Dear Editor:

I would like to say kudos to Town of Osoyoos Mayor Sue McKortoff for the fight she is proposing for keeping our high school.

I was pleased to read that the mayor and council have pursued  legal action as well as other alternatives if that does not work.

Our MLA Linda Larson could learn a valuable lesson from McKortoff about what it means to support your constituents.

Perhaps if we had an MLA who realized Osoyoos is in her riding and would have shown even any interest, other than her statement that she had no words of comfort for Osoyoos, maybe we would not be in this terrible place we find ourselves now.

I would also like to commend Brenda Dorosz, the founder of the Save our School and Osoyoos Independent School Committee, for all her hard work.

I was only able to attend one of the public consultation meetings, and to me, judging by the bored looks on the faces of the trustees, especially those who don’t live in Osoyoos, this has all just been for show.

I think the vote by board chair Marieze Tarr was simply to save face as she showed no support earlier on.

There is no way the school board should have this much authority to close schools.

There is also no way they should be forced to operate on such little funding that this becomes reality for any town.

Everyone in Osoyoos knew the trustees not from Osoyoos were obviously going to vote for closure of any other school, if it meant theirs would be saved.

All the talk was to close OSS and I still wonder why all options were not looked at?

Why should Oliver have two elementary schools and Osoyoos have no high school?

Now ask who will be next?

I do not even have any children in school, or grandchildren for that matter, but this situation just infuriates me.  I wonder where MLA Larson’s grandchildren attend school?

I also wonder if we can withold half of our school taxes, since we only get half of a K-12 education that those taxes are supposed to pay for.

That makes sense to me, but, of course, we will be forced to subsidize the rest of the School District.

I wonder how many taxpayers realize that those school taxes also go to help support private schools that most of us could never dream of affording to send our children to?

Now on something totally different.

Gerry Hesketh wrote a couple of weeks ago that it would be wise to raise predators to deal with the insect problem.

I have no idea what kind of predator species he would be suggesting, but I would just like to mention a word of caution. I have not heard of any time that the problem with the predators did not end up being a bigger problem than the one they were introduced to control in the first place.

Thank you.

Julie Wolter

Osoyoos, B.C.