Letters To The Editor

IN THE PAPER

Refugees’ story vivid, helpful

Thank you for sharing the process refugees must experience as they make the transition to a new country and culture. The only reason they are allowed to come to the United States is through proof of their religious or political persecution from their respective countries.

Your reporters vividly portrayed that the process is full of happiness and joy, grief and pain, confusion and rejection.

World Relief is so grateful to community volunteers, mainly from churches, who are so willing to share their friendship, material possessions and sometimes their homes to enable these new Americans to assimilate into our community.

Sometimes we are tempted to complain about people we see as “takers.’ Let’s first examine our own responses if we were forced to flee our country and start all over. We would be faced with similar fears of speaking a new language, entering an unknown work force and caring for the needs of our families.

The Russian people can be a wonderful asset to the Spokane area. We may have to move over and make room for those from other countries who have gifts and abilities to make ours a stronger community.

Thank you for sharing the picture of resettlement. Thank you to those who have exhibited open hearts and open homes. Linda Unseth, district director World Relief, Eastern Washington and Idaho

Shame on parents, not paper

Do (letter writers) Nancy Wrightington and Joyce Schroeder think that if a picture (boys playing with toy rifles) is not printed that such activity does not exist? Isn’t a newspaper’s job to inform the public of what goes on in our world? Would they rather a newspaper print only what society is willing to acknowledge?

The picture was a scene that anyone could have witnessed. The “shame on you” should be directed to the parents or guardians who did not find something less “disgusting, demoralizing and inappropriate” for the young children to do. Kristine Schuler Spokane

Refuse sex-based advertising

I agree with Jennifer Love’s Your Turn column of Feb. 25 condemning the style and content of the Deja Vu advertisements.

Continually we see advertisements for pornography in the back pages of the family newspaper while in the front pages we read about rape, child molestation and prostitution. The “Gentlemen’s Club” mindset which exploits young women for selfish sexual gratification also leads to abuse, pain, disillusionment and shattered lives.

The Los Angeles Times, which distributes over one million papers, has adopted a policy of no longer publishing advertisements for sexually-oriented businesses like exotic dance clubs and adult arcade/ bookstores. They looked at the intent of the message and what the business was trying to sell and decided that their readers are a more precious commodity than this particular category of advertisers.

I encourage The Spokesman-Review to maintain its image as a family-oriented newspaper by restricting these types of advertisements. Penny Lancaster Spokane

SPOKANE MATTERS

Make suggestions on access

The Spokane County Commissioners have approved buying and preserving 80 acres adjacent to Hangman Golf Course along Latah Creek. What a wonderful idea to put aside land that will remain undeveloped to be used by the public.

However, will the public be able to use this land? The parcel does not have road access but the County Parks Department says that hikers reach it by crossing Hangman Valley Golf Course.

There’s just one problem with that. The public is not allowed to walk on the golf course during golfing season and even now, when it is closed, there are “no trespassing” signs.

There are many walkers out here in Hangman Hills. They and anyone interested in having an area available to use for walking should write or call the Parks Department with any ideas for making this ground accessible for public use. One such idea is to build a foot bridge at the end of the golf course.

If some access is not made available, the only people who will be able to use this land will be the people living on the property being developed on the other side of the golf course.

Wyn Birkenthal of the County Parks Department says the department is addressing the problem and it seems public input would be appreciated.

Do you want to pay taxes for land that will be available to only a few? Betty Maki Spokane

Keep Mount Spokane affordable

John Webster, in his editorial of March 7, says that major improvements are needed for the ski resort at Mount Spokane.

Who else says these improvements are needed? No one has ever asked for my vote, and my wife and I are season pass holders who have skied Mount Spokane every year for over 20 years. We love the skiing on Mount Spokane. The best thing about it is that it is much more affordable than destination resorts like Schweitzer and Silver Mountain. We never hear any complaints from people who ski Mount Spokane.

We don’t think Mount Spokane should be developed into another pricey resort complex. I can tell you what would happen if “a competitive entrepreneur went to work on Mt. Spokane’s downhill skiing potential.” The cost to ski would go up dramatically. We don’t need someone to come in with big improvements.

