MARYSVILLE — Jim Strickland invited the local community to take part in a National Issues Forum on economic opportunity because he wanted to foster a free exchange of diverse ideas.
But for forum participants such as Michele and Denise Olson, the issue was much more personal.
Denise is a former student of the Life Skills class that Strickland teaches at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, and she tearfully confessed that she’s had to cope with cracks in her teeth without easy access to a dentist.
Michele Olson and both of her children are coping with disabilities that limit their ability to gain employment, and make health insurance virtually impossible to afford.
“I’ve gone to financial consultants to try and figure out how to save money,” Michele Olson said at the Marysville Library March 26. “They told me to sell my car, when I’d already made all the payments on it. People with disabilities want to be a viable part of the community, but they’re treated like they’re disposable.”
Olson noted that many elderly face the same plight, in terms of a lack of jobs and affordable housing.
“If anything happened to my husband, we’d have to sell the house,” Olson said.
Fellow participant Michael Lockeheart advocated an adjustment in how we see “disabled” people.
“We have rigid ways of thinking about work,” Lockeheart said. “People with disabilities have abilities that aren’t in the spectrum of how we see things. We should create programs that allow them to be involved with the abilities that they have. The ways we think of each other are inhumane and inefficient.”
Retirees Randall Downey and Ken White lamented what they saw as a lack of understanding of the benefits of unions. White worked with unions during his 35 years in the administration of Everett Community College, while Downey helped out the poor through nonprofit organizations.
“Now that I’m retired, I’m starting to experience the poverty I studied,” Downey said, as he lamented the “inordinate” inequality of income.
White added: “Instead of an adversarial approach, that pits different people’s needs against each other. We should be more cooperative, by focusing on our shared interests.”
White called for a greater spirit of personal sacrifice for the common good, while Downey called for specific measures, ranging from raising the cap on Social Security to establishing a living wage, as part of a “shared burden of cost.”
Strickland will submit the results of the Marysville forum to policy makers in Washington, D.C., this May.
