Letters To The Editor

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION

Ball’s in your court, good people

Two years ago, The Spokesman-Review published stories about the infamous raid at Southside School where myself and another teacher were suspended. A lot has happened during those two years, including replacement of all five board members and the superintendent responsible for the Southside raid.

In addition, the Professional Standards Commission dismissed the allegations against me, the Idaho Supreme Court issued a decision that disqualifies prejudiced board members from firing teachers, the Bonner County prosecutor is investigating the accounting procedures that resulted in a million-dollar school district deficit, and four lawsuits have been filed related to intimidation and abuse of power of former school board members and school district officials.

Edmund Burke told us long ago, and it remains true, that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good ones to do nothing.” Steve Johnson Sagle

I question drug search rationale

I would like to give a great big thank you to A.C. Woolnough, principal of Sandpoint High School, for the recent drug search at the high school. I would like to, but I can’t.

After Sandpoint Middle School was searched, Mr. Woolnough said that he couldn’t do a drug search at the high school because of the repercussions that would come. I think that Mr. Woolnough and the school district, in all of their wisdom, have finally come up with a solution: Do a search on a day when students are at home. I ask the question, “What student selling or using drugs would warehouse the merchandise in their locker over a three-day weekend?” I would venture to guess that they wouldn’t even leave it in their locker over night.

Mr. Woolnough is reported to have said that the search was done on Monday so that it would not disrupt the education process. I wonder how much the selling or using of drugs disrupts that process.

I ask the question, “Is a drug search when students are at home an effective use of taxpayers’ money?” Or would it have been better to search the school when the students - and the drugs? - were at school?

I appreciate all school principals who have taken a stand to do a drug search with students present and are willing to face the repercussions that come from it. John Wood Sandpoint

GOVERNMENT AND GROWTH

Money flowing wrong way

For several years, I have read and been told that tourism is a lucrative business and that many cities, states and recreation-oriented organizations spend large sums of money to attract the tourist trade.

Oregon’s former governor Tom McCall invited tourists to visit Oregon, spend their money and leave.

Now I read in the March 8 edition of The SpokesmanReview that resort cities like Coeur d’Alene could assess a higher sales tax to make up for the increased cost of tourism under a bill (HB-356) proposed by Rep. Hilde Kellogg, R-Post Falls.

Please help me, I’m becoming confused. Is it possible we “locals” could be assessed an additional sales tax to help pay for this lucrative tourist trade? Robert Thomas Post Falls

Zoning officials did right thing

Three cheers for County Planning and Zoning Commissioners George LaValley and George Nadler.

The cheers are for their publicly questioning the decision of Kootenai County Commissioners Dick Panabaker and Dick Compton on approving John Pointner’s rezone of 150-plus acres on Ramsey Road from agricultural to light industrial.

This unsewered parcel, which sits over the Rathdrum Prairie aquifer, would be used for several machine and metal plating businesses. What might end up in the aquifer from these enterprises is disturbing to LaValley, Nadler and all who value uncontaminated drinking water. Further, LaValley has pointed out that, theoretically, that acreage could be subdivided into five-acre parcels, all on individual septic systems.

Approval of the Ramsey Road rezoning request is clearly a violation in letter and spirit of the new county comprehensive plan and of the public trust. I suggest that all area residents let Panabaker and Compton know theirs was not an acceptable decision, and that grave matters involving public welfare should only be made by elected officials with sufficient forethought, knowledge and wisdom - attributes both commissioners lacked the day they put the aquifer at risk. Denise Clark Coeur d’Alene

Avoid problems from annexation

When the Coeur d’Alene Planning Commission recommended to the City Council that it should deny the proposed 292-unit Blackwell Island RV park, it also recommended against its annexation.

Now, with the city facing the problem of illegally collected impact fees and considering a moratorium on all annexation, the following concerns regarding annexation become even more critical.

For several hundred people south of the Spokane River, annexation could mean an immediate 30 percent increase in property taxes upon annexation, urban levels of development filling in this rural area and further overcrowding of schools and roads.

For current city residents, it would mean less police and fire protection, overcrowding of schools and paying for oversized water and sewer lines to subsidize development.

One developer is seeking, for the third time, a permit from the Corps of Engineers and the Idaho Department of Lands to run a city-sized water line under the Spokane River to his controversial subdivision on Cougar Bay, outside the area of city impact.

The new Coeur d’Alene Comprehensive Plan calls for discouraging the sort of urban sprawl that annexation of this area would encourage. Petitions from this area’s residents - as yet unacknowledged - to the city of Coeur d’Alene and to the county commissioners ask that this area be removed from the area of city impact. The Spokane River is the natural boundary between the city and county, and that is what it should remain. Linda L. Erickson Coeur d’Alene

Annexation means cost, risk

On March 7, the Coeur d’Alene City Council voted to not impose an annexation moratorium on growth in the city. By doing so, council members ignored the wishes of the majority of their constituents - the people of Coeur d’Alene.

A moratorium would have given the city time to take a look at how to continue to provide adequate services to both current and future residents, especially in light of the recent court ruling that prohibits the city from collecting impact fees.

