In their words
A selection of quotations from people in recent news stories, big and small
“Isn’t it interesting that I go out of town and now there’s a press conference on the raceway?”
– Spokane County Commissioner Bonnie Mager, the only voice on the three-member board against the county’s purchase of Spokane Raceway Park, after fellow commissioners Mark Richard and Todd Mielke held a press conference to discuss plans for the facility.
“People will have a $500,000 home, but they won’t spend $10,000 or $15,000 to go into the forest and make it safe.”
– Retired teacher Glen MacPhee, talking in the aftermath of the Valley View fire about the importance of clearing a defensible perimeter around homes built in wooded areas.
“People who tell us that the solution to our problem is drilling offshore are peddling our addiction. The drug is oil, and they don’t want us to get off it.”
– Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope, after President Bush lifted a presidential ban on offshore oil drilling.
“It’s not a major problem facing the nation, but it’s an irritant.”
– Congressman Bob Filner, a California Democrat who is chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, after the House passed a nonbinding resolution disapproving of flying U.S. flags made in China, or anywhere outside the United States, over federal property.
“I really don’t like wasting my time with attorneys and judges and courts.”
– Developer Dick Vandervert, who is pursuing annexation to Airway Heights after the second phase of an apartment complex ran into trouble with county officials because of its proximity to Spokane International Airport.
“I think the message from this is if you’re committing crime and you’re foreign born, you’re going to be found and be removed.”
– Seattle Field Office Director Neil Clark, of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service, attributing a record-breaking pace of deportations in the Pacific Northwest to a crackdown on illegal aliens with criminal records.
“I’m sad and just really disappointed the cycling community immediately decided that someone driving a car was a bad guy.”
– Cycling enthusiast Colin Yates, who was behind the wheel of a car when he had a run-in in Portland with a drunken bicycle rider, leading many in a crowd that gathered to conclude the motorist was to blame, even though it was the cyclist who assaulted Yates.