To the Editor:
Your Gazette is certainly good reading.
Anne Dauwalter, Carver, Minnesota

To the Editor:
Hi!  Wunderbar!  Enjoy your paper very much.
Philomena Hesse, Edina, Minnesota

To the Editor:
Bob and I are in Bonita Springs, Florida, re-reading the February 2002 edition of the Gazette, keeping in touch with our hometown.  We usually can't find the fishhook, but it jumped out at us from the C.H. Carpenter Lumber ad on page 22.
We put the Gazette in the library here at our own Senior Living home to show off what a good hometown paper is like.  We're sending sun and blue sky your way.
Bob and Betty Batzli, Bonita Springs, Florida

To the Editor:
Congratulations to our intrepid mayor and city council on their decision to build a field house, with ice arena, in Diethelm Park.
The Victoria Field House will in-crease year round recreational opportuni-ties for city residents.  The ice sheet will support local youth's growing participa-tion in hockey and figure skating.  As we understand it, the field house will include locker rooms and a large workout center.  During the remainder of the year, the arena's concrete floor can be used for other indoor sports activities such as volleyball, tennis, soccer, or basketball.
The location provides room for ex-pansion as Victoria's population grows.  In the future, the city could add a gymna-sium, a swimming pool, or a second sheet of ice.  With parking, kitchen facilities, and several sets of bathrooms, the field house will be a great site for community get-togethers such as Bavaria Days, pan-cake breakfasts, business expositions, and wedding receptions.
Local government has a responsibili-ty to stimulate the social and economic vitality of the community.  City Council's action strengthens Victoria's image as an upscale, forward thinking municipality whose leadership works to enhance quali-ty of life and property values for all its residents.  --Chip and Debbie Kemppainen, Victoria, Minnesota

To the Editor:
March is Minnesota FoodShare month.  Minnesota FoodShare is an annual statewide campaign that works to meet the unmet needs of hungry people by promoting food and monetary donations to benefit food shelves throughout the state.  It officially runs Match 1st - 31st and is a program of the Greater Minne-apolis Council of Churches.
Each year the CAP Agency Food Shelf participates in Minnesota FoodShare to support its food shelf in Shakopee.  The CAP Agency Food Shelf serves residents of Scott and Carver counties who are financially unable to provide enough food to feed their household.  On the average, the CAP Agency Food Shelf serves 28 households each day and annually distri-butes 600,000 pounds of food.
All donations to the CAP Agency Food Shelf are appreciated.  However, please keep in mind there are specific items that do best meet the needs of the food shelf clients.  These items include canned fruit, peanut butter, baked beans, black beans, cereal, canned tuna, and macaroni and cheese.  Also, clients are often in need of basic household items such as bar soap, diapers, laundry deter-gent, shampoo, toilet paper, and tooth-paste.
We can't thank people enough for the donations that come in each day and especially during this campaign.  The food shelf wouldn't survive without its strong support from the local community.
For more information, call the CAP Agency at 952-496-2125.  Hundreds of schools, business, churches, and commu-nity organizations and individuals host Minnesota FoodShare collections of food and money.
Gretchen Mitchell Sullwod, CAP Food Shelf Agency
Carver/Scott Counties, MN

To the Editor:
I see tremendous value in having facilities like the Chaska Community Center within our reach.  However, the CCC is a Chaska facility and it most definitely favors Chaska residents.
Even though Victoria has financially supported additions to the CCC (e.g., the second sheet of ice) in recent years, we have been treated as second class citizens.  Victoria residents pay more to use the facilities than Chaska residents and the same amount as any other non-Chaska resident.  Thanks, Chaska, for the recog-nition of our support.
Chaska issued a referendum to build a new elementary school in Victoria.  After the referendum passed, land all of a sudden became available in Chaska and the location of the school changed back to Chaska and Clover Ridge was born.
How long do we want to continue being the weak sister to Chaska, a com-munity that sees fir to mistreat us like a big brother might pick on a little sister?  It's time for us to further the process of establishing our own independence and identity and to give our citizens first class treatment, not the second class Chaska model.  Our soccer and softball fields are steps in that direction.  The new multi-use facility planned is the next step in that direction. 
Building infrastructure is never pain-less.  It puts additional burden on current residents.  If I've learned one thing from 9/11, it is to get on with living and do now the things you can to make a difference in your life and the lives of those around you.  Let's stop talking and start building.
Has the CCC gone out of business?  Has Braemar?  Has Bloomington Ice Gardens?  In fact, I can't name a facility that has a hockey rink associated with it that has closed or been closed by its municipality. 
Hockey is the ticket to make this facility viable.  It is the paying customer that makes financial sense out of it.  Victoria residents needs to view the hockey tenants as the gift horse that gets this thing built to the benefit of all, and not the special interest minority.
Sincerely, Bret C. Bjerken, Victoria, Minnesota

Click here for more March letters to the editor.