Letters To The Editor

Sam Angove great for parks

Now that the park season is here again. I am reminded of the dedication of past park director Sam Angove.

I would like to take time out to say thanks to the greatest park director we have had in Spokane County. Sam Angove has been “Mr. Park” for as long as we have lived here in the Valley - some 30 years.

He was always available on the spot to fix anything our parks needed. He was dedicated to the county having a great park system and he accomplished that with the limited resources that were given him. he worked miracles with few funds.

I think Orchard Avenue Park should be renamed Sam Angove Park in his honor.

When we first came to the Valley, there were only two or three parks. Sam changed that. We had no swimming pools. He would have been able to do much more if he had had the funds and backing of the powers that be.

My hat is off to you, Sam, for a job well done. May you enjoy your canoeing down the quiet streams and rivers in your retirement. Dorothy M. Knechtel Spokane

Leave well enough alone

I would like to open the eyes of a few people in the area of the proposed new city in the Spokane Valley.

The people in favor of the new city say taxes won’t go up, like they have in a lot of new incorporated cities. But with two major tax bases (Industrial Park and Kaiser) taken out this time, who is going to pick up the slack of money? That’s right, you!

Making the city smaller doesn’t help. No matter how big a city is, buildings for government offices, equipment for parks and roads, etc., still costs the same. You would just have less people to help pay for it.

There have been rumors that the new city would privatize a lot of services. But have they thought about if a private company bids XX amount of dollars for a project and it only costs X amount, where does that extra money go? That’s right, into the owner’s pocket as profit. But if the county bids XX dollars and it only costs X amount, the extra goes toward another project. Privatizing would also mean the loss of a lot of local jobs.

Some people might not realize that for some road projects, for every dollar the county spends the federal government matches that amount. They don’t do that for cities.

Do you think we could get some of the proponents who say taxes won’t go up to agree to pay the difference if our taxes increase? Probably not.

Let’s leave well enough alone. Instead of creating more government problems, we should work to correct the problems we already have. Please join me in voting no on May 16. Nancy Goehri Veradale