Letters To The Editor

IN IDAHO

Sagle, hold firm on growth

A couple of minor skirmishes have been fought in the battle over who will control the future growth of Bonner County. The battle has only begun in the Sagle area.

Contrary to what Dave Reynolds (Letters, April 7) would have you believe, what is good for Realtors and developers is not good for the rest of us. The crux of the problem is irresponsible development in quest of shortterm monetary gain for the few at the expense of the majority of residents.

The cards are stacked in favor of the real estate development bunch. They want to see a comprehensive plan that is in line with their goals.

The Regional Planning Alliance has offered to buy such a plan with a price tag of $400,000.

A stated goal of Sandpoint Unlimited (membership includes leading Realtors, builders and developers) is to adopt such a plan and support political candidates who share their view.

Commissioners Steve Klatt and Dale Van Stone stated during their campaigns that they favored buying such a plan.

When the suburban zone amendment was being heard on March 15, Klatt attempted to craft an amendment to the amendment more favorable to developers. Failing in that, he cast the loan vote opposing the amendment. Commissioner Klatt is still solidly in your corner, Mr. Reynolds. Didn’t he recently take a trip to Flathead County, Mont., to gain more expertise in selling us on the bought-and-paid-for type of comprehensive plan?

The powers that be are playing fast and loose but the underdogs are gaining ground. Don’t give up the fight, Sagle. Gary Carlson Sagle

Sandpoint mayor out of control

The events unfolding in Sandpoint are hard to comprehend.

First, the mayor has taken over, in hostile annexation, a couple of areas against all wishes of the people involved. He is buying property for the city, going to overhaul the water and sewer system without a vote of the people that I am aware of. Now, he’s trying to sell property without a vote of the people - without even putting that issue before the council.

Has the mayor reached such heights of egoism that he figures he is our salvation until the second coming? Isn’t it about time to get this community back to a little democracy? You know, majority rules, and that sort of thing. G.A. Schoolcraft Sandpoint

Act to help Rwandan refugees

As the civil war in Rwanda and Burundi escalates, the need for clothing, medical supplies, and volunteers increases. Many thousands more people find themselves refugees without even the basic necessities for human survival.

We know this as we were there and saw the tragedy with our own eyes. We encourage individuals or groups (community, schools, churches) to gather boxes of clothing or medical supplies. You may contact us for shipping addresses and medical needs.

A special thanks to Ms. Franck at Farmin Elementary School for inviting us to speak with some of the thirdgraders there, and for her generous donation of time in collecting and washing clothing for the refugees. Kurt and Janet Kaiser Sandpoint

Sports prowess barely counts

A little girl couldn’t wait until high school so she could play fast-pitch softball. After all, she had the experience of playing fast-pitch in the Spokane Valley for five years.

She turned out for a Coeur d’Alene High School team. She was at every practice. She felt as though she had done quite well.

Lo and behold, they posted the names of the girls who made it and she was the only one who didn’t.

Why? A mistake? Or do you have to be tall and trim? Some who made it couldn’t throw, hit or catch. Now, what’s the best interest of the pupils?

Needless to say, she cried all day. Thanks to her classmates, she made it through the day. She said she felt naked all day. This is traumatic and frustrating when you know you are a pretty good player.

She was stripped, all right. What a tender age this is for a teen.

We know she is good and so does she.

Her mother talked to the coach. The next day, the junior varsity coach offered her a position as pitcher and stipulated that’s all she’d be doing. She told him she didn’t want to sit on the bench.

How could he offer her that when he didn’t know her pitching abilities? It was just a cover-up.

She’s now playing on a Coeur d’Alene fast-pitch team and they are wondering why she’s not on the school team.

Thanks to the high school, for shattering my granddaughter’s dream. Rose Hughes Spokane

Agency finally getting it right

Friday, April 7, marked a major victory for the People’s Action Coalition (PAC) and residents of the Silver Valley.

Sitting between a congressional aide and my son, Jim, at a job hiring workshop, words of encouragement such as “level playing field,” “we are here to help you,” “EPAfunded refresher courses are to be offered,” were spoken by government sponsors and contractors supervising cleanup of the Bunker Hill Superfund site.

