Letters to the Editor

To the editor:

Per the question of whether a daycare facility might be sited at Port of Columbia land, Commissioners Watts and Bryan resisted the idea that such a facility is suitable for a site more appropriately reserved for more traditional business development. That is a reasonable discussion, although there are many of us who see a daycare facility as providing not only jobs at the facility, but more importantly allowing single parents and working couples to stay in the local work force.

However, it was clear from his public comments that Bryan doesn’t think any daycare facility should be created anywhere because he believes it is the moral obligation of a parent to stay home with his/her child, irrespective of economic needs. Seems to me that Commissioner Bryan is out of touch with many of his constituents desperate for daycare.

Both Watts and Bryan publicly stated they could not support any daycare facility that was subject to governmental oversight. County Commissioner Charles Amerin has stated the same in a letter to the Port Commission and the Dayton Chronicle. This would pretty much eliminate any daycare from being developed anywhere in this modern era. The political concerns of these locally-elected officials are outside of the scope of our overwhelming local need for such a facility and should be addressed at the State and Federal level. They have nothing to do with whether a daycare facility should be developed locally.

These elected officials should not hold the pre-school children and families in Dayton/Columbia County hostage to either political or moral concerns. Neither are their elected positions bully pulpits to lecture us about such issues.

Fred Crowe

Dayton, Wash.