If it was not for generous tax concessions by Washington state, all of the 787 workers would be out of a job or working at a Boeing plant in Texas or Georgia and quite likely working for a lower wage and benefits package.
Thank you to everyone involved with the Recycling Collection Day held at the First Presbyterian Church of Bellevue on Saturday, Oct. 11.
Most people probably haven’t given much thought to the fact that there are really three major candidates running for president this year. That’s probably because two of them are running under the same name.
The Bellevue Reporter’s Oct. 1 article, “Hunts Point event raises $900,000 for McCain” [page 3] states that 250 people raised $900,000, which works out to $3,600 per person. This surprised me.
I just wanted to tell you how great the article in the Bellevue Reporter by Walter Backstrom was. I appreciate his insights and firm belief in the one God that everyone seems to be pushing to the side this day and age because of the society we live in.
Thank you so much for Walter Backstrom’s wonderful message in the Bellevue Reporter. As a Christian, I have heard no one explain God better than him.
Thank you for printing Walter Backstrom’s opinion piece entitled, “If believing in God is wrong, I don’t want to be right.”
Had someone besides Christine Gregoire’s campaign been checking Dino Rossi’s record, they’d have found someone who balanced the largest budget deficit in state history. They would see someone who had awards from the developmentally disabled community and from the business community. They would have found records of fiscal responsibility, and improvements in public safety like the “Two Strikes” bill Dino sponsored while in the Senate. And they would have found other evidence showing Rossi is a successful small business man, a devoted father and an upstanding community member.
I disagree with many of the points John Carlson made in his Sept. 18 commentary. The comment I find most perplexing is, “the union, being well organized, made sure that most people [at the school board meeting] opposed the injunction.”
When I read the column by Camille Zhou regarding teachers salaries, I was a little offended by her direct comparison of a beginning teachers salary ($30,377) to a beginning RN salary ($45,570). This is a very unfair comparison.
I was perplexed by the letter published on Sept. 3 titled “Blame Reichert for Education Woes.” The author takes a remarkably generalized, uninformed swipe at the strong education record of Congressman Dave Reichert. These accusations are not based on fact.
In a nation asking fathers to do the right thing and be involved, I am one father who tried futilely to do just that. In an effort to be an integral weekly part of my 12-year-old son’s life, I was forced to relocated not once, but twice long distance. Faced with a third long-distance relocation, I couldn’t reason with a stepfather’s agenda of parent elimination. Washington state completely supported my son’s nomadic relocation, with no concern regarding the important relationship with his father.
I find this entire ordeal sad, very sad. I, like all of the parents in the district, want nothing but the best for our children – starting with a good education.
I am huge proponent of good public schools. I feel that children learn invaluable social and academic skills in good public schools. So, three years ago, we moved our family to Clyde Hill from Federal Way private schools specifically for the education that the Bellevue schools deliver.
The Bellevue teachers strike and the Boeing machinists strike are not only about money. The media is perpetuating this misconception.
The Random House Dictionary defines the word “common” as, “belonging equally to an entire community.” It is further defined as, “general, ordinary; of mediocre or inferior quality.”
As an educator for 10 years, I must voice disgust to the teachers of Bellevue. We, as aspiring teachers in college were all told by our professors, multiple times, “if you decide to become an educator, you will have decided to live broke as well as under appreciated. If that’s not for you, then the engineering, medical and law schools are on the other side of campus.”
I understand that teachers in general are underpaid for the work they do, but the Bellevue School District is offering more then the state’s cost of living increase. The BSD’s administration budget is well with in the realm of normal for this area.
It should be obvious that when workers are given a pay increase for doing the same job, the price of the product they are working on will increase. (Get set for more increases in the price of airplanes and education in Bellevue.)
The Bellevue teachers strike proves that my wife’s and my decision to remove our two sons from Bellevue public schools this year was the right one. We have supported Bellevue schools in the past, but recent front-page report indicates our concerns were warranted.
