11-09-2017 Letters and Commentary

Combat training for life

Where do we get the notion that religion is supposed to be all sweetness and harmless, passive and private? Jesus taught love, but when asked by soldiers of his day what they should do to prepare for God’s kingdom, John the Baptist (Jesus’ cousin and forerunner) didn’t tell them to quit the Marines (oh, my bad. Marines had to wait until November 10, 1775 to get their first orders), or to leave the army. He didn’t pick flowers so they could put them on the ends of their spears or lace them into their helmets. He just told them not to abuse their power and to be content. (see Luke 3:14)

So what about the love part? Aren’t we supposed to love our enemies and do good to those who mistreat us? OK. We’re also supposed to defend the defenseless, and protect those who are unjustly threatened – including our families and communities. There’s a place for each response.

I think Marines make good real (vs. pretend) Christians. They understand some realities of life. Through grueling training and the shared Warrior Culture they understand that life is not all sweetness and harmless to evil. We are supposed to be a danger to evil – in word, lifestyle, and action. Most people don’t like conflict or difficulty. Marines accept both, do more with less, and prevail. The Bible calls that “Enduring hardship” – see 2 Timothy 2:4.

Another birthday celebration happened this week. On November 6, Billy Graham turned 99. Another warrior in his own right, he kept consistent to his mission as well, boldly sharing the gospel of personal peace through Jesus Christ for many years.

That message of life, forgiveness, and freedom from our own entanglements and wrongs is still available to all, and thanks to God’s blessing on the U.S. Marines, we still have the freedom to declare it!

5 ways Social Security protects you and your family

Next payday, when you see a portion of your wages go toward FICA taxes, rest easier knowing that your investment in Social Security brings a lifetime of protections for you and your family.

From your first job and throughout your career, we track your earnings and give you credits. As you prepare for a financially secure future, you should know about these five benefits that you, your spouse, and your children may become eligible for through Social Security:

Retirement benefits provide you with a continuous source of income later in life. If you’ve earned enough credits, you can start receiving your full retirement benefits at age 66 or 67 — depending on when you were born. You may choose to claim these benefits as early as age 62 at a permanently reduced rate, but waiting until after your full retirement age increases your benefit amount by up to 8 percent per year to age 70. Plan for your retirement at www.socialsecurity.gov/planners/retire.

Disability benefits offer a financial lifeline if you’re struck by a serious medical condition that makes it impossible for you to work and provide for yourself and your family and is expected to last at least one year or to result in death. Learn more at www.socialsecurity.gov/disability.

Child benefits support your minor children while you’re receiving Social Security retirement benefits or disability benefits. This financial support also is available to adult children who become disabled before age 22. Grandchildren and stepchildren may qualify in certain situations. Please see: www.socialsecurity.gov/people/kids.

Spousal benefits supplement a couple’s income if one of the two never worked or had low lifetime earnings. In some cases, this benefit is also available to divorced spouses. Please see: www.socialsecurity.gov/planners/retire/applying6.html.

Survivor benefits ease the financial burden on your loved ones after you die by providing monthly payments to eligible widows, widowers, children, and dependent parents. It’s likely the survivor benefits you have under Social Security carry greater value than your individual life-insurance policy. Read more about survivor benefits at www.socialsecurity.gov/survivors.

You must meet specific eligibility requirements to receive any type of Social Security benefits.

Currently, Social Security provides benefits to more than 61 million American workers and their families. And we’ll be there for you and your family through life’s journey.

Vonda VanTil is the Public Affairs Specialist for West Michigan.  You can write her c/o Social Security Administration, 3045 Knapp NE, Grand Rapids MI 49525 or via email at vonda.vantil@ssa.gov.

THANKS FOR YOUR SERVICE… Saturday is Veterans Day, November 11. The day America sets aside to remember all its veterans for their service and sacrifice.

Happily most communities have services to salute their veterans including our own hometowns of Coloma, Hartford, and Watervliet. Sadly most folks won’t attend the services. Hopefully everyone will salute their family and friends who are veterans and say, “Thanks for your service.”

