Letters to the Editor

Letter to the Editor | Support Richards, Mitchell and Mello

Local politics is about public service: listening to and representing all constituents, recognizing and standing up for the common humanity of all community members — especially the most vulnerable — and seeking to meet the most urgent needs of the community you serve. The contributors to this letter have in common a deep love of Gig Harbor and the Key Peninsula, whether these are the communities where we grew up, where we raised our families and where our kids went to school, where we work and volunteer, where our parents live, and/or where we retired. Our care for these communities drives our votes for Adison Richards (Democrat, State Rep., Position #1), Tiffiny Mitchell (Democrat, State Rep., Position #2), and Ryan Mello (Democrat, Pierce County Executive) in the upcoming November 5 election.

A community thrives when everyone shares a sense of belonging, safety, and agency. A national extremist discourse based in division and distortion cannot hold here in Gig Harbor or the Key. A healthy community depends upon its members seeing one another as equals, allies, and neighbors. Mutual aid, interdependence, care: these are community values.

Our local elected officials are charged with tackling the challenges we face. To do so, they must comprehend those challenges in depth and in full by understanding their root causes, and by acknowledging and engaging with the diverse lived experiences of their constituents:

• Seniors on fixed incomes worried about rising healthcare costs and property taxes that could force them out of the area, or out of retirement.
• Working parents juggling multiple jobs to pay for childcare and healthcare, barely making ends meet.
• Folks rightly worried about the future of access to reproductive healthcare in our state, and the effects that a national abortion ban might have on them and their families, and/or on their ability to receive essential healthcare.
• Narrows Bridge commuters racking up tolls that make up too much of their monthly budget.
• Community members struggling with their mental health or with substance abuse disorders who need more support to get on their feet.
• Puget Sound residents with asthma or other respiratory or cardiovascular conditions who are forced to stay inside or relocate during the intense smoke of the summer wildfire season, and whose health depends on us collectively addressing climate change.
• Kayakers, folks working in the fishing and shellfish industries, ecologists, swimmers, and wakeboarders who may diverge on many issues but all have a stake in the water quality of Puget Sound.
• Folks who’ve experienced incidents of car theft or burglary and feel powerless, as well as first responders who are overworked and under resourced to address all of the calls they receive.
• Students and staff in Peninsula schools who are facing bullying and harassment on the basis of race, socio-economic status, gender identity, and/or sexual orientation, and who deserve communities and representatives who will show up and stand up for them.
• Public school teachers who value their students’ rights and mental health and want their classrooms to be places where all students learn, grow, and make their own way.
• Kids and teens (and their parents) in rural Pierce and Kitsap Counties who found online learning near impossible during the pandemic because of the lack of broadband access where they live.
• Parents, students, and first-time voters sick and tired of the epidemic of gun violence in schools, and ready for common sense gun control to keep students safer.

Adison Richards, Tiffiny Mitchell, and Ryan Mello have devoted themselves to public service, and have popular and evidence-based plans for addressing our communities’ concerns in the state legislature. They will represent all constituents because they see and care about them as members of their community. Mutual aid, interdependence, care: these are the values and vantage points we should expect of local politicians. It’s much harder to listen, to dialogue, and to build consensus than it is to dictate, distract, and deride. But that’s exactly what we should expect of local elected officials—that they listen and speak with care and do the real work of governance.

Let’s vote for folks who see us, who recognize the realities and challenges facing our communities, and who jump in to do the work anyway.

Joanna Donehower is a Gig Harbor High School graduate and overseas voter registered in Pierce County. She currently lives and teaches in Canada and takes every opportunity to come home to family and friends in Gig Harbor and the Key.

Kathie Donehower has lived in Gig Harbor for over forty years and raised two children in the Peninsula School District.

Ernie Donehower is a Gig Harbor resident, parent, grandparent, and retired Vaughan Elementary School teacher.

Jesse Farr has been a resident of Gig Harbor for forty-four years and is a retired teacher of Tacoma Public Schools. Jesse spends time daily on the harbor’s waterways and advocates for a welcoming harbor community.

Mary Farr taught in the Peninsula School District for twenty-one years. After retiring in 2013 she volunteers as a performer musician for nonprofit organizations that support education.

Gretchen Hodgins is a Gig Harbor resident, a graduate of Peninsula High School, and a retired teacher.

Hal Hodgins is a Gig Harbor resident, retired trial lawyer, and former president of Washington State Trial Lawyers Association.

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