None of Your Business
The pricing of kale is none of your business, Jim Kenyon (“Co-op Voices Heard,” June 1). It is also none of your business (or the public’s) how much the new Co-op general manager will earn. The Co-op is not a nonprofit and does not have to file IRS form 990. It is, however, the business of the board’s, the people we elected to represent us (the member-owners) and to handle the affairs of the business.
It is also none of your business (or the public’s) regarding the terms of the “settlement” that may or may not have been made with John Boutin and Dan King. Furthermore, it is none of your business as to how it is paid for or whether it will have an impact on the Co-op’s financials.
The board and the general manager are the fiduciaries of the Co-op and are charged with worrying about this. Not you. As a former Co-op board director and former secretary, I agree with Margaret Drye (Thank you, Margaret, for 13 years of volunteer service) that tape recording meetings is a very bad idea. People like you, Jim, will take what you want from it and will disregard the rest, resulting in a twisted mess of public perception. The board speaks with one voice and the minutes are the official record and positions.
Why don’t you disclose to us your salary, Jim Kenyon? Can you tell us how much your own company president makes per year? Has the Valley News ever been sued by a previous employee? Did it settle? What were the terms? Has this impacted the cost of Valley News subscriptions? Why doesn’t the Valley News publish board meeting recordings? Oh, it’s because your owner, Newspapers of New England, Inc., is a private company.
The Co-op is also a private company, the only difference being that it is member-owned. And despite the fact that the Co-op holds itself to higher transparency standards than the normal organization, such as even having open board meetings, these muckraking topics do not belong in a newspaper.
Dale Shriver
Etna
Action Needed on Climate Change
Climate change is a real, long-term problem, and politicians are not doing enough to mitigate its effects. In Congress, over 56 percent of Republicans deny or question the science behind climate change. One hundred-seventy members of Congress have received over $68 million in campaign donations from fossil-fuel companies to aid their campaigns. These lawmakers still deny climate science, even with a measurable increase in average global temperature.
Donald Trump recently made a speech threatening to pull the U.S. from the Paris Climate Change Accords and increase oil and coal use in American industry. Increased coal and oil emissions leads to more CO2 in the atmosphere. Pulling the U.S. out the Paris Accords would isolate us from the global move to fight climate change, and reduce our effort to control emissions.
More atmospheric CO2 increases the rate of global warming. In Oregon, a group of teenagers and young adults from across the U.S. are suing the government for failing to protect them from climate change. The group is holding the government responsible for their damaged future due to lack of action in response to climate change. But teenagers are not the only ones who should be invested in this fight. Adults should be as well, because it’s our planet. And, unfortunately, in our society, adults are heard before teens.
We have the tools to mitigate this. Policymakers and those in power need to realize that their decisions are affecting generations to come, and they need to take action.
Cameron Day
Orford
Help College Students Face Costs
Graduating college is a momentous time for a student and his or her family. This year’s crop of graduates have new jobs, new schools and new adventures to look forward to. Yet these days, graduation is too often shadowed by the reality of student debt. New Hampshire students who take the initiative to seek out higher education should not have to assume mountains of debt to obtain a degree and improve future job prospects; for the sake of students like me and our futures, the choice in New Hampshire’s upcoming senatorial race is clear. Sen. Kelly Ayotte appears to care little about investing in our futures. Instead of voting for an amendment that would have allowed students to refinance their debt at lower interest rates, she introduced a sham student loan bill that many called “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” and “a handout to the loan industry.” In contrast, Gov. Maggie Hassan has worked tirelessly throughout her career to make life easier for New Hampshire students by freezing tuition at state colleges. And at community colleges, tuition even went down.
Jessica Lu
Hanover
Save the Arctic Wilderness
I recently traveled to Washington, D.C., to participate in Wilderness Week, hosted by the Alaska Wilderness League, the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society. Along with concerned citizens from across the country, I learned about the issues facing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Arctic Ocean, heard from indigenous Arctic leaders and lobbied a number of members of Congress for the Arctic Wilderness.
Maintaining the wilderness and the sustainable life in the Arctic region is vital. The native people depend on the migrating caribou and birds for sustenance. It is vital to maintain this wilderness into perpetuity to preserve the sustainable cycle of life in the Arctic.
My experience in Washington was truly important. Teaming up with fellow advocates, as well as Alaskans, we visited our senators and representatives to share our concerns, and raise awareness and support for these critical public lands and waters. It was empowering to talk to members of Congress. I am particularly grateful to Rep. Annie Kuster and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and their staffs for taking the time to meet with the group. It is unfortunate that Sen. Kelly Ayotte and her staff would not respond to our request for a meeting to share our concerns.
Protection of our public places, like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the pristine Coastal Plain — and the Arctic Ocean — is the responsibility of all citizens. It is vital that the Refuge and the Coastal Plain now be designated permanent wilderness in HR 239 and S. Bill 2341.
Carol Perera Weingeist
Hanover
Anger Met With Anger
Anger is coursing through America’s politics and people seek a leader who promises to change conditions. This anger has arisen in a relatively short period, and a solution is seen by some to lie in a small number of pen strokes by the right person who will reverse conditions.
The anger coursing through the Collis Center a few weeks ago (“College Groups Clash Over Fliers,” May 17) has been fed by conditions that have existed for years. This has been happening so long that it has become embedded deeply within almost everyone. Pen strokes, which may be ameliorative to some extent, have not, and likely cannot, get to the core of the problem. The power to do that, then, lies also within ourselves. Yet, time after time, anger has gotten in the way of any progress toward a solution, and has ignored the human reality that the more A attacks B, the more B will fight back.
To feel and display disappointment only puts another layer on top of the problem, when what is needed is to peel a layer off.
I’m not denying that it is quite natural that both sides feel angry in the political picture, and in what’s behind the Collis situation. But there is a difference between feeling anger and acting with it. True enough, at times, there’s a need to get the attention of those we see standing in the way of progress.
Sadly also, I’m not denying that it’s a long and difficult road to move the minds of so many. Yet, that would seem to be undoable if every action isn’t designed to move minds, not bodies.
Louis A. Kislik
West Lebanon