Letters To The Editor

GOVERNING SPOKANE

Let’s make these good changes

One hundred years ago our community’s laws dealt with horses and buggies, dirt streets and saloons. The government structure worked then, but our society has changed. It’s time to redraw our government to deal with today’s challenges.

The unified city-county charter, drafted by elected freeholders over the past 2 years, will change many things for the better and provide us with local control.

The charter should save money by ending costly duplication in management of services. At nearly every level, city and county governments provide the same services. The charter will make local government more efficient by unifying these departments. The cost savings are obvious.

The charter will give all of us the best local representation we’ve ever had. Instead of three partisan county commissioners elected countywide and seven nonpartisan city council members elected at large, we’ll have 13 nonpartisan city-county council members elected by district. They will represent approximately 30,000 citizens each.

The charter requires a people’s vote on any new state-approved local-option taxes. It will give all citizens the right to initiative and referendum powers. It will create a single voice on all major issues, including grant and loan requests and legislation pending in Olympia and Washington, D.C.

The charter will eliminate competition between the two local governments. Our county desperately needs a structure that will provide a more cooperative spirit.

The charter will be reviewed after five years, then every 10 years, making changes possible.

We feel strongly that the charter is a positive step toward more efficient and effective government. Tracy and Leta Walters Greenbluff

Charter favors commercial interests

I’m opposed to the Spokane city-county charter. From an economic position, it’s more partial to business as usual. Only more so, as they mainly can lobby the fulltime, $85,000-per-year city- county executive to execute their overall county regional requests.

The presumably 13-member, part-time council at $18,500 each per year can be assumed as just the part-time help.

Capital has no allegiance to any city, county state or nation. It’s free to flow to any part of the world. It can leave any region, leaving taxpayers holding the bag for business failure. The former Soviet Union’s constitution looked perfect on paper, yet the masses were slaves and now carry the burden of failure.

I question the charter legality from a constitutional and common law point of view. Common law was abolished in this country in 1934 under the federal Rules of Civil Procedure Act. American constitutional government was essentially abolished by Congress in 1933, under the New Deal Roosevelt presidency. The states were obliterated and are subservient to the federal government.

This charter is just another nail into the coffin of the set-aside freedom rights of taxpaying residents.

Look at your dollar bill. Take a good look at the pyramid with the eye one top. Read, “Novus Ordo Seclorum” better known as the New World Order. Beware! Joseph V. Paulus Spokane

Charter would not reduce plowing

The Spokane city-county charter merges the two public works departments presently responsible for road maintenance and snowplowing. Each department presently has a seven-day snowplowing program. If there’s no additional snow, all streets within the city and county are plowed within seven days.

The merger will eliminate duplicate management. It won’t adversely affect the snowplowing programs of either department, since they’re already properly staffed for similar plowing cycles.

The proposed city-county charter will reduce the management structure and provide the same level of service. It will provide for joint purchasing programs and allocation of equipment and personnel if an emergency should develop.

Vote for the city-county charter. Joan Lewis Spokane

PLAYING BALL

Better to have saved Interlake

I don’t understand how the governor has any right to ask everyone of the state of Washington to pay for a new Kingdome. Just because the Mariners have been good at baseball this year?

I want to know how come the great governor didn’t ask the taxpayers? Why didn’t he use that state money he claims to now have to keep Interlake School open? Interlake was the best. The residents got quality care, and we lost.

No governor deserves the right to use excess state money or taxpayers’ money for another Kingdome, when the first one lacked regular maintenance, over keeping a special place and home like Interlake School for very special people of this world. This is absolutely outrageous. Carol K. Lee Davenport, Wash.

Sport tycoons gain as disabled wait

Take me out to the ball game.

I am so proud of our lawmakers. I admire their creativity. I admire the speed with which they reached an agreement. They can make bipartisan decisions.

Now, will they give the same focus, energy and creativity toward the drastic federal cuts that they are faced with, in behalf of people with disabilities?

