Our readers speak

By The Standard Staff - 01/09/2007

Citizens urged to lobby

for preservation ordinance

I’m a member of a group called the Vernacular Architecture Forum, which is considering bringing its national

convention (200 to 350 participants) to Butte in 2009. These folks would come to Butte for one overarching reason — our historic architecture and its intimate connection with our multi-ethnic

cultural and labor history, which has been recognized as of national and even international importance.

The direct economic value of such a convention is obvious; the less measurable consequences of 200 or more

visitors going home and telling their friends and families about Butte will also be huge and even longer-lived. And two years of promotion in the run-up to the convention won’t hurt either.

In March, some of us are going to this year’s VAF meeting in Savannah, Ga., where we must make a final pitch to the VAF Board to convince them to bring their meeting to Butte. It would really be nice if we could report that the nation’s largest National Historic Landmark District also has a

comprehensive and intelligent historic preservation ordinance.

The proposed Butte-Silver Bow

historic preservation ordinance, first presented last November, is now

languishing in a local government

committee. I encourage all Butte citizens, from Walkerville to the Flat, from the East Ridge to Whiskey Gulch, to become familiar with this proposed statute that can be so beneficial to

saving our astonishing history, and so vital to future economic development.

I urge you to contact your county commissioner to encourage him or her to quickly move the ordinance out of committee and to a vote. Butte’s future lies in its rich past. The richest hill on earth is rich in much more than

minerals, and we must look forward to mining our history and heritage as a means of expanding the local economy, creating jobs, and fostering pride in and proper development of one of the most exceptional historic sites in the United States.

Richard I. Gibson

301 N. Crystal

Butte

Climbers should not put rescue workers at risk

According to his article in last Thursday’s Montana Standard (Outdoors, page C1), “mountaineer” Dave Johnson believes that those who drive on icy Continental Drive are

bigger risk takers than he. He is correct when he says that sometimes regular life is riskier than climbing a mountain. The reality is that some people live or work near Continental Drive and so must assume the risk of driving on it. Driving is a necessary risk of American life.

Johnson’s article quotes recent Mount Hood climber, Kelly James, as saying, “When his time came, he wanted to go out on the mountain.” That really doesn’t sound all that pleasant; however, if that is the wish, does one have to put other people’s lives at risk in order to save theirs? Or (force people to) brave dangerous conditions just to haul a dead body down from some mountain?

I have seen televised interviews with rescue workers who were not happy with those “extreme sport enthusiasts” it was necessary to rescue. Often times, rescue workers have families with whom they, too, would like to spend a few more years. Who can forget the frightening and disturbing film footage of rescuers crashing and rolling in their helicopter a few years ago on Mount Hood, as they attempted to pluck several stranded mountain climbers off its icy slope?

Yes, regular life is risky enough … so go climb a mountain, but please don’t put anyone else’s life at risk as you attempt to climb or die for who knows what noble reason.

Robin Ely

545 N. Franklin

Butte

Pool temperature too cold even for lap swimming

Anyone going to the YMCA pool to swim can hardly stand to swim in it, as it is so cold! Even though people have complained, they still keep the temperature about 78 degrees. Everyone I know has complained about it. I get so cold that my bones actually hurt and I can’t get warm for hours.

People I have talked to who use the pool say what good is it if one can’t stand to get into it? I swim laps, but I get so cold, I have to go to the other pool and can’t really get in a good exercise workout. This is the only exercise I can get, due to arthritis, and complaining does not do any good. I wonder if the administrators wonder why it is not used a lot. Maybe because it is too cold.

Also, where the water meets the edge is really dirty. Please complain to Samantha Collier and maybe if enough people do, she will finally turn up the heat.

Pat Dixon

3032 Kennedy

Butte