WHEN TOO SOON IS TOO LATE… it is never too soon to ramp up the discussion on gun control. Twenty-six people lost their lives and 20 more were injured in a Texas church Sunday when a gunman, armed with an automatic rifle opened fire in the middle of the service.

Politicians maneuvering for the spotlight, decried the carnage, expressed sympathy to the families of the victims, and said it was too soon to talk gun control.

I recall the same scenario time and again following each and every wanton killing in recent years.

I suspect the worn phrase “guns don’t kill, people do” promulgated by the National Rifle Association and mindlessly repeated by the uneducated “armed and dangerous” has been supplanted by the “too soon…” nonsense.

Ask any loved one of an innocent victim if they would like to have the clock turned back to the day the gun and ammunition used WAS NOT manufactured.

We can never turn back the clock, but we can change our laws… Today, not tomorrow. And when we don’t change our laws to protect our country, we will change our leaders.

I prompted a “word storm” of comments on Facebook when I shared my view that increased gun control is needed in light of the carnage being visited on our country’s populace. Predictably, the opinions ranged from losing our rights to bear arms, to needing armed civilians to protect us, to banning all gun sales and use, to doing nothing, to banning weapons that are not used for sport (hunting, target, shooting).

I guess my middle of the road view to ban the ownership of military style automatic weapons from the civilian population is too much or too little for much of the Facebook readers.

To be sure, the continued carnage of citizens left unchecked will ultimately result in more draconian measures such as banning the manufacturing, sale, and ownership of all guns. A better solution is a steady and constant national program to educate the public of peaceful conflict options, improve mental health care, increase law enforcement training and networking, and enact national gun control legislation that is workable, enforceable, and fair to all.

MISSING PAGES… Just when I think I’ve seen it all, at least in the printing business, there’s a new wrinkle. A half a dozen Tri-City Record subscribers that we know of were missing pages 5 and 6. In newspaper jargon the half page sheet is called a dinky (a full sheet folded in half is four pages). Print manager at Allegan Flashes, Sue surmised the roll of dinky newsprint tore off during the press run. Even though the press has a sensor that shuts it down, it is possible a few papers, minus pages 5 & 6, squeezed through the folder.

When the flawed papers hit the mail, readers looking for the community calendar & Kute Kids on Page 5 and those for the obituaries and police news on Page 6 were disappointed.

On the assumption that those missing the pages called the office, we were able to mail out the absent pages or email them to all that requested.

So the case of the missing dinky joins my mental file of other printing oddities that I’ve experienced, including the engagement photo that got switched with a donkey basketball photo, the silhouette of a pair of scissors on a page, a missing photo on the front page (the pressman swore it was there when he burned the plate) and the strange note that appeared on my desk more that 20 years ago claiming collusion against the Comets by the Armchair Quarterbacks.

LETTERS

Great coaches

Dear Editor,

I would like to give a huge thank you to coaches Josh Stone and Ivan Hays of the Watervliet Boys Soccer Club!  I greatly appreciate all they did to make the inaugural year of this team such an overwhelming success!  They were fair to all the boys whether they were the best players or the least experienced.  All of the boys played at least one quarter of every game.

The coaches coached in a positive manner and never once resorted to putting any of their players down.  The boys were a very close team and always looked out for one another. The Panthers ended their season with a 10-2 record, proving, without a doubt, that positive and fair coaching does win games.  Maybe the sports world should take a page from these two amazing coaches’ playbook.

Thanks coaches, players, and Watervliet community and schools for a great season!

Melissa Stibal, Coloma/Watervliet

Thank you Halloween in the Park Trunk or Treat Sponsors 2017

Dear Editor,

Thank you to local businesses, organizations and volunteers for helping with our 2017 Halloween in the Park, Trunk or Treat in downtown Coloma.  We had a chilly day but that didn’t stop the crowds from turning out for the fun.