Sen. James West’s political career will probably be over because he chose to not be hypocritical. On KXLY talk radio, I asked Sen. Nita Rinehart, D-Seattle, chairwoman of the Ways and Means Committee, what her position was on this topic. A wait-and-see attitude was her response.

However, when it comes to the Mariners’ stadium, she said “I don’t think K-12 schools can pack up and leave anytime soon.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if people with disabilities could threaten to not be disabled anymore? Sen. Bob McCaslin was quoted, “If anyone threatens to leave, I say, have a nice trip.” Too bad he was excused from voting.

At a Sept. 28 town hall meeting that featured Reps. Dennis Dellwo and Lisa Brown and Sen. John Moyer, their response to funding for people with disabilities was also “wait and see.”

Sen. Moyer said, “We are broke. You will just have to do more.”

Parents and care givers, how do you feel about that? Pauline Neill Otis Orchards

GRASS-FIELD BURNING

Pro-burning logic flawed

I was greatly offended by the guest column by Ellen Wright, the grass grower’s wife who has asthma but nevertheless helps her husband torch his fields every year.

She receives money for her increased suffering. The rest of the 40,000 or so people in the county who have respiratory problems and suffer as a result of field burning not only receive no financial reward, they are made to pay for increased medication, doctor visits and hospitalization. The price paid by those children with cystic fibrosis and asthma is too great to calculate.

No one with asthma or respiratory illness is blaming grass growers for their condition. Grass smoke is just one more thing that makes them suffer. Wright’s attitude is that since these people are sick at other times during the year, they might as well be sick for seven weeks every summer, too.

If Wright does not want to be labeled an unfeeling bozo, she should convince her husband to adopt alternatives to burning. At the very least, she should donate some of that grass money toward paying the staggering medical expenses incurred by those forced to breathe her garbage. J. Depriest Spokane

BUSINESS

Boeing PR can’t change truth

If you tell a lie loud enough and often enough, people may begin to believe it. Boeing has an excellent PR machine, full-page newspaper ads and all.

Boeing’s credibility is high - outside its gates. Inside, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Union members and the “Boeing Family” know better. We don’t buy the lie.

Remember when Boeing used to say, “Boeing is subcontracting and off-loading to stabilize employment and get through the peaks and valleys of a cyclic industry?” Today, tens of thousands of lost jobs later, Boeing says, “Subcontracting and off-loading work (that for 60 years has been done by Machinists’ union members) creates jobs here in the United States.”

OK, Boeing, war is peace, less is more and 2 plus2 equals 5 - not! We don’t believe you, and neither should the public any longer.

This contract is a crossroads for the well-being of our families, our community and for America’s aerospace industrial base. The Machinists’ union is united, committed and strong. We built Boeing’s legend; stop off-loading our future. David L.Clay, Machinist Snohomish, Wash.

Ban would cost businesses

We were astonished that Spokane County Health District considered a total ban on smoking in Spokane’s restaurants, bars, taverns and lounges. Can you imagine what such a ban would do to these businesses?

This is still the “land of the free” isn’t it? Cigarettes are still legal. Why forbid residents, tourists and visitors the solace of a cigarette over a cup of coffee in a restaurant or over a beer in a tavern?

If those health board members are successful, then let them plan to distribute those unused thousands of ashtrays to outside smokers. Then, no more butts all over the sidewalks and streets. Myra M. Crocker Spokane

Let’s Balkanize our restaurants

I feel another room is appropriate for smokers; however, many people who wish to dine out are also denied the right of enjoyment, because of unruly children who create stressful situations.

The majority of diners are subjected to crying, screaming, food- and /or dish-throwing tantrums, etc. These parents also allow their children to run here and there, stopping to bother people who are attempting to eat and visit. We also must try to ignore diaper changing in booths.

All this obnoxious behavior is mentally frustrating and physically nauseating, to the point of making it impossible to eat. Having to leave and paying for a dinner which we couldn’t eat doesn’t lower one’s blood pressure.

