our patience.

I hope we don’t have to discover that same unpleasant service experience with our library. I hope that when research is done with regard to the North Central Regional Library system, clear heads will prevail and see that the services we receive by belonging to the system greatly outweigh the costs. Here’s our system in a nutshell. If Quincy operates a separate library, we only have access to what’s inside those walls, and what books or programs we can afford to purchase each year.

Under the NCRL system we have access to any book within the walls of any of the libraries in the system which includes Okanogan, Chelan, Douglas and Grant counties! Quincy by itself: you want to read a bestseller? Be prepared to wait. We can only afford one copy so only about 12 people can read it per year if each one keeps it for only a month. NCRL system is a cooperative system with bulk purchasing power. Multiple copies are available for book clubs, or popular books. Need more room on our shelves for new books. Just us by ourself? Cull the old to make way for the new. NCRL: cull the old ones, but keep a few copies in the system at a few branches or even in the overflow stacks. NCRL will still have it. Mail order books delivered to your door. Large print books or books on tape for the sight or reading impaired. You want it, you got it. If it’s not in the system, NCRL will consider purchasing what you want. Obscure books will be borrowed from another library system somewhere.

How about our summer reading programs? NCRL brings in great programs, from Book-It Theater & Pacific Science Center to puppet shows, and author visits, enriching the minds & lives of our kids. How many kids can say they’ve helped an author develop characters & write a book? Mine can, thanks to the NCRL. We’ve enjoyed summer programs so much we made encore visits to catch the acts at another branch. Again bulk purchasing power because we belong to the NCRL system. These are but a few of the services we would lose if we cut ourselves loose from the NCRL system and tried to go it alone with our library.

I hope Quincy does not choose that path. You get what you pay for, and a drop in services makes for unhappy patrons.

— Debbie Koehnen and

family

Spend money on officers, not shot detector

Several weeks ago, the Quincy City Council voted to acquire a gun-shot detector direction and range plotter. These devices were mainly developed for detecting snipers and plotting their positions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On the surface, it seemed like a good idea for the Quincy City Council to have apparently leased one of these devices as a way to counter gang activity in drive-by and home shootings. But after some more thought I began to wonder, was this really a good use of city monetary/grant resources or a political knee-jerk reaction to show the public the council was “doing something” to combat a difficult problem.

Think about it for a moment. This device is apparently leased for $130,000 the first year, and $100,000 each year after that for two years. Let’s say a gunshot is heard by the device and a location is plotted out. Is the response time going to be increased enough to catch the shooter(s)? I doubt it.

If I were the police officer on duty in or around the shooting area, I’d surely want back-up before I went to investigate. In that same time frame, the neighbors would have already called in the shooting. If it was a drive-by shooting, the shooter(s) would be long gone by the time the officers arrived.

A much better use of the monetary resources would be hiring at least two to three more police officers for the same money. The Quincy Police Department appears to need the extra officers, as they have been slowly reduced in number during the recession.

It has been proven over and over again in dealing with crime, it takes boots on the ground to solve the problem. The eye in the sky can see them, track them, but little more. The officers still have to go in and root out the cause.

Say two or more officers were hired for the same amount of money and their “only beat” was the area where the problem was the worst. They would, in a month, know the neighborhood, the neighbors and the kids. Who was a problem, who wasn’t. In a very short time, they would know the pulse of the entire beat area. Especially if, weather permitting, they walked their beat, or rode a bicycle to have a more personable presence in the neighborhood.

Police work has declined to mainly a cleanup operation in the last 50 years, rather than a preventative measure. Driving by “showing the door” doesn’t do a whole lot. “Showing the badge” at eye level shows the neighborhood there is someone who cares and someone they can talk to about a problem, as well as respect.

The “them versus us” attitude is slowly removed by both sides and there becomes only one common purpose, to make a better neighborhood.

— Cliff Bates

Police should work with public

My name is Antonio Ramirez. I have been disabled for two years now. I suffered a stroke. When I chose to settle down and have a family, I chose this small community in which I have been living for the past 18 years. A few days ago, the police stopped me for driving my car with one burnt light. After he asked for my insurance and my license, he informed me that my license was suspended. I was never well informed of this suspension. Then I was detained and taken down to the police department as a true criminal. This young officer ignored my please to not be handcuffed, knowing I was disabled. I felt abused by the police officer. If the police are not using common sense, and treating disabled people as hard criminals, oh wow, I think there is a real problem in the police department in this community. Three deaths in a year. What is happening in this small community? I don’t know, but in my point of view based on what I’ve seen and heard in the past 18 years of living in this community, most people — children, teenagers — don’t trust, fear or feel anger towards the police and things should not be this way.

I find that there is no connection between us the people and the police. I feel like it’s “us versus them” and I lived it firsthand. When I came face to face with a couple of police officers and I give a kind smile and they seem to ignore me and not pay attention to me. Worst of all, I’ve seen them do the same to children, and in that I find much worry. The police, instead of being our heroes, are feared and perceived especially by children and adolescents, as the villains of the community, even as adversaries! What is going on? The police are not the enemies of the people. They are part of the people. They are neighbors and friends, parents, in short, human beings like you and me and also they are special because they play a fundamental role in the community as protectors to keep the order, peace and the well-being of the community, and are not against people like adversaries. This role must generate respect and admiration, not fear and distrust. Fear begets violence! I suggest the police should begin to gain the trust of the people, especially in our own children, by being more approachable. It is easy to discover a gang member. Why not come to speak to him and try to gain his trust? Nobody knows why they chose that lifestyle. What is happening in their homes? Why not talk to their parents? All parents know the kind of children they have. I say this because we know our children are the mirror image of our behaviors. Our children are a reflection of what’s going on at home. Much, much more can be achieved through understanding, kindness and dedication to service, than through adversity, violence, repression, suspicion and fear.

—Antonio Ramirez