No one present that day has attended more such meetings than myself in the past eight years. This time, the words being spoken had conviction and sincerity behind them.

There were charts indicating preliminary timelines for demolition of various phases of the cleanup.

It was obvious that Elliott Laws, EPA assistant administrator for Solid Waste and Emergency Response, is following through with his commitment to separate upcoming remedial work into smaller elements in order to facilitate local competition.

Bravo, Mr. Laws and others for responding to at least two of PAC’s five needs directed at cleaning up one of the nation’s oldest and largest Superfund sites.

PAC is continuing to work with congressional and state representatives to resolve two others areas that the community has addressed for cleanup: removal of heavy metal dust in homes and schools, and funding for diagnosis and treatment of residents who have health problems related to the contamination. Barbara Miller, director Peo<ople’s Action Coalition, Kellogg

Hospital choice: Stick to the issue

This hospital issue seems to have clouded our vision. Perfectly good wholesome people have been slandered over an ongoing issue.

As I understand the latest round of debates, we now have the right to vote on the continuance of the two hospital districts in the Silver Valley.

The petition circulated by Jon Ruggles only makes it possible for us, the majority of voters, to make a decision about these facilities.

I’m a bit confused as to why we must endure personal attacks when a fellow voter is making time and space on the ballot for our choice. We, as voters, complain when we are kept in the dark on these important taxpaying issues.

Now is our opportunity to applaud Mr. Ruggles for his tireless energy to make information available to us and allow us the choice of one or two hospital districts within Shoshone County. Shauna Hillman Silverton

OTHER TOPICS

Chewing hard habit to break

Tobacco companies say their products aren’t addictive. Well, I beg to differ. I started smoking at 17 and quit at 27. It wasn’t too bad.

A year later I started chewing Copenhagen. I chewed for 22 years and at the end I was eating almost a can a day.

I decided to quit. Well, it was a hell of a battle and took six months to accomplish. Eight years later, I still want a chew and am too stubborn to submit.

Look out, young people, you don’t know how you can be hooked. I admire the people of Spokane for banning the tobacco giveaway at the Bighorn Sportsmen’s Show. Each year I would pass by and say, “Well, what are you peddling this year, cancer, heart trouble?” and then dare them to say something. Curtis Rodgers Hayden

Loud prayers: Judge not

We read with interest about the church officials who seek help from the secular court to ban three parishioners who pray “too loudly,” who believe in visions, and who denounce what they perceive to be local examples of sin (Spokesman-Review, April 7). The story is particularly well timed, printed just as Holy Week began, for it reminds us that we all play our special role in history.

Perhaps these officials join the church elders of Siena, who attempted to remove St. Catherine from church because her ecstasies were “too loud.” Or perhaps they join Herod and his household, who slew John the Baptist for denouncing sins close to home. And what would they do to someone who came into their sanctuary and turned over the bingo tables?

We are reminded of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s story of the second coming of Christ and the church’s decision to silence him lest he disrupt the well-oiled machinery of the establishment. No doubt this will be done because his teaching might be “louder than the choir” and the microphones, or because it might disturb the children or the collection. God help us.

Let us remember, this Easter season, to pray for the powerful as well as the powerless, for the persecutors as well as the persecuted. Monique Lillard and Duncan Palmatier Moscow

Measure up to patriots’ sacrifice

Our forefathers were willing to endure almost any privation to achieve freedom and rid themselves of the tyranny England and it’s ruler had to hand out.

They founded the colonies only to be followed by His Majesty’s government and harsh demands.

To understand our forefathers’ determination to be completely free is to realize that the different colonies sent their men to join George Washington’s army.

Many of these men walked hundreds of miles only to endure great hardship and death without adequate food or clothing. Their enemy was in large part a well-trained, well-equipped British army.

Why were these colonial rebels willing to endure such misery? Patrick Henry said it all: “Give me liberty or give me death.” That was the byword of every man in that army who remembered what it was like under England’s thumb.

How speedily we have forgotten or really cannot understand the wonderful gift those great men left for our keeping.

We have shirked our duty as Americans. We have spent our freedoms like there is no tomorrow. I hear a bell of doom ringing, but there is a road back, a long, hard road. “Give us liberty or give us death.” Robert Root Spirit Lake