Letters To The Editor
AROUND SPOKANE
Cooney unfairly criticized
I am an attorney and have been for many years. I have served as a court commissioner and am familiar with the courthouse. Also I am a widow of a public official.
It has been my pleasure to watch Sadie Charlene Cooney grow (over 30 years in the assessor’s department). She took over the office at the most difficult time in the history of Spokane’s assessor’s office and has been an efficient and diligent assessor.
She has presided over changing the annual revaluations format from 25 percent of total appraisals per year in the County to 100 percent of appraisals in the same year.
She was compelled to accomplish this task without any significant department personnel increase. She has successfully placed over 1 billion dollars worth of new construction on the tax rolls since she assumed that responsibility.
She has met these challenges while also implementing an entirely new computer system.
Public official “bashing,” sadly, has increased and is no longer unusual, but her critics are uninformed in criticizing her overall performance on the job. Let’s learn more about this difficult position before we pass judgment. Kathleen M. Taft Spokane
Speak up for downtown project
The owners of Riverpark Square have recently announced that they are pursuing an aggressive plan which will go a long way toward renewing the downtown area.
As a downtown property owner, I have been concerned that the vitality of downtown is slipping. Vacant and neglected buildings breed both structural and social decay in a community.
In a recent study by Real Estate Economics (REE) of Bellevue, Wash., it was projected that without the Riverpark Square development, property values would plummet to less than 50 percent of their present value by the year 2000.
However, REE also noted that if the Riverpark Square redevelopment progresses they would double in the same time. It seems apparent that the latter option is preferable for downtown property owners, for the public and for the city of Spokane, all of whom will benefit from the increase in tax revenues.
I would argue all citizens who support this development to let their city council members know how they feel. Fred K. Viren Spokane
NATURE
Hunters help wildlife a great deal
In response to Christi Hunt’s letter in Tuesday’s paper dated June 6, 1995, “Quail raisers, get new line of work”: I believe those so-called immoral hunters hold a higher reverence for wildlife than those who do not hunt.
They learn more about their prey than most of the non-hunters. They donate time, money and resources to improve the quality of the habitat for all species.
Populations of waterfowl are on the increase due to hunting organizations’ work in the restoration of wetlands. The same can be said for upland birds.
The Walkers provide a resource to a growing industry in the region. A region that has had its largest industry also become politically incorrect. What will P.C. attack next? Profit maybe.
Most hunters across the nation are being attacked and labeled immoral by today’s political correctness. Is today’s political correctness just another form of discrimination? Michael E. Harvey Rosalia, Wash.
Differences can be resolved
At the Endangered Species Act hearing, subcommittee senators stated desires toward reworking the act.
Six-hundred people listened - about half defending the act, half against.
Eighty percent invited to speak were against. When a favorable witness testified, Slade Gorton, a member of the subcommittee, left.
Does this kind of action by our elected officials develop positive change?
His attitude created hate. He feels above listening to different ideas, whether Republican or Democrat, which speaks of ignorance and conceit.
Why isn’t the issue decided by citizens? The subcommittee wasn’t there for us. Their minds were made up long ago.
The sides have been labeled: developers, land rapists, conservatives, environmentalists, tree huggers and liberals. We are simply people worried about our families, our futures, our world.
If you love your natural environment, you had better act. Write letters, join organizations, vote! Make yourselves heard.
But, I am confused. I’m having a hard time with trust and brotherly love. Should I hate and fight, or accept and talk? We tried to talk at the hearing.
The citizens who want the act changed were polite and not aggressive toward those who disagree. And that is what we have to remember. We are different, but hate cannot save the environment or our families. The environmentalists must realize they live in a capitalistic country; and the developers that they decimate a system which must survive intact. Room exists for both. Everyone needs equality. The “sides” must come together so everyone gets what they need. Patrick M. Murphy Mead
Save rain forests before it’s too late
All developed countries should take responsibility to protect the rain forests of the world. These lush environments provide a substantial home for over half the world’s species and contain more trees in a square mile than any other area in the world. Yet these abundant areas are being destroyed at a rate that will diminish every rain forest by the year 2000.
Fires burn day and night, burning 20 million acres in one year, 26 acres every minute, a portion the size of a football field every two seconds. This burned land stays prosperous for merely two to three years. It then loses its value when the burned land becomes an infertile powder, useless for farming. Is all of this clearcutting worth it?
This is more than a local country problem, it is a worldwide problem because the rain forests provide oxygen for us to breathe and preserves our present weather patterns. Precautions must be taken as soon as possible. Meg McFarland Spokane
IN THE PAPER
If it sounds like a Nazi …
In her Spokesman-Review article on Tuesday, June 6, titled “It’s time we stopped using Naxi rhetoric,” Ellen Goodman asks for an end to political opponents calling each other Nazis.
She is correct in saying that giving that label to anyone opposed to your viewpoint will “cheapen history and insult memory.”
She is wrong if she believes no one now in the political scene deserves to wear that description.
