Thursday, January 04, 2007

Memo to state lawmakers from a voter

Back on Dec. 6, I e-mailed three state legislators about concerns I want addressed.

Two, Sen. Ginny Burdick and Rep. Mary Nolan, represent me and probably you if you live in southwest Portland.

The third is Rep. Larry Galizio, D-Tigard, who happens to be a teaching colleague at PCC. Larry and I share many concerns about media's influence on us and our children.

In the past these three, all Democrats, had limited power to accomplish much, but now all are in the majority. In this session of the Legislature, they have real power.

That's one of the reasons I wrote them. I'd like some action, please.

I want the Legislature to set up a commission to implement media literacy education in our schools. Instituting a volunteer Media Literacy Commission would cost nothing.

I also wanted to know why the state isn't enforcing highway beautification on I-5 between Portland and Salem. Thumbing its nose at the public, Jobdango is using the public right of way as a free-fire zone for illegal billboards.

The result of my letter-writing? After a month, nothing. Not a word.

I'm sure that Salem legislators get a lot of mail, indeed they have set up a computer-generated system to invite it. Now they need a human system to deal with it, or at the very least acknowledge it.

It's time for these three, and no doubt others, to get back to basics: namely communicating with those who put them in office in the first place.

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3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ginny Burdick is coming to Wilson's Student Assembly meeting to give us a "pep talk" about the good in representative government and what we are trying to accomplish at Wilson.

DR

1:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Stop being such a whiner!! The highway beautification act was illegal and is no longer around. Plus are awesome reps have many other things to do than listen to you. If your going to whine, why don't you whine about crack smokers or drunk drivers???

8:07 AM  
Blogger Rick Seifert said...

I'm going to take a stab at name-naming the name-caller in the previous post.

Based on a December phone conversation I had with Jobdango president Ralph King, the writer and King appear to me to be one in the same.

Same defensiveness. Same references to whining (King also told me to "get a life.").

Same denial that the in-your-face Jobdango signs in the right-of-way are illegal. (I've talked with both City and State enforcement officials and they know Mr. King well from past exchanges. They say the signs are definitely illegal in Portland and likely illegal on I-5. More on this later.)

Same strange, off-the-wall references to meth users and drunk drivers.

Same petulant tone.

I'm sure we will hear more from our anonymous poster. Whoever he is, I hope he musters the integrity to put his name on his opinions.

5:22 PM  

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