wage producing jobs " NOT", A tire recycling, polluting ground and
air not to mention the horrible smell that will intermix with
Boise's' smell pollution. My question is: why do certain city and
county officials bring these dead end jobs to our community that end
up costing the taxpayers more for medical services and clean up cost
after these places go belly- up and why does Tony Hyde begrudge
construction workers a fair days wages for a fair days work? Doesn't
he receive campaign contributions from some unions?

Dear Davis Bacon;
I suspect that Mr. Hyde could put a spin on just about anything long enough to take credit for it. The result will be another mess somewhat like Bergsoe. He will probably move up to State Senator soon after and leave the mess behind after it does him some political good. I doubt he really cares about much else.

No financial backer will risk doing what they did when they wrote off the millions when Bergsoe closed and toxified the land across from a large grade school. Sop it will be a hard sell unless it is privately financed. The current Port heroes like Fisher and Pulliam would love to toxify the city if it made them look good through the next election.

What you describe and what I hear about the rubber plant should be something that the new City Council in St. Helens better look at pretty closely. They were voted in to get rid of the good old boy-settle for anything-attitude, so here is their chance to oppose something that is a little too borderline for the community to accept. As a side note, Mr. Little has announced that he will be leaving the people of St. Helens alone for a while so he may be gone before they get this ball rolling.

As for Hyde and the Union Wages. I doubt you can get him to say the same thing twice so if he does what he usually does he will say he supports union wages at a union friendly crowd and say he doesn't support union wages at meetings where it would not be good politics... He has done very well in Columbia County telling everyone what they want to hear so why stop now.

If the public is not smart enough to catch on to phony Tony and his slick word games then they don't deserve union wages. If you ever get a chance to look at his campaign finances write back and let me know how many non union shops supported him. That will tell you what you want to know.....The Shoeshine Boy

From Big Ben 3/19/07
Why is there a 5-minute time limit for public comment at
commissioners meetings? After all if a person takes the time to come in an address the commissioners it must be important to John Q Public, and that individual should be allowed to freely speak their mind with out being pressed for time

Dear Big Ben,
That's a great question. I would think that the Commissioners can't even talk for less than five minutes themselves.
The question is as you talk for five minutes are they really listening. So what good does it do to talk more than five minutes if they don't listen anyway. Government in general is drawing away from the public and will use every cliché when asked about it. I noticed the County decided to circumvent the constitution and hide their oh so precious executive sessions from as many as they could. Heck there was no problem unless they plan on talking about things they don't want the public to know. You can bet that Bernhard gets on the phone ten minutes after a session to all her high ranking buddies and spills the beans anyway. I suppose it's still better than Castro's Cuban speaking limit of five seconds and you die. Sadly our elected officials are taking it down the same path. I hope we see it all turn around some day soon and I'm not sure new elected officials will change it as the big money folks will just put in new puppet government like we have now...........The Shoeshine Boy


From Karen 3/18/07
Dear Shoe Shine Boy
I hear rumors that the Scappoose Spotlight is being sold.   Have you heard anything about this.  Someone told me that  Senator Betsy Johnson will be buying the news paper.

Dear Karen
Your sources have a mixture of rumored realities. Yes the word is out that the Owners of the Spotlight has reached a sale agreement with a fairly large local Newspaper Chain.
It is however very difficult to assess who owns parts or pieces of Newspapers or Newspaper organizations these days.
Considering that, most anything has it's price, so your rumor could possibly have some merit to it. So if I might borrow a time tested gem,"No news is good news"......The Shoeshine Boy

From Lyell 3/13/07
Dear Shoe Shine Boy
Reading the local papers.  Am I correct in thinking that the Hospital is once again a viable thing, or will it be something like Eagle's Top 10?

Dear Lyell,
   If you back off to 1000 feet and look at the big picture. Here Goes...