Letters to the editor May 27

Whitefish’s downfall?

We’ve lost our town and now, our park.

The locals say it’s the uber rich Californians and Texans who are the most mobile members of our national social strata, who have come to Montana, bought up property and local businesses and caused the property values and rents to skyrocket.

The fallout, they say, is the workers who can no longer afford to live in Whitefish which has caused vendors to be unable to offer their goods and services because they can’t get workers.

Some also say the lack of workers is really the fault of the cushy unemployment benefits that have kept worker’s home.

And then, the park, Glacier National Park, our respite and our solace, in response to the pandemic and the awful way park visitors treated our treasure, developed its ticketing debacle, locking us out of the park.

It causes me to ask myself, why do I remain here after nearly 20 years? Who is to blame? The pandemic? The uber rich?

I can’t find an answer, but I’ll say this, I’m hopping mad as are most locals. And I want to fight back. I want to call out the new boutique businesses who are plying the uber rich and insulting the neighborly fiber that built our town.

I want to believe there is room for all. But I think the gated communities fear those of us who don’t hide behind gates. And maybe we fear them too. We fear their takeover and ouster of all things simple and affordable which sure seems to be happening.

This thinking of mine points to a great divide that I imagine is growing throughout our great country.

I don’t know how to stop it, but I know we must. I want to love my town again.

—Cynthia Winters, Whitefish

Fringe thinking

Kudos to the Daily Inter Lake for publishing the editorial by Montana Superintendent of Public ‌Instruction Elsie Arntzen (Civics education for Montana students must reject fringe thinking).

There may be some overlap, but slavery does not automatically mean racism. And slavery did not start in 1619, and it was dealt with long ago in the USA. Arntzen recognizes this, and students should be made aware that fringe thinking is being shoved down their throats by fringe media and fringe academia.

—Eric Knutson, Dayton