There is no free ride, so let’s keep it affordable and keep it family. Dick McInerney Spokane

LABOR-MANAGEMENT ISSUES

Trust breakdown is the enemy

As a long-time professional in the industrial relations arena, I couldn’t help being interested in the recent Kaiser strike. Staff writer Bert Caldwell’s March 2 analysis was well researched and most informative. The general public desperately needs this sort of objective reporting to become better informed about a subject to which most people have only an emotional reaction.

Let me add a footnote.

Strike actions taken solely over monetary issues are extremely rare. An incredibly high percentage of strikes have been over internal practices which are perceived as uncaring, even hostile, and have the effect of creating an uncomfortable, unproductive work environment. The inevitable result is a lack of mutual trust.

While I’ve had no contact with either company or union for several years, it is obvious to me that this condition exists, particularly at Mead. Management would do well to carefully examine its internal management practices and make changes. The union, for its part, must be willing to accept sincere, legitimate efforts to change. This malaise does not cure itself; it tends to fester, like an infected wound. Strong medicine is needed.

Sometimes, unfortunately, local management is powerless, as in the case of another large company that no longer is here. In that instance, home office policies and attitudes prevented implementation of many wellintentioned management practices which might have preserved the operation.

Let us hope that the same fate does not befall Kaiser. The legacy of the corporate raiders of the 1980s will be around for a long time. Robert L. Burke, arbitrator Spokane

High wage workers more productive

I am responding to Holman D. Pettibone’s statement that lower wages on construction of federal jobs would reduce taxes .

Repeated studies have proven there is a direct correlation between wage level and productivity, that well-trained workers produce more value per hour than poorly trained, low-wage workers.

For example, a recent study of 10 states in which nearly half of all highway and bridge work in the United States is done showed that when high-wage workers were paid double that of low-wage workers, they built 74.4 more miles of roadbed and 32.8 more miles of bridges for $557 million less.

You forgot to add, Mr. Pettibone, that the high-scale wages include fringe benefits of health insurance and pension funds. The low-wage worker has none of these benefits.

Furthermore, when workers’ wages go down, they have less money to spend purchasing goods and making investments. When businesses close or cut back as a result, tax revenues to the federal government decline and social expenditures rise.

It is simply unrealistic to assume that driving down wages will be of any benefit in reducing taxes. Kathleen L. Bolyard Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Need is for responsibility

The failure of the balanced budget amendment to pass is of no consequence. It would not be in effect unless the necessary 38 states ratified it and even then a balanced budget would not be required until 2002, when our national debt would be increased to nearly $7 trillion unless Congress exercises the necessary restraint on excess spending.

Based on past performance, even with a balanced budget law in effect, Congress would devise a plan to appropriate money “off budget” to further the members’ special interests.

I pray our Congress, now and in the future, will act in the best interest of our entire country and save it from destruction. Ray O’Keefe Spokane

Media spew lies and distortions

Financial problems facing our country require sincere study and debate to find adequate solutions. The foundation for constructive debate is knowledge. Once one understands the facts of an issue, one can begin to formulate ideas leading to solutions.

It is regrettable the media are so easily swayed by political rhetoric that they don’t take time to learn and understand the facts of complex issues. This intellectual failure is too often exposed by the pen of (Staff cartoonist) Milt Priggee, such as his vitriolic cartoon of March 7 depicting and thereby erroneously validating the liberal assertion that the Republican Congress proposes to terminate school lunch programs.

Even an honest apprentice journalist would know there is no proposal to cut the school lunch program; there is in fact an increase. The debate is whether or not allocating the money to the states in the form of block grants is a far more efficient and effective way to provide this service.

But no, the media do not wish to debate this matter on the facts but rather to portray those who are honestly seeking solutions to the mess this country is in as insensitive jackals.

The media and this newspaper are justifiably condemned by people seeking facts and honesty. Until you being to objectively study the issues and then present facts, not just some politician’s or spin doctor’s opinions, you will continue to perpetuate the problem and not lead us to solutions. Thomas C. Garrett Spokane

Democrats shy from written pledge

Much will be made of the Republicans’ “failure” to get a two-thirds vote in the Senate in order to send a balanced budget amendment on to the states.

