Current Listing

I received a pre-addressed and stamped postcard in the U.S. mail this week, requesting I choose to respond to various pre-selected sentences about Manzanita’s water allocations and send the postcard to a Manzanita resident.

The Manzanita resident, a Mr. Kugler, who has exhibited a bizarre ongoing obsession with Manzanita water issues, continues to advance ill-advised, poorly-informed and malicious attacks directed at our City Council, our Mayor and our City Manager. These attacks also continue to exhibit either astounding ignorance about Oregon municipal budgetary rules and procedures, or deliberate obfuscation of these rules and procedures.

It is unclear why Manzanita residents would funnel any of their views through an individual with a demonstrated long-standing animus towards our city, its elected/appointed leaders and city staff (he is currently a party to a lawsuit against Manzanita as well). Between this lawsuit and the referendum, he has cost the City (and all of us) over $30,000 in legal fees just since July.

To better understand our city budget, it is probably best to go straight to those who know most about it: our Budget Committee representatives, our City Council/Mayor and/or our City Manager. Specific meetings of the Budget Committee that cover all aspects of planning and recommendations for each fiscal year can be located at:

ci.manzanita.or.us/budget-committee/ The January to May meetings cover most issues, with a final meeting with City Council where they vote to approve the new fiscal year budget, usually in May/June.

The above information is important to examine and to understand, since the Budget Committee and our City Council are responsible by State Law to assure that Manzanita’s budget is accurate, balanced and fiscally stable. They can’t just present opinions as facts and get away with it or they’ll get in trouble with the State of Oregon.

The Budget Committee examines, questions, analyzes and then forwards its recommendations for annual budgetary approval by the city council every year, by Oregon law. Each year, this includes all aspects of Manzanita’s budget, including issues related to its Water Fund as well as indirect cost allocations.

For many years, the Budget Committee has been bombarded with complaints from resident Kugler that there are parts of the indirect cost allocation methodology, and/or the Manzanita Water Fund that are wrong. Each year, the Budget Committee makes sure that this is not true. And each year, they are correct. And each year, resident Kugler is proven incorrect.

Please communicate with trustworthy, knowledgeable friends, and then double-check your information with our city government.
Happy sleuthing!
Mark Kuestner
Manzanita resident

I know and have worked with Andy and have great respect for him as a person of Integrity, a trait much needed especially these days.

Andy is a longtime community leader and volunteer. He’s a Democrat and a city councilor in Astoria. He served on the Clatsop County budget committee and comprehensive plan update committees, dealing with finances, agencies and challenging problems. He’s focused on affordable housing, healthcare for everyone and more.

Andy is responsible, responsive, reliable and honest. He will make an outstanding legislator who will serve all Oregonians.

For more details on Andy’s campaign: www.davis4oregon.com/

The seat is currently held by Republican Cyrus Javadi. Javadi is anti-choice, and signed a letter supporting Texas Gov. Abbott’s extreme anti-immigrant policies. He also failed to show up for a number of votes in the last legislative session. He is not a moderate and does not represent me or many of you I suspect.

We need a smart, thoughtful, hard working, accessible Representative – ELECT ANDY DAVIS. Vote EARLY and Spread the word.

Let’s take back our Oregon House Seat and make a difference.
carol

Thank you.
Patricia.
cedarhaven33@gmail.com

MARY LEVERETTE is a highly intelligent and dedicated citizen of Wheeler. She has shown her volunteer spirit and open mind for close to a decade. Mary is creative, yet structured, in her approach, and will always listen to those who are open to creating a better place to live and work.

I trust Mary to always put the interests and needs of Wheeler first, and to work tirelessly towards goals which will offer value to each and every citizen.

Please vote for MARY LEVERETTE for Wheeler City Council on November 5th

Thank you

The Price of Awakening

In time we come to know, welcome in our daily lives

the understanding that there is no saving grace

in misleading. Deep and real differences may define

our families and friendships but we realize

there will be no lasting peace in lies and using others.

Anchoring these times and spaces of our lives, 

we can listen to the timeless voices of ancestors

and the integrity of respected friends, “Through love alone

will hate be healed.” We all know we have awakened

many times before, left behind a passing ignorance,

the restless ways of wanting, hatred, and fear. Slowly,

we are abandoning the belief that a man or woman can

own another, assume or create a relation that does not

recognize the inherent rights and dignity of the other.

At work, as in marriage, our community, and civic relations,

this entitlement is now a birthright, an achievement of what

is best in all of us. We are awakening, slowly reaching

the understanding that war is not sustainable.

The war in Vietnam, the war in Iraq, Gaza, wherever conflict

appears, we are coming to know that war profits

a very small minority. For too long we have listened to

to all their lies, the reasons why our sons and daughters

must continue to be sacrificed for profit,  why it is

that those who have had the most, generation after

generation, merit further privileges to accumulate more.

There is no saving grace in being misled. We are also awakening

to the precious and fragile gift of our democracy, how our voice

and vote is equal to any other. Will it ever be easy to recognize,

accept, and release how we have been deceived?

Each of us knows a deeply visceral answer to this question.

But as the typhoons come and the tornadoes grow stronger,

as species extinction accelerates, and our divorce rates 

incline, as our coastal cities submerge and our mothers and 

fathers die of unrelenting heat, we can awaken, recognize 

how we have been used. What comes to mind when we hear

their deceitful and barren platforms full of hateful intentions?

They assert that we should deport millions of men and women,

persons who are seeking, as we have sought, a better life,

or listening to their call for ever deeper extraction of oil and gas,

what comes to mind is a wounded little boy stepping down

from a now infamous bus, “They just let you do it.”  May we all

be granted the integrity to awaken and unity be restored.

This brief walks through the facts about actions taken under both the Trump and Biden Administrations related to capping insulin copayments for people with Medicare and explains the differences between their approaches.

What did the Trump Administration do?

What did the Biden Administration do?

What are the key differences between these approaches?

What the November election could mean for people who need insulin.