Tammy's views are her own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bill Eagle, his pastor, Tammy's neighbors, Earl Fisher, Betsy Johnson, Joe Corsiglia, Rita Bernhard, her grand kids, Tony Hyde, Pat Robertson, Debi Corsiglia's dog, or Claudia Eagle's Cats. This Tammy's Take (with the exception of this disclaimer) is not paid for or written by, or reviewed by anyone but Tammy and she won't take crap off of anyone.

2010 was a year of achievement, frustration, victories and disappointments. I hope 2011 will be the beginning for a new start regarding our elected officials in Columbia County. In 2010 the voters of the Health District displayed their frustration with the hospital boards ineptness in fulfilling their promise to the people in the special district in acquiring a certificate of need for a critical access hospital, which was voted for way back in 2004, after spending $4.2 million for a community hospital, a rural hospital and finally a glorified clinic the community finally were fed up with the health boards wasteful spending and constantly changing proposals. The people expressed their disapproval and frustration by voting to stop the spending by a wide margin 73%. Unfortunately the elected officials decided that they did not care to enforce this legal and binding vote and have failed to implement measure 5-209, looking for any tiny bit of wriggle room out of doing their job and stopping the tax. Even though the county commissioners approved the health districts measure back in 2004 with out due diligence and have been to blame in my opinion in part, for the mess that now confronts the people in the special district.

The health districts board claims that they are doing what the voters asked them to do and that was to stop the hospital proposal which they did, but have failed to stop collecting the tax revenue from the people in the district, we all know that the state of Oregon would have denied their third attempt and appeal, so stopping the project was already in the works, this boards failure to stop collecting the tax is ego driven, and a disappointment to the people in the district.

The people who are trying to get justice for the people in the health district have vowed that they are not giving up and will continue on fighting for justice for the people in the health district who want the tax revenue to stop. I assure you that 2011 will be a year of surprises, victories and hopefully justice for the people in the health district. One way or the other a victory for the common person is on the horizon and hopefully the common person will prevail against the tremendous odds and huge bank roll that they will be fighting.

I wish everyone a better 2011, hopefully the economy will pick up, people will get back to work, and maybe our government will do something about bringing jobs back to America, and hopefully the Democrats will grow some balls and do just that. As far as the republicans go we all know where their loyalties lie and we must demand action on behalf of all Americans not just for the top 10%.