Letters to the editor April 19

Vacation rental problem

Spokane resident Morna Gilbert’s comments (Short-term rentals, March 28) about her experience in renting a part of her home to travelers adds a valuable perspective to the short-term rental debate. That is how short-term rentals began — people renting out a part of their own homes — or trading a stay in their homes for a stay in a residence somewhere else. Were the short-term rental industry still that model, it would not be having the adverse effect it does on a stable economy in our communities.

Unfortunately, well-to-do folks looking for a big return on their excess funds have discovered the short-term rental industry as a good investment strategy. They buy properties in promising communities, turn them over to a management company, and let the investment pay for itself.

I can’t speak to the situation in Spokane where Ms. Gilbert lives, but the problem that short-term rentals create in the Flathead is that there are not enough housing units to house the workforce. So the desperation evidenced in the daily ads pleading for workers is not because there aren’t workers for the jobs. It is that short-term rentals have taken the housing. Nearly 2,500 short-term rentals exist in Flathead County — many sitting empty between bookings and in the shoulder seasons. Think how far that would go in housing workers.

Our county and city governments should devise regulations that require that the owner and the short-term rental property be in the same zip code; or limit the total number of short term rentals in an area — just as liquor licenses are limited; or require that short term rentals , other than those sharing the owner’s home, be located in commercial zones — like other businesses.

We must urge our leaders to solve this problem now, before the situation gets worse.

— Sharon Morrison, Whitefish

Generous soccer players

I want to give a shout out to Ryan Billiet, soccer coach for Glacier High School and his generous soccer players.

I just returned from a month in Kenya. I had room for extra luggage and had a request from a family in Matuu (east of Nairobi) wondering if I could find some soccer shoes for their high school son. Knowing nothing about soccer, I tracked down Ryan and asked for recommendations.

In a few days, he volunteered to ask his crew if anyone had gear to share. I was overwhelmed with the shoes and gear the generous soccer players at Glacier High donated.

My guides took a day to take me on dirt “goat tracks” to Matuu to deliver the goods. The smile and hugs I got were overwhelming. My friends live in a two-room plywood and sheet metal “house” with no plumbing or refrigeration, but are some of the most gracious, grateful and lovely people I’ve ever met. Both parents had lost their jobs due to Covid. The gift of the soccer gear will be shared with Delvin and his classmates.

I was reminded at how grateful I am for what I have. It reminds me of a quote: “Be generous in prosperity and thankful in adversity, be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech. Be a lamp unto those who walk in darkness, and a home to the stranger. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring.”

Thanks to the generosity of the Glacier soccer team and Ryan Billiet. Give them a hug if you see them!

— Carole Jorgensen, Kalispell

Transformed Republican Party

Is our present historical moment of unprecedented global predicaments finally clarifying the preciousness of our one sacred Home, Mother Earth? Isn’t it clearer than ever that every day should be Earth Day? Because after 52 years of a one-day-a-year Earth Day observance, most indicators of ecological degradation and mayhem have only alarmingly worsened.

Polls increasingly show a majority of Americans favoring meaningful action toward climate sanity and ecological health (providing our children a more livable planet). But ideological extremists have taken over a transformed Republican Party that once actually professed ideals that included evidential science and promised prioritizing meaningful climate action (1988). But dangerous Republicans are now doubling down on the same small-minded and short-sighted ignorance that’s accelerating their lethal mess. Their shameful downhill slide culminated in Trump’s government- mandated blackout on climate science for four years!

Time to call out this failed, untrustworthy leadership that’s abandoned democratic majority rule. Ideologues sworn to obstructionism (“minority rule from behind”) are condemning the future to an impoverished world. It is intellectually insulting and morally bankrupt to be peddled their partisan “alternative reality” selectively devoid of science. History will condemn Republican bad faith, greed and willful ignorance as an unfathomable intergenerational evil. They are betraying us and their noble constitutional mission.

It is growing increasingly clear that self-serving Republican leadership is not at all an adequate representation of who we are. Most Americans are now reaffirming and recommitting to productive collaboration, altruism, cooperation, caring, interdependence and love.

— Greg Jahn, Billings