Watch your backs, Vidette readers

The demise of the Westport area’s South Beach Bulletin should be a wake-up call for the readers of The Vidette. The Vidette is likely the next intended victim.

Once the Bulletin’s long time local editor retired, I would have thought that the people who bring us the often sad and violent national news via the Daily World would have loved to bring us a weekly newspaper with a lighter tone and used their collective expertise to create a fun weekly. What happened instead was the Bulletin was stripped of its uniqueness and made into little more than a weekly sampler of articles that already were appearing in the Daily World. When those two bad decisions did not yield the desired results, the Bulletin was shut down.

A stated goal in a Bulletin “farewell” article was to recruit more South Beach readers to the Daily World. The best way to achieve that goal is to use clever, eye-catching marketing within a newspaper the local resident is already reading. The amount of effort actually put into marketing the Daily World within the Bulletin was amazingly listless.

Vidette readers must speak up whenever they see declining local and unique content disappearing or appearing less often. These are the most obvious signs of trouble ahead.

Bryan Doull

Westport

Re-elect Hooper for hospital board

I am writing this letter in support of Andrew (Drew) Hooper for re-election to the Summit Pacific Medical Center Board of Commissioners.

I have worked for the hospital district since 1988 and met Drew in 2008 when he was initially appointed to the Board of Commissioners. At that time, our financial situation was dire, and due to the recession, many hospitals were closing their doors. A new hospital was wanted and needed by the community, but due to the economy, they could not support a levy or tax increase. So, without increasing taxes, Drew Hooper was a member of the board who built Summit Pacific Medical Center, two years later opened McCleary Health Care Clinic and in 2019 opened the Wellness Center. We went from employing approximately seventy employees to now employing nearly four hundred. Three new successful facilities in six years, increased health care services to East Grays Harbor County residents without special levies, expanded job opportunities, while still offering the best and newest technology to our community.

Drew became Summit Pacific’s Board chairman in 2014. He is in tune to the community’s needs and listens to their concerns. He has been enthusiastically involved in hospital activities including participating in the Peak Performance Employee Wellness Program to improve the health of employees and soon will be available to the public to increase wellness.

As a successful financial planner, Drew’s knowledge and expertise has been a great asset to the hospital district. He is dedicated to the Summit Pacific Medical Center’s vision of building the healthiest community in the nation. We have been very fortunate to have someone of Drew’s caliber on our board.

I would encourage you to re-elect Andrew Hooper as commissioner to the Grays Harbor County Hospital District No. 1 (Summit Pacific Medical Center).

Joy Iversen

McCleary