Look up the topics “Hitler” and “Nazi” in encyclopedias, as I did. The description of the Nazis’ rise is so frighteningly similar to the extreme right’s rise in America, I wonder if it is being used as a blueprint.
Ellen Goodman asks us to “save the real words for the real thing.” A holocaust survivor interviewed in The Spokesman-Review called Rush Limbaugh “the joker” and said: “I don’t like him” and, about hate radio: “That’s how they did it in Germany.”
Limbaugh jokes about people and things he shouldn’t in order to trivialize and demean. Many right-wingers also loudly express beliefs identical to the Nazis’. That’s real enough for me, Ellen. If it sounds like a Nazi and it acts like a Nazi, do I wait until it kills me like a Nazi?
They mean to have the country no matter what it takes. If their hate radio propaganda machine fails, they’ll take another route, maybe through Oklahoma. If they succeed, it’s goodbye free USA.
Speak up now and don’t stop. “Too late” can come very quickly. Bill Quinn Spokane
Duck isn’t funny enough for comics
After absorbing the bad and bizarre world and national news from the front pages, after reading the regional happenings and happenstances in The Handle, after suffering through the ramblings and ravings from local letter writers, and after perusing the disappointing offerings of television and movies, I’m always in need of a good laugh.
So, saving the best until last, I turn to the comics. Here I can be amused by the antics of Garfield, bemused by the pithy performances of Dilbert, entertained by the trials and tribulations of Funky Winkerbean, delighted by the homespun homilies of The Family Circus, provoked to genuine laughter by the continuing adventures of Calvin & Hobbs.
But then I reach the Mallard Filmore strip. I can dismiss the obvious fact that wanna-be political cartoonist, Bruce Tinsely, lacks even a suggestion of the creative genius of Doonesbury’s Garry Trudeau.
I can hold my nose to the reek of the blatant conservative goo Mr. Tinsely slathers onto his daily panels. I can even close my eyes to the novice drawing skills displayed by Mallard’s creator.
What I do find inexcusable, and why I urge you to move the duck to any place other than the funny page, is one overriding failing. Mallard Fillmore just isn’t funny. Russ Moritz Sandpoint
Don’t judge someone on looks
Did Taryn Hecker see me somewhere and then decide to write her editorial (Our Generation, May 31)?
I have green hair, my tongue (and many other areas) pierced, wear too-big pants and probably do countless other things to make Hecker think I have no “class.”
It doesn’t sound like Hecker bothers to get to know these classless people. She states, “you will be looked at in nicer ways if you use some judgment when you get dressed in the morning.”
Judgment passed strictly on one’s physical appearance? How shallow can you get? Because I have green hair, does this mean I don’t have compassion or respect for other people? Does it mean I am some unintelligent freak who couldn’t hold a conversation about current or past world issues?
Hecker may want to brush up on her research skills for her next article. Body piercing has been part of many societies for hundreds of years. Women of old English nobility used to pierce their nipples as a decoration of their breasts. Men also wore rings (these below the belt).
Evidently, I have no class. What about the guy dressed in his nice expensive Gap clothes who pulled a gun on me because of the way I look? Obviously, he is the better man because he dresses according to what society dictates as “acceptable.”
Get real. It was a petty, cowardly act and not very high on the class scale.
Class is not of the physical realm. It is compassion, understanding and the ability to respect yourself and others. It exists in people’s minds and in their hearts, not on their shirts for the world to see.
Pass your judgment only if you’re able to look inside people’s minds and hearts without speaking to them. Not before. Erik Johnson Spokane
Welfare system being abused
I’ve been reading the comments of people on welfare. They say they make more on welfare than they would if they were working.
This is a big problem of the system. It was not put into effect as a moneymaker.
This does not excuse people from standing on their own two feet. Where is it written that some of us will work and pay taxes and support those who choose not to work and pay taxes?
I have had to use the welfare system for a short time. I then went back into the work force to pay back society.
We all go through hard times, but do we swim in our own self-pity? Not those with any self-respect and commitment for a better life.
When I see someone using food stamps, you’re right I look into their cart! I am helping them pay for their groceries! If they don’t like the comments, get out there and earn it like the rest of us!
Quit making excuses for yourself. Becky E. Pope Spokane
We can’t afford unbalanced budget
When Richard Evans (letters, June 6) complains that the budget will be balanced on the back of the poor, he either can’t understand the truth or doesn’t want to.
The proposed budget calls for increases in spending at twice the rate of inflation. This fact cannot be ignored. How can it be construed that an increase in spending is a cut.
The agenda for the past 40 years has not worked. It has, in fact, made things much worse. We don’t have the money anymore. The American public has itself to thank for November’s election and the resulting “Contract with America.”
Remember, those who want the budget balanced are easily in the majority. As far as Mr. Evans’ contention that 62 percent of voters don’t care, remember that President Clinton was elected on just 43 percent of the vote. Since only 50 percent of registered voters participated in 1992, that means 22 percent of American voters put him in the White House. Michael Wiman Spokane