Letter to the Editor for Oct. 26, 2021

Published 2:45 pm Monday, October 25, 2021

Let’s not start name-calling over a train horn, please. A letter from Cynthia Roberts stated “The city council routinely approves projects that the majority might not support.” What a sad and shameful statement to make. She said that “McQuisten, Dixon, and Waggoner showed a lack of integrity by requesting a majority vote on a ballot measure for the quiet zone project.” That tells me who really lacks integrity and who really has it. I am disturbed when the mayor and councilors are called out when they are trying to do the right thing. Mayor McQuisten and Councilors Dixon and Waggoner understand that they work for the people. All they asked for was a majority vote regarding the quiet zone.

Others think they have all the answers about what’s best for the city and they don’t have to involve the public. Jayson Jacoby’s article made a lot of sense to me and if this issue is put to a vote and doesn’t cost the taxpayers, I might go for it. But frankly, I believe that if at all possible we should always hear other people’s views, and this is mine: Residents of Baker City have been plagued at other times by folks who want change and think they know best. Now they have focused on “harmful train horns.” They are trying to explain the need to quiet train horns in order to save the children. Of course, no one would want to continue harming the children the way it’s been done for years and years. We must feel guilty now.

Perhaps these irritated people would be better suited for a town I once resided in and have since visited. I was kept up literally from dusk until dawn and beyond with the screaming sirens and police helicopters slinking up and down driveways with their search lights on. All bigger cities have these noises to contend with. Maybe these folks are new here and have not yet learned how to adjust to country living. I imagine the trains have been rolling through Baker City since before the school in South Baker, and, by the way, the children have been growing up here with the sound of trains and their horns for decades and they are doing just fine in the world.

Perhaps the people who are unable to tolerate train horns and who live in fear that they are harmful to the population haven’t been here long enough to join the foolish group that tried to ban the roosters that crow in the morning? I suggest they look them up and form a group that could identify annoying reasons to leave this lovely, quiet little town to those who enjoy things the way they are.

Barbara Rockenbrant

Baker City

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