Does this mean a third room is needed, for parents with children? Arlene Owens Spokane

IN THE PUBLIC EYE

Wrong to ‘belittle’ activist

The failure of her attackers to apologize through the news media has aroused our disgust. Mamie Picard’s polite soft-spoken message

demonstrates the characteristics of a refined lady who possesses a distinctive, excellent mind.

Her vision of the great American dream affecting the future of her grandchildren is under attack.

We acknowledge that Spokane business leaders likewise have a God-given right to further influence their financial success in all legitimate modes. All attempts to belittle Mamie Picard’s sincere character are dead wrong. Bob and Berniece Goans Spokane

Verdict aside, O.J. is a wife beater

Many debates will undoubtedly be waged for months to come over the outcome of the O.J. Simpson trial. Was he really guilty or innocent? Was racism a factor in the jury’s not guilty verdict? Was justice served or bought?

However, one aspect of the man and of this trial can’t be disputed. O.J. Simpson is a wife beater, and from her grave Nicole Brown Simpson showed us how wrong we were to put her ex-husband on such an exalted pedestal.

So, while many rejoice over the verdict, before he regains custody of his young children, as he undoubtedly will; and before thousands rush to buy his predictable book, I hope the public will stop and reflect on the true character of O.J. Simpson.

He may not be a murderer in the eyes of the law. Yet he’s guilty, beyond any doubt, of another heinous crime. Let’s never forget the pictures of Nicole Simpson’s battered face and her pleas for help. Let us hold O.J. accountable for the scars of his domestic violence. Sharon Conklin Spokane Sexual Assault Center

OTHER TOPICS

Barbershop harmony a cut above

I just finished reading Isamu Jordan’s review of the All For One concert. It’s a shame All For One forgot the first rule of performing: You are only as successful as your last performance. Audiences don’t forget a good performance, but they do forget a bad one. Soon, All For One will be all but forgotten.

If you really want to hear pure four-part harmony at its best, come to the Opera House Oct. 20-21 for the Pacific Northwest Barbershop Harmony Championships. There will be 15 of the best quartets and choruses from five states and two Canadian provinces competing for the 1995 championship.

I am a member of last year’s silver medalist quartet, Night Magic. We hope to be the first Spokane quartet in 34 years to win the gold medal. We need as many Spokane fans as we can get to cheer us on.

The barbershop harmony of today is not your father’s barbershop; it is better. With barbershop harmony’s slick arrangements, snappy choreography and quality singing, All for One could learn a thing or two about four-part harmony and how to please an audience. Mark Gross Spokane

Dellwo’s friends passed him by

Dennis Dellwo’s campaign for Superior Court against Judge Neal Rielly smacks of a severe case of sour grapes.

In the last four months, the governor has had two opportunities to appoint Dellwo. Since Dellwo, a Democrat, has been in the Legislature for many years and worked closely with the governor’s office on legislation, the governor is presumably well acquainted with Dellwo’s ability or lack of ability.

The fact Dellwo can’t obtain a judicial appointment from a longtime political ally tells me that Dellwo is not judicial material. If his political friends can’t see Dellwo as a judge, than we voters had better not be fooled into thinking Dellwo is something he’s not. Pam Simpson Spokane

Ban hazardous waste from state

In response to “Dawn prepares pits to take uranium tailings” (Region, Sept. 30):

I commend Dawn Mining Co. for cleaning up its disposal pit, even though it is for the wrong reason.

What is it going to take to put a stop to Washington becoming the nation’s dump? There has been enough contaminants put into our environment. Who knows for sure what all Hanford has put into our environment. We don’t need everyone else’s contaminants.

Do we let greed turn our beautiful state into a place where no one wants to live? By letting Dawn Mining and other companies dump their hazardous waste, we are sending a message that money is more important than our health.

No more hazardous waste in Washington. That is the message we should be sending. Scott A. Hilfiker Spokane