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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: Washington puts its best bid forward to Boeing

When Boeing spent $580 million in July to buy a South Carolina plant that makes parts for its 787 Dreamliner, quiet desperation spread throughout the state. Is this where the company would hire 900 people to build a second assembly line? But the more telling decision might have been when the South Carolina facility voted to oust the Machinists union. The frustrating aspect of this delicate dance with the aerospace giant is that the key factor could very well be an internal issue. Yet its decision would have an enormous impact on the state’s economy and other aerospace-related businesses in the state, including several Spokane-area companies, such as Kaiser Aluminum, Triumph Composite Systems Inc., Goodrich Corp. and Cascade Aerospace.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: Age limit for justices could use a review

Three years ago, Chief Justice Gerry Alexander ran for a state Supreme Court term he knew he couldn’t complete, thanks to Washington’s mandatory retirement age for judges. His richly funded challenger made a red-herring issue of that, but voters didn’t fall for it. Alexander won in the primary by a comfortable 88,000-plus votes. Alexander’s age returned to public attention this week after he announced he’ll turn the chief justiceship over to one of his colleagues next year and will serve out his term as an associate justice. Alexander has been chief justice since 2001, the longest tenure in that position in state history and a measure of the respect his colleagues have for him.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: We probably could have guessed that, study finds

From the Annals of the Obvious comes a study showing that wearing high heels can cause foot pain. The study itself gives us a headache. What possessed researchers to look into this link between uncomfortable shoes and throbbing in the lower extremities? Has there been pushback from the fashion industry, calling for an end to “junk science” and the slander against stiletto heels? Nonetheless, such a study will appear in the October edition of the journal Arthritis Care & Research. It’s peer-reviewed, too, so don’t try shifting the blame to stockings, poor pedicures or operator error.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: Fair escape is no reason to change longtime law

Legal scholars say the practice of claiming insanity as a defense against criminal charges is as old as ancient Greece. It matured under centuries of English common law, and the House of Lords formalized it in 1843 after Englishman Daniel M’Nagten was acquitted of killing the prime minister’s secretary. The doctrine has been part of criminal law in the United States from the beginning. But then one day, Phillip Paul slips his overseers during a trip to the Spokane County Interstate Fair and a chorus of respected voices – including Gov. Chris Gregoire, her secretary of Social and Health Services Susan Dreyfus and Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich – suggest a need to rewire centuries of legal understanding.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: Cantwell offers solid ideas on health care

Among the blizzard of markups to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee’s health care legislation, also known as the Baucus bill, are a couple of amendments offered by U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., that would go a long way toward controlling Medicare costs, which, in turn, should help control the overall price tag for health care. Without cost containment, reforms won’t have the necessary staying power, because health care inflation is projected to double current costs in 10 years. Plus, savings from Medicare are supposed to help pay for coverage for the uninsured.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: State should encourage vaccination awareness

With concern being raised across Washington about the availability of vaccine against the H1N1 virus, it’s hard to understand the stubborn lack of enthusiasm in this state for other vaccines against more mundane illnesses, such as chickenpox and measles. Recent reports indicate that for teens and younger children, Washington state’s vaccination rate lags behind that for the nation as a whole. But being average would be no cause for comfort, because the nation as a whole is well behind its Healthy People 2010 goals for vaccination.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: MLK Jr. road champions do credit to namesake

If anyone understood the power of patience and perseverance, it was Martin Luther King Jr. Those principles sustained King’s tireless campaign for civil rights in the ’60s, and now they have rewarded his Spokane champions in a cause of their own. A determined cadre of them has toiled over the past quarter-century to get a local street named in King’s honor, but they’ve met with frustration.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: Quietly held police fund flouted law for too long

Police often bust people who claim ignorance of the law, so it’s especially galling when law enforcement makes excuses. Washington state law says money collected by a public officer must be deposited with the city’s treasury office within 24 hours. Instead, the Special Investigations Unit of the Spokane Police Department took money from drug seizures and forfeitures totaling $5.3 million and funneled it into a private account for nearly 20 years.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: Smart grid offers leap forward on power usage

Once, when an appliance store ran low on waffle irons, the manager would order several more to avoid running out. Sooner or later, however, consumer preferences would change and the store would be stuck with a dozen unwanted waffle irons. Then retail wizards discovered just-in-time inventory control.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: Abandoning waste site undoes years of planning

In 1987 – a full 42 years after the onset of the Manhattan Project – Congress settled on Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the permanent repository for more than 14,000 tons of radioactive waste left over from the Cold War production of the nation’s nuclear stockpile. Twenty-two years later, that solution – along with the $10 billion to $12 billion spent on it – are being flushed down the drain. That’s 64 years … and counting.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: This month good time to pick up green habits

There are those who toss litter on the ground. There are those who drive without fastening their seat belts. There might even be a few folks who still smoke in the workplace. Those behaviors, once common, are now throwbacks to a set of archaic public attitudes. Fortunately, attitudes and behaviors can change.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: Racetrack purchase could burn taxpayers

