City Council acting like it has someone else’s credit card

Let me understand: the city council and city manager are going to try and sell property, hoping to get a grant that might help pay to fix the irrigation system at the golf course. Has the property been sold yet?

Why are they making plans to pay for yet another project without any money?

Don’t they remember that last year they tried to do the same thing only they put the city into debt by thousands of dollars?

Maybe if the properties are sold, plans could be made for the monies, however, in two years they will have to come up with $400,000 to pay for the new firefighters because that “bill” will come due and there will not be any money.

They are all acting like teenagers with a credit card and someone else has to pay the bill.

Perhaps they should rethink their positions on these issues.

Penny Rienks

Baker City

Remembering Baker’s more prosperous business days

Anyone remember some years back between Main Street and the old train station on Broadway there were five automobile dealerships, six grocery stores, Montgomery Wards general store, three hotels, one motel, three restaurants, one hamburger joint, one soda fountain, three bars, one smoke shop, two barber shops, one real estate office, two gas stations, one bike shop, one insurance office, two secondhand stores and passenger trains. In the Main Street area there were three movie theaters. We could spend the whole afternoon at the Empire for 10 cents then go to Clubb’s Fountain for a chili dog and milkshake for four bits that fed you and your girlfriend.

There were four more car dealers uptown. There were sawmills, logging and a flour mill on West Campbell Street. We could dump our garbage at the city dump on East Campbell Street for two bits. But the unions, government and environmental agencies took care of the good life with all the rules, regulations, taxes and permits. It makes a working man happy that now he can buy a $10,000 home for $250,000. Young people call this progress but older people call it socialism.

J. Roscoe Lee and Dave Eardley played the organ at the Methodist Church every day during the noon hour and could be heard everywhere in town. And how about Bob Armstrong, the whistling mailman? Bob walked the beat every day (No Jeep) and you could hear his whistle for several blocks. Then in the evenings and weekends Bob would umpire the softball games at the city ball park, probably for no charge. There has been a trainload of people like this in Baker, and I was lucky to know them.

Grover Mann

Baker City

A key question that can help victims escape their abusers

I believe that most of us Americans have been victims of bullying and/or some form of abuse at some time in our lives. As a former counselor and therapist, I worked with and tried to help many victims of everyday bullying, as well as various other forms of abuse including domestic violence.

I found that the biggest problem, issue, and challenge that they dealt with was that they did not stand up to their bullies and abusers. The best question that I have ever heard a counselor or therapist ask their clients and patients relative to this was the following:

“What parts of yourself don’t you love that allows you to let this bully or abuser to continue to mistreat and abuse you?”

This question prompted many people to finally make some serious changes in their lives and to walk away from and leave their abusers.

Stewart B. Epstein

Rochester, New York