Save anger for ballot

In today’s economic climate with record unemployment levels and most families watching every penny to make ends meet, “Spokane’s fire battalion chiefs … voted down a contract concession that would have cost them $20 a month.”

Their income levels, published in The Spokesman-Review Jan. 9, are obscene. The next time a ballot issue comes up in Spokane touting that tired, old, worn-out rhetoric of preserving our precious fire department’s service levels, let’s all remember how much these “workers” are making and defeat the measure on the basis of principle alone. Don’t reward greed. Make these public employees realize how well they are compensated and give ’em a reality check.

By the way, we both work government jobs, one federal and one county, but are both rank-and-file employees. Our combined gross incomes for 2010 are barely half of what any single one of the published “top 10 earners” in the city of Spokane’s list make.

Brian and Connie Stolz

Spokane