Spokane County commissioners – Todd Mielke and Mark Richard made the deciding votes – took a big risk in purchasing the Spokane Raceway Park and surrounding acreage. But if their gamble fails, it will be taxpayers who are on the hook. The contract for track management is in jeopardy, because Austin Motorsports Management LLC hasn’t paid four contractors for work worth more than $1 million. About $2 million in work has been done to get the West Plains track into racing shape. When the issue of nonpayment surfaced in July, track operator Bucky Austin said it was a misunderstanding, with administrative snags holding up the payments. Don’t worry, he said, the track was on course.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: City workers who haven’t should offer cost savings

Spokane City Hall has figured out that the public wants neither drastic cuts in services nor continual tax increases, so it has begun asking its workers to shoulder more of the burden for closing the long-term structural deficit in the budget. It’s a fair place to turn, because the pay-and-benefits gap between city workers and the private sector has widened over the years. Wage growth among Spokane County residents has increased an average of 281 percent since the mid-1970s; most firefighter and police officer salaries have jumped between 400 percent and 500 percent. Benefits packages for city employees are also the envy of the private sector. More than 80 workers make more than Mayor Mary Verner, who voluntarily holds her annual pay to $100,000, though she’s eligible for more.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: Beer ban’s just a start for renewed E. Sprague

If the city of Spokane expects to polish the tarnished image of the East Sprague Avenue neighborhood, it’s going to require buy-in by the business owners there, including a handful of merchants who sell the supersize cans of high-octane beer the city wants to eliminate. While that buy-in includes voluntary compliance with a proposed Alcohol Impact Area designation, which would end the sale of single cans of high-alcohol beer, it also means a sustained commitment to making the street a safe and comfortable place for the law-abiding public.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: Americans need truth about war, not good PR

As the U.S. commander in Afghanistan announces a need to change strategies, it is imperative that Americans be told the truth about what is happening in that war. What we don’t need is another round of public-relations spin, like that delivered in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. One would think that the embarrassment of not finding weapons of mass destruction would have put the truth manipulators out of business. Sadly, that was not the case with the Rendon Group, a firm hired by the Pentagon to “analyze” media members requesting to embed with troops in Afghanistan. Last week, Stars and Stripes broke the story of the Pentagon’s contract with Rendon and how the firm carried out its work. This week, the Pentagon ended Rendon’s contract, thanks to the investigative work of the newspaper.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: Government meddling isn’t healthy for business

When skeptics start beating up on President Barack Obama’s health care ideas because the so-called public option would put private enterprise at a disadvantage, he is quick to point out United Parcel Service’s success at wresting parcel-handling business from the U.S. Postal Service. He needs a better analogy.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: ‘Race to the Top’ grant worth pursuing

Here come the school-year jitters. Will they like us for who we are or what we can be? How will we persuade them that we have changed and can change even more to fit in? Seventh-graders heading off to middle school for the first time? No, education reformers angling for a big chunk of federal dollars. The U.S. Department of Education has set aside some $5 billion for states that can demonstrate their commitment to innovations that can lead to better schools, but proponents of change are worried that Washington state will rest on the education reform victory of last May. They’re right to worry, because the changes probably won’t be enough to impress the Obama administration. But the state seems sincerely committed to applying for the money.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: Medicinal marijuana law remains too hazy

In 1998, Washington state voters approved an initiative allowing for the use of marijuana for specific medicinal purposes, but the practical application of the law has been hazy. Meanwhile, interpretation and enforcement of the law has varied widely from community to community. Patients want marijuana for relief from the effects of glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease and other ailments. Suppliers want relief from law enforcement officers who bust them for possession and illegal sales. The conundrum lies in the fact that the law allows for marijuana’s use with a medical permit, but doesn’t explain how it can be legally obtained. Before November 2008, it was even unclear what amount constituted a legal 60-day supply. That was clarified by the state as 1.5 pounds.
Opinion >  Editorial

Editorial: Post office must find new ways to cut costs

When e-mail caught on, U.S. Postal Service offerings came to be known as snail mail. But delivery wasn’t the only thing that was slow; so was the feds’ reaction to modern realities. Because of that, the Postal Service will be $7 billion in the red when the 2009 fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. The same deficit is forecast for 2010. The service is supposed to be self-sustaining, but the rapid adoption of e-mail has resulted in a dropoff in demand. Use of snail mail had plummeted by 20 percent since 2000. In the third quarter of this year alone, there was a 14.3 percent decline in business from the previous year. Birthday cards, personal letters, tax returns and billing have all been transformed by the digital age. The Postal Service is hardly alone in suffering from the effects of high technology. Newspapers and other industries have suffered financially, too, but those businesses have the ability to change and adapt. The Postal Service, meanwhile, is saddled with no-layoff contracts, gold-plated benefits packages and mandates that future pension benefits be financed upfront.
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