Mr. Baty: It is 2:45 AM, I just returned from the second call tonight for help. Twice tonight the volunteers of the Three Mile Fire District were asked to stop what they were doing (most sleeping), to answer the call for help from residents of the District. I cannot sleep, it happens some times when I am keyed up from a call, I figured I would use this time to respond to your letters to the editor, one on October 2, 2014 and the latest one on November 19, 2014.
Mr. Baty, in both letters you claim there is an “interlocking group of people” who are controlling “vital boards” in the Three Mile area to serve their own narrow interests. Mr. Baty, I must take exception to these disparaging comments. You may know I am on a couple of the boards and I am also the Volunteer Fire Chief. At no time have I ever made a decision or voted in favor of a decision that was in anyone’s “narrow interest”, nor have I witnessed anyone of the “interlocking group” doing this, or “using anger as a means of control.”
Mr. Baty, what I have witnessed from this “interlocking group” and from many other volunteers that I have served the Three Mile Community with for over 20 years is a desire to help, to make a difference, and to leave the community better than it was.
Mr. Baty, I have some comments and a few questions that I would like to ask.
1. What do you mean by “using anger as a means of control”? I do not see any anger from the “interlocking group”, what I see are decision that perhaps not everyone agrees with. I agree that the Fire Stations are public property paid for by Three Mile property owners, no one has ever said differently. They are, however, Fire Stations, not parking lots, playgrounds or places for people to loiter. The board of Directors of the district made a decision to protect the people who are being transferred from one ambulance to another in front of the station, to protect the children who were being dropped off in the parking lot, sometimes being left unattended until someone came and picked them up and to protect the volunteers who respond to the station. This decision was made after several attempts to control the use of the fire department parking lot by having conversations with the school districts.
2. What information do you have that allows you to make a statement of fact that the “Three Mile Gravity system is owned by the Bitterroot Irrigation District and the district is legally required to operate and maintain it?” I have read every piece of paper that anyone will give me on the agreement between the District (the Sponsor) and SCS and I disagree with your comment. I feel compelled to note, if we follow your logic used to support ownership of the Fire Stations, then the users of the Gravity System, who paid for it, own it. I do not see any anger from the BRID Board when they give their opinion on the agreement. I see a Board that is tying to protect all the users of the Big Ditch and of the Gravity system.
3. The residents of the Three Mile Area showed an interest in a Community Center. If they do not want to “fork out $450,000” to build a building, then they should not. However, your comment, presented again as a “fact”, that “contractors associated with the interlocking group of people can make a fat profit” shows how uninformed you are. Mr. Baty, had you attended any of the meetings on the Community Center, you would know that I offered to be the General Contractor of the building FREE OF CHARGE, any amount budgeted for profit and overhead could be used as matching funds and all invoices for materials and work completed would be paid directly by the Community Center. If you had attended any of the meetings you would also be aware of the services that other members of the “interlocking group” offered, FREE OF CHARGE. Please note that the Fire Stations that are owned by the Three Mile Fire District residents, were built the same way. No one from the “interlocking group” was paid one penny for the hundreds of hours spent designing and building these buildings.
Mr. Baty, I do not see any “Snarling” or use of “Anger” as a means of control. I see a group of individuals who have given freely of their time, equipment, skills and energy to better the community in which they live. I am so thankful for these people and you should be, too, even though you have written mean and disparaging things about them, they continue to volunteer their services.
Russ Giese
Three Mile Community Volunteer