Little mention is made of several Democratic senators who voted in the past for a balanced budget amendment when it didn’t stand a chance of passing, then voted against it this time when it really counted. Likewise, little mention is made of a president who talks like Reagan on TV but lobbied behind the scenes to kill the amendment.

That summarizes why the Democrats can’t publish their own contract with America. The Democrats stand only for paying off various pressure-group constituencies. Putting their goals in writing would be embarrassing. P. Norman Nelson Colbert

It’s deja vu all over again

I submit a quote to the Roman Senate by Cicero (106 B.C.-43 B.C.):

“The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed. People should be forced to work and not depend on the government for subsistence.”

Somehow, this sounds like 1995. Don J. Eagle Spokane

Call, set White House straight

The president and his cabinet have created a recipe for disaster.

First, the president bailed out Mexico, against the wishes of U.S. citizens and the citizens of Mexico.

Second, the president reversed his position on balancing the budget, leading to the defeat of the balanced budget amendment.

Third, confidence in the stability of the U.S. government caused the dollar to plummet on the market, leading to the deficit’s rising more quickly, which resulted in the Federal Reserve planning to raise interest rates for the eighth time in the space of a year.

If you don’t like this recipe, I urge you to call the White House comment line, (202) 456-1111, for an explanation and to ask that the Federal Reserve be audited and that our money be put back on the gold standard. Cherie Graves Newport, Wash.

Hunger teaches indelible lesson

In response to “School lunch program too hungry” (March 3):

If you have never known hunger or looked through the eyes of a hungry child, how can you judge the free lunch program?

These kids to go school not with food but with pain in their stomachs. Sometimes lunch is their only meal. When these children grow up they will look back and be grateful there was a free lunch, and they will feel for the children if free lunch ceases to exist for they know and never will forget the feeling of being hungry. Vicki Nicodemus Spokane

Support enforcement inadequate

President Clinton recently signed an executive order requiring support enforcement for federal employees who fail to pay child support. No doubt thousands of federal employees are honest and live up to their obligations, but an estimated 3 percent dodge child support.

Where have our state child support employees been all these years? The state Office of Support Enforcement (OSE) attaches the federal income tax refund checks of ordinary people who do not pay their child support. The OSE attaches federal Social Security checks, even when child support is not owed.

OSE, however, cannot seem to attach the paychecks of their fellow public employees on federal jobs. This looks like a good ol’ boys club.

It is the same OSE which claimed, about three years ago, that it collected $21 in child support for every dollar spent on collection. The Legislative Budget Committee found this claim overstated by four to one. The OSE in Spokane did not even have an exterior sign on its office for years. Only after a citizen complaint went to the governor’s office did they install a sign so the public could find the OSE office.

In October 1993 the senior person in OSE was fired. The reasons for the firing included his wasting $64,000 of state travel funds, according to the Seattle PostIntelligencer.

Self-serving, sloppy work by the state OSE means more children on the welfare rolls. Greg Works Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Economics go against argument

It’s ironic that your March 4 editorial supporting legislation barring non-ranchers from bidding on rights to use public range lands attempts to justify that position with references to the health of the regional economy. Little, if any, economic theory supports that contention.

The market is a classic instrument for allocating scarce resources efficiently. If other economic actors are willing to pay more to use a resource, that suggests they can put it to higher-value economic use. Does it surprise you that environmental assets have tangible worth? It shouldn’t.

People value clean streams, wildlife and fish habitat, beautiful vistas and all the other environmental amenities healthy public lands provide. Apparently, people value these assets and other economic derivatives of these goods, such as tourism, more than they do continuing to use our public lands exclusively as feedlots.

No one denies the cattle industry adds to the total wealth of the regional economy, it’s just that the market is signaling other uses are valued higher. Now you call for government to step in and artificially distort allocation of the resource, just as it does with artificially low grazing fees.

The real issue isn’t maximizing the total size of the pie. The market is the best instrument for achieving that goal. It’s how the pie is sliced.

I thought Republicans, heavily supported by ranchers and the rest of the get-government-off-my-back crowd, were the first to tout the virtues of a free market. I guess it’s only when they’re not first in line at the trough. James Atkinson Liberty Lake