Letters to the editor June 26

Deputy pay

I just read that the pay increase that Sheriff Brian Heino requested for deputies was denied. This is completely unacceptable.  

As a taxpayer and citizen I think we should always pay our deputies and first responders at the top-tier level. Surely not the lowest.   

They step up and put their life on the line daily without hesitation. That is worth more than the $34 per hour they are asking for and deserve. I would urge the commission to reconsider its decision. 

You see, here’s the thing, our deputies will do their job either way, with or without the raise, which means they deserve it more. 

I know there has been numerous meetings where the commissioners have been sleeping or just decided not to participate. I can’t remember the last time I ever heard of a sheriff’s deputy doing that.

— Jeremy Phillips, Kalispell

Fire prevention

Forest fire season is upon us and it might be worth telling the story of how a North Fork buddy saved his home when the 1988 Red Bench firestorm roared across Polebridge.

He nailed a portable metal sprinkler to each end of his roof’s ridgeline and ran the water feed hose down the east side of the cabin to a small electric pump under the porch deck. The intake was a garden hose into the river with power via a medium-sized diesel generator. 

Since he knew most forest fire emergency evacuations usually last about two to three days, he tripled the generator’s fuel capacity with two Army-surplus fuel cans belted together and drilled and tapped to facilitate gravity flow via an automotive fuel line through a modified generator gas tank cap.

When the sheriff’s deputy arrived for the mandatory evacuation, he fired up the generator and pump and drove off with fingers crossed. Return on the third day revealed the racing fire now well past his cabin into Glacier Park, having consumed the Ranger Station and the actual “polebridge.” Though his horse pasture and outbuildings were reduced to ashes, surrounded by a ring of glorious green was his untouched cabin.

— Andy Palchak, Kalispell

Lake management

Reading Brian Lipscomb’s letter to the editor about the trials and tribulations Energy Keepers goes through to satisfy all the individual interests putting demands on the operation of the dam was very revealing.  

It is simply amazing that NorthwestEnergy did it so flawlessly for so many years with all the same ups and downs of water supplies. Also, in reading the article, I had no idea that Energy Keepers was a nonprofit and that that the money they earned off of a public resource, water, was not the driving factor in determining the lake level. 

Thank you, Brian, for clarifying Energy Keepers true mission in the dams operation, or not.

— Dennis McDowell, Bigfork