The North Berrien Community Development and the Coloma Lions Club coordinated a fun, safe Halloween gathering with delicious grilled hot dogs, popcorn, Gatorade, juice, apples and tremendous amounts of candy given to the costumed children.  Numerous business owners, City and Township officials and community members volunteered their time to help staff the games, candy and food lines.

Fun games were organized by Freshwater Community Church in Laura Baker Park and the Coloma Lion’s Club did a fabulous job of grilling over 900 hot dogs for adults and children.  Delicious apples were donated by Fruit Acres for the crowds. Tom Gear was on hand playing upbeat music and announcing sponsors for the full two hours.

The Coloma Lions Club coordinated their 2nd Annual Pumpkin Derby that morning as a kickoff for the day with 16 beautiful and fun pumpkins.  A fun time with adults and children, racing decorated wheeled pumpkins down the track.

Without the sponsorships of the contributors and volunteers helping, Halloween in the Park would not have been possible so we want to thank the following: Alpha Baking Company, Apryl Watson, Bertuca Bonding, Best Way Disposal, Boss Services Heating and Air, Certified Auto Repair (C.A. R.), Centsible Heating and Air, Chemical Bank, Coloma DDA,  Coloma Band and Choir, Coloma Boosters, Coloma Charter Township, Coloma Chartwell, Coloma Lioness Club, Chief Roe and the Coloma Township Police Department, Coloma PTO, Coloma City Public Works Department, Coloma-Watervliet Area Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Digits, DiMaggio’s Pizza and Burgers, Duffield and Pastrick Family Funeral Home, Edgewater Bank, El Asadero, Fifth Third Bank, Four Season’s Spa and Pool Services, Friendly Tavern, Full Moon Advertising, Getz Dentistry, Grapevine Nursery,  Hair Innovations and Day Spa, Honor Credit Union, Hub Central 185, J.S. Fulton Construction, Justin VanFerrari and the volunteers from Freshwater Church, Keep Me in Mind Repurposed Treasures, Keith Hammond, Kent Churchill and Churchill Farms, Kristen DeHaan, Lifestyle Chiropractic, Linda Freitag, Linda’s Antiques, LOMA Theatre, Marsha Hammond, Midwest Civil Engineers, New Covert Generating, North Berrien Fire & Rescue, North Berrien Community Development (NBCD), Orchard Hill Landfill, R&B Stelter Farm, Reflections Hair Studio, Sharon Yoder State Farm Insurance, United Federal Credit Union, Waterfront Restaurant, Watervliet Fruit Exchange, Wil-O-Paw Animal Hospital and WTP.

Thank you also to the wonderful group of Coloma students that volunteered and helped wherever we needed them for the full two hours; we certainly appreciated their community spirit! Continue to patronize these area businesses that contributed toward the success of a wonderful community event.

If you would like to volunteer, contribute or participate in the 2018 Halloween in the Park, please call our office at 468-4430.  This event continues to grow each year and we need more volunteers and sponsors. Thank you again to everyone!

Chana Kniebes

Community Development Coordinator

North Berrien Community Development

Public Paw Paw Lake access at Pomona Park is in jeopardy

Dear Editor,

Herald-Palladium staff writer Alexandra Newman recently reported on a special meeting of the Watervliet Township Board. Pomona Park on Elm Drive is one of three waterfront parks established in 1920 in the Fair View subdivision on Paw Paw Lake. The three homes adjacent to the park were owned by local families until 2016 when one was purchased by a lakefront property owner from Chicago. On October 25 the Township Trustees met with him and another Chicago man who offered $30,000 to buy and then divide the 100-foot lakefront park and close the street. If approved by the Board in November this sale would permanently reduce public lake access, leaving Forest Beach as the only Township park with parking and a view of the water.

