I have just read Jerry Smetzer’s My Turn (Empire, April 8, 2013) on the gun range appeal and quite frankly, don’t know where to begin. There are so many inaccuracies. He postulates at great lengths on the Planning Commission’s duties and scope, then sums up with restating the Planning Commission’s stated position at the April 1 hearing. “Whether any CUP request is ultimately granted, or not, is a matter for the Assembly and Law, not the Planning Commission.” He is right.

By most accounts, $4 million is a lot of money, and anyone who complains about being given $4 million would be more than a little ungrateful. I am not ungrateful; however, considering some of the other ways the Legislature has decided to spend money this year, I can hardly believe the Senate Capital Budget includes only $4 million for Sitka’s Blue Lake hydropower expansion.

I read with shock and disgust today’s article, “Football camp video shows adult boxing player unconscious” (April 7, 2013, by Klas Stolpe). Though we do not know the Weir family personally, our hearts ache for them.

The existence of the video, and the apparently significant eyewitness corroboration, pose several critical questions:

(A.) Why did this occur?

(B.) Was this a school-sanctioned &/or funded trip?

(C.) What type of ongoing oversight exists for so-called “Assistant Coaches”?

I am a licensed physician in Alaska and practiced in Juneau since 1993.  Discrimination has been reported to me in clinical exam rooms numerous times by gay and lesbian individuals. 

For example, a teen girl was humiliated and thrown out of a local Juneau restaurant because she kissed her girlfriend inside the restaurant. She and her girlfriend were told to never return to the restaurant again. With her parents blessings the girl ultimately moved away from Juneau after she reached 18 partly because Alaska was an unfriendly and unsupportive place for her.