LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

[February 21st, 2007] YOU KNOW, FOR KIDS!

WW's recent article "Hurricane Vicki" [Feb. 7, 2007] is, at best, journalistic dribble! Where is the balanced reporting? Did the dog eat your homework?

How can you state in one paragraph that we needed a superintendent with the moxie to deal with a district with "declining enrollment and too many buildings" then build a case of innuendos and backhanded comments that "how can she close schools and make hard decisions?" Show me a major corporation that brings in a dynamic new CEO to turn around the business and doesn't have turnover, forced or unforced, in the workforce. In corporate America, we think that's OK—we're weeding the garden, becoming more profitable, creating efficiencies—but here the inference is that even her trusted staff are peeling away and jumping ship. Sure, the garden is being weeded—but to infer that Dr. Phillips is not surrounded by top-notch advisors and staff who care deeply for our children is pure hogwash.

Why not present a balanced story, with facts about the state of our children's education and Dr. Phillips' part in that? Why not look at solutions and put the power of your paper to helping your readers think creatively about solutions rather than run a simplistic, one-faceted story of a many-faceted issue?

I am a parent and community member, and I spent much of the last local-option levy going from community group to community group talking about Portland Public Schools, our strengths, our weaknesses, the possibilities for our children. Your approach to our schools, and your article, serve no purpose other than to create sensation and distrust. Questioning makes sense and should always happen, and we don't need more poison—we need a commitment to finding solutions from all sides. Remember, it's about the children.

Doug Wells
Southeast 70th Avenue

ROGUE IN THE WRONG BIN

Your Jan. 31 Rogue of the Week column discussed an important issue (Oregon's declining plastic bottle recycling rate) but chose the wrong rogue (bottle makers). As you noted, not all the plastic containers set out by Oregonians for recycling are ending up being processed by plastics reclaimers. This has triggered a requirement in a 15-year-old state law to make container producers and brand owners help push the rate higher. Trade groups representing these firms have appealed to the state environmental quality commission, seeking for the rules to be rewritten, and you criticize them for this effort.

But as you also noted, there is "no doubt the state's commingled recycling system could be more efficient." In fact, the real rogues here are the local governments, Metro, franchised waste haulers and recycling processors who are allowing more than six million plastic bottles per year to be missorted and sent to paper mills, instead of being recycled as plastic. Other cities and other states do not have this problem.

When Oregonians put a clean plastic bottle in their recycling bin or cart, they expect it to be recycled. We should get the service we pay for.

Jerry Powell
Editor, Resource Recycling Magazine
Southeast Powell Boulevard