When Sun Set Beach popularity peaked in the 1950s about 37% of the property owners in Fair View were Michigan residents. The number is far lower today – few lakefront owners can vote in our local elections. Oddly, nearly all of our Township Board members reside on Paw Paw Lake and can thus represent their out-of-state lakefront neighbors. Another special meeting of the Trustees and potential Pomona Park buyers is scheduled to be held at 10 a.m. November 15. If Paw Paw Lake is to remain a valuable public asset instead of a private lake this attempt to redraw the map of Pomona Park should be soundly rejected.

Steve Myers, Watervliet Twp.

Bishop Bradley expresses sorrow over tragic shooting in Texas

Bishop Bradley released the following statement following the tragic shooting on Sunday, Nov. 5 in Sutherland Springs, Texas, that has claimed the lives of at least 25 people:

“The despicable and merciless attack on people in the most sacred space of a House of God on a Sunday morning in the small Texas town of Sutherland Springs almost defies our ability to comprehend or accept.  Approximately 25 people – men, women and children – were murdered at point blank range, while dozens of others were injured, many of them critically.  We are heartbroken and abhorred by this senseless act of violence.  On behalf of the Diocese of Kalamazoo, as a community that knows first-hand the horror of an unwarranted violent attack on innocent lives, we express our solidarity, with the families of those who have lost loved ones, and all those who have been injured and traumatized by the events of this day.  We promise you our prayers for God’s mercy for those who have died and God’s healing graces for those who are suffering in any way.

“As Cardinal DiNardo, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and as Archbishop of Galveston-Houston in Texas states so beautifully, we must realize that ‘there is a fundamental problem in our society.’  However, in addition to the gun violence to which Cardinal DiNardo was referring, there is also a fundamental problem with a widespread failure of more and more people to understand our common dignity as fellow human beings, each of us made in the image and likeness of God, which makes all of us sisters and brothers in the human family.  While we pray for an end to violence in all its forms, and as our hearts are united with all our sisters and brothers in Sutherland Springs, Texas on this day of unspeakable loss and sadness, let us also pray that God will help us to be healed of the blindness that keeps us from seeing one another clearly, and from the hard-heartedness that keeps us from treating one another with compassion, respect and dignity.”

Victoria Cessna

Diocese of Kalamazoo

The focus on STEM has a detrimental impact on the future of Michigan’s creative economy

Dear Editor,

In the Nov. 2, 2017 edition of The Tri-City Record, Sen. John Proos wrote an article that STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education is important to Michigan’s economic future. That is true, but not to the exclusion of a balanced education including the Arts and Culture. Even our scientists and engineers benefit from an education that includes creative thinking.

I believe that the reason the Arts are not as big a part of our education system is that the results are not as easily quantifiable. But the impacts of our creative culture are considerable and a quantifiable part of Michigan’s economy. Here is how “Michigan State University Extension News of Arts and Cultural Impacts on Michigan’s Economy” sums it up: 2.5 billion in state tourism revenues, more than professional sporting events, golf, boating and sailing, hunting and fishing, hiking and biking COMBINED; 25,785,806 people made visits to Arts and Cultural venues and events, a number large enough to fill Comerica Park 618 times; from 2007 – 2012 arts-related jobs increased by 15% to more than 85,000; from 2010 – 2012 arts-related businesses increased by 35.5%!

This data was published in 2015 and the current trend is of increasing participation and revenue.

Our future Scientists, Technicians, Engineers, and Mathematicians will all need to imagine and visualize in order to express concepts. All this reflects that a more balanced education will lead to more balanced citizens and to a stronger and more resilient economic future. As was said in another article from MSUE, “Let’s turn STEM into STEAM with the A standing for Art.”

Mark Toncray, Riverside

23 million rural Americans are without broadband access

Dear Editor,

Disparity in rural high-speed internet access has recently garnered national attention.

The internet is now one of the most basic modes of how people find employment, attend college, work, handle their finances, and receive medical care. However, especially in rural areas, the internet is not available to be utilized in its full capacity.

Earlier this summer, Microsoft released a report outlining strategies to eliminate the rural broadband gap by 2022 for the more than 23 million rural Americans without access. Beyond funding and the leveraging of innovative and cost-efficient technologies, public-private partnerships are key to the strategy.

