Letters Dec. 8

An open letter to Rep. Joseph Schmick

Normally, a state representative would be celebrating the news; WA Parks just allocated 6 million dollars to make improvements right here in our own district.

But I read in this paper last week that you’re going to try to stop that money from going through; you think it’s a mistake.

You’re going to do your gosh darn level best to make sure Tekoa, Rosalia, Malden, Lind, Pine City, Ewan, Ritzville and all the other small towns you represent along the John Wayne Trail don’t get a chance to benefit from this use of their own tax dollars.

And you made this commitment even before reading the budget the Governor has yet to release.

You’re doing all you can to make sure we in the Palouse won’t be able to get the jobs that these tourist dollars could create or the tax dollars these visitors would generate for our small cities.

You won’t make it easy for your constituents to enjoy the recreational and health opportunities a repaired trail offers.

Nor will we benefit from the immediate economic impact of construction crews in our small towns.

I respect your opinion that you don’t much appreciate the John Wayne Trail, but it’s an extraordinarily epic trail that crosses the whole state and ends in Tekoa.

At 285 miles it offers beautiful and dramatic vistas with almost every turn.

It is a rare ribbon of beauty upon which every Washingtonian may cross their state on foot, bike, or horse.

Two years ago you conspired with your friends and neighbors to close the trail to the public and give control of the land to them.

In the final days of the 2015 legislative session you secretly inserted a budget proviso to do their dirty work.

No public notice was given or comment allowed.

You hid it.

With a slight of hand under the table 6,000 acres of public land the State paid 3 million dollars for in 1985 was given to your buddies for free.

Fortunately, a miraculous typo thwarted your land grab.

I remember when you and I first met in Tekoa, Joe, at the Slippery Gulch Festival.

You were there all day glad handing for votes and you walked right past the sign that said “Welcome to the Home of the End of the John Wayne Trail.

I told you all about the work we were doing and how important the trail and the trestle are to our town.

Just two weeks prior to that conversation, Joe, you had closed trail in secret and you wouldn’t tell me to my face.

You just let me yammer on and on about how good the trail is and how important it is to our community.

In fact, neither you nor Mary Dye would tell anyone in Tekoa that day.

You probably figured by the time we rediscovered that our trail was closed it would be too late for us to raise an objection.

A done deal with no public recourse and a trail plowed under forever.

In a year and a half you’ve never apologized for that.

You never said you were sorry.

Not once did you say “Boy I really wish I checked in with you guys first” or “I clearly underestimated the support and potential this trail has” or “I shouldn’t have mislead and hidden my actions from you”.

And what funding are you really attacking, Joe? You can’t monkey about with the ROC/WWRP grant program allocation.

That’s four of the six million.

That’s a fund set aside special just so politicians like you can’t mess with it.

That four million is going for “the big three” trail repair projects.

It’s for the re-decking of the Tekoa Trestle so that pedestrians may cross it safely.

It’s also for the Renslow Trestle that runs across I-90 and to improve the trail bed from Malden to Rosalia.

In less than two years there will be ribbon cutting ceremonies at those locations.

No, just about the only way you can hurt the towns you represent this year would be to take away the two million dollars in funds the Parks Department allocated for new trail heads in Rosalia and Tekoa or the engineering studies for Rock Lake.

From your powerful position on the appropriations committee you can crush those hopes.

The most ironic part of your opposition to this trail management plan is that you are the one who asked the Parks Director to establish a mediation process between the trail users and the adjacent landowners to resolve this matter.

Many serving on this advisory committee were there because you personally recommended them and we hammered it out.

We talked fences, tracking trail usage, litter patrols, ranger service, weed control, and boundary adjustments.

Numerous compromises were made by those involved and a well thought out, detailed plan emerged Now last week you said the McCleary decision is the reason why Tekoa and Rosalia should not get a trail head.

Now that’s what we call a “politician’s tale”, it almost sounds like it’s true.

There is no way in hell that you stopping us from a having a toilet and some parking is going to solve Washington’s billion dollar education crises.

And I want you and the public to know we’re raising money too.

It’s not just parks that is fixing this trail.

Just this year alone our group in Tekoa has raised $53,000 in direct trail repair grant money.

Other organizations around the state are raising money.

The John Wayne Trail Riders Association has spent about $20,000 a year on trail-repair for decades.

Thirty-five cities in the state have taken the rare and bold step to pass resolutions asking the legislature to fund repairs to the trail.

Twelve of these towns are in the ninth district.

Thousands of Washingtonians are now circulating petitions that will be delivered to your fellow caucus members at their district offices.

Various newspapers across the state have written editorial statements encouraging trail development rather than closure.

At what point are you willing to listen to your fellow elected officials, your fellow Washingtonians, and your own constituents? In the spirit of Christmas, I’d like to end this on a positive note.

I’d like to suggest that rather than working so hard to defund the trail you instead embrace its economic potential and work with trail advocates like myself to make sure the trail improvements have an eastern Washington thumbprint on them.

There is no reason why, in the season of peace and new beginnings, we cannot find a way to walk down this path together.

Thanks and Merry Christmas.

Ted Blaszak, president Tekoa Trail and Trestle Association