In order to bring in public sector participation, citizens will need to remain actively engaged in state and local internet access conversations.

Rural residents need to draw attention to the limitations that slow or non-existent internet speeds impose upon access to everyday educational and economic opportunities. Demonstrating the magnitude of the digital divide places pressure upon local and state governments to update policies and leverage collaborative funding streams for the benefit of all citizens.

Funding opportunities and legislative changes are key to the extension of internet access to all residents. The ability to expand broadband access in rural communities expands social and economic opportunities for Americans. But, it will take partnerships, community action, and citizen participation to help close that divide.

Jordan Rasmussen

Center for Rural Affairs

Mothers Against Drunk Driving announces Michigan Legislators of the Year

State Lawmakers Recognized for Helping Advance MADD’s Mission

 Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has named two Michigan “2017 Legislators of the Year” for their tireless work to fight drunk driving and to support the victims of these 100 percent preventable crimes.

Representative Klint Kesto authored HB 4078, which would require ignition interlocks for all drunk-driving offenders, and Representative Pat Green authored legislation that would renew Michigan’s law that sets .08 BAC as the legal threshold for alcohol intoxication in Michigan.

“MADD is grateful to Representative Kesto and Representative Green for championing legislation that will help prevent the senseless tragedies caused by the violent, preventable crime of drunk driving. Their leadership will help us reach our goal of No More Victims,” said MADD National President Colleen Sheehey-Church.

In all, MADD recognized 42 lawmakers for their commitment to saving lives. For the full list, visit madd.org.

Many of the Legislators of the Year have played a major role in MADD’s Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving, which was launched in 2006. A key component of the campaign calls for the passage of all-offender interlock laws, which require the use of an ignition interlock for any convicted drunk driver who seeks driving privileges during a license suspension period. Prior to the campaign, only one state — New Mexico — had an all-offender interlock law. Today, 30 states and Washington D.C. have enacted all-offender interlock laws.

Other components of MADD’s campaign include supporting high-visibility law enforcement, such as sobriety checkpoints and saturation patrols, advocating for development of the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS), which is an advanced vehicle technology to passively detect alcohol on a driver’s breath, and supporting deployment of fully autonomous vehicles.

Founded in 1980 by a mother whose daughter was killed by a drunk driver, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is the nation’s largest nonprofit working to end drunk driving, help fight drugged driving, support the victims of these violent crimes and prevent underage drinking. MADD has helped to save more than 350,000 lives, reduce drunk-driving deaths by more than 50 percent and promote designating a non-drinking driver. MADD’s Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving calls for law enforcement support, ignition interlocks for all offenders and advanced vehicle technology. MADD has provided supportive services to nearly one million drunk and drugged driving victims and survivors at no charge through local victim advocates and the 24-Hour Victim Help Line 1-877-MADD-HELP. Visit www.madd.org or call 1-877-ASK-MADD.

Save the Sidetrack campaign is in the final 30 days; we need your help to reach our goal of $20,000

Dear Editor,

 The City of Watervliet is undertaking a crowd funding initiative with Patronicity to Save the Sidetrack. The Sidetrack is a community icon and facility of significant historical value to the community. The Sidetrack has its roots in the community since the early 1930s when it was known as the Midget and has been the cultural gathering spot for the community since that time.

The facility closed recently which sent a shock wave of concern throughout the community and the region. This facility has been at the history of everyone in the community. This has been the gathering spot for all generations in Watervliet. Patrons come daily for conversation, fellowship, and community pride. The customer service and cultural impact is felt by many.

The community has asked the City for help to make sure the Sidetrack is here for many more generations. We need your help to make sure that this community icon continues to keep its doors open. If we fail to gather together for this facility we stand to lose a sense of our community and culture.

To contribute please go to www.patronicity.com (Save the Sidetrack). Your support and contributions are appreciated. Your donation is tax deductible and goes a long way to preserving our community icon.

Michael Uskiewicz

Watervliet City Manager