Next Tuesday, the council will hear a request for annexation of Blackwell Island into the city. Providing services to Blackwell Island will be expensive. The island also lies in a 100-year floodplain and, if flooding were to occur, the residents of Coeur d’Alene would once again pay for the incurred liabilities.

I, for one, am not counting on the council to make a wise and prudent decision on this proposal. Ann T. Johnston Coeur d’Alene

THE ENVIRONMENT

USFS shows how it should be done

I would like to compliment the Forest Service for a job well done.

The logging operation in the Samowen area on the Hope Peninsula is an example of how an area should be logged: no environmental damage, no overweight logging trucks tearing up the roads, no habitat destroyed and, in fact, in one area of Samowen, you would never know it had been logged.

The use of horses instead of a skidder and loader, and the absence of bulldozing made a big difference.

The Forest Service should give serious thought to logging all public lands in this manner. It may take a little longer, but that should not be a consideration when preserving public lands for future generations.

This should be the Forest Service’s No. 1 covenant with the American people. Lillian Cravens Hope

Craig repays corporate masters

If the American people need any more evidence our country is firmly under corporate control, Sen. Larry Craig has provided it. With his deceptively named “forest health” bill, S-391, Larry is amply repaying his corporate masters, who have contributed so generously to his re-election coffers.

This whole charade was carefully orchestrated from the beginning, when corporations like Boise-Cascade started their massive ad campaign last year. The “fix” was between the timber corporations, bought-and-paid-for political puppets like Craig and the timber industry’s adjunct, the U.S. Forest Service.

While supporting reductions in benefits for the poor, Larry has written a welfare bill for the timber industry which specifically states that forest management activities are not to “be precluded because the costs thereof are likely to exceed the revenues therefrom.”

Take from the poor and give to the rich, right Larry?

S-391 is also an environmental disaster. Ignoring the forest while focusing on the trees, Craig’s bill opens up roadless areas, old growth, critical watersheds, etc., to a massive logging program which jettisons fundamental scientific analysis requirements like cumulative effect review. Soils, plants and wildlife are shortchanged in a bill which precludes environmental impact statements and/or truncates review time frames.

Essentially, the democratic principle of citizen oversight is shoved aside in favor of legislative provisions guaranteeing extractive interests increased input into public land management decisions.

Sen. Craig apparently feels scientific and ethical considerations should be ignored when they interfere with corporate profits.

We won’t forget, Larry. Mark Sprengel Blanchard

Can’t bear Chenoweth brilliance

Rep. Helen Chenoweth is certainly a prize for Idaho - her latest gem being the statement regarding relocation of the grizzly bears from the Selkirks to Illinois. She contends the Idaho wilderness is not conducive to the bears’ survival. More likely, the bears’ presence is not conducive to business (read timber) interests in the area.

I can appreciate her ideas, steeped in common sense and wisdom, for without them our great state would surely be lost in a great abyss. Helen’s concern for the grizzlies will be duly noted in the program notes for this week’s Theater of the Absurd. Doug Michaud Coeur d’Alene

OTHER IDAHO TOPICS

Silverton hospital made difference

To those wishing to close the hospital at Silverton:

This week I was watching my granddaughter while she recuperated from a tonsillectomy. After her bath and pain medication, I put her to bed. Shortly, she came to me, beginning to vomit.

She was throwing up red blood. There in front of us, her life’s blood supply spread on the floor.

I called for help, and what a blessing. Within minutes, we were in the emergency room at Silver Valley Medical Center.

Julie threw up blood all during the trip from Wallace. I shiver to think of what might have happened if we had had to travel to Kellogg.

Dr. Christensen and the efficient nursing staff saved Julie from having to have transfusions. She lost three units of blood and the extra 10 miles or so could have been devastating.

I’m grateful that SVMC is open again, and if you went through what I did, maybe you’d feel differently about it.

Thanks again, Dr. Christensen, and all the wonderful nurses. Julie is much better now. Judy Delbridge Wallace

Women’s Center appreciative

The staff and volunteers of the Women’s Center/ Alternatives to Domestic Violence would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the people of this community for their overwhelming generosity during the 1994 holiday season.

We estimate that donations for this past season surpassed by nearly 20 times those for 1993. We were able to help provide Christmas gifts for 87 women and children and 24 families were “adopted out.”

Thank you to our many contributors. Christmas was a great success. Cricket Green ADV shelter director

THE MEDIA

Priggee, let’s make a deal

In reference to Milt Priggee’s March 12 cartoon about the two county commissioners in Coeur d’Alene:

Milt, I support both Panabaker and Compton for county commissioner. Your referring to them as “dumb and dumber” for voting to allow a machine shop over the aquifer is out of line and either uninformed or negligent as to what was allowed.

However, we in Idaho are reasonable people. So here is what we will offer your Spokane area to protect the aquifer.

We won’t allow this machine shop if you will remove one metal-working plant of our choice from over the aquifer in the Spokane Valley, which, by the way, is not yet sewered. Just close down and clean up the pollution at the Kaiser-Trentwood rolling mill and we will call it a fair swap. Dwight Hamilton Coeur d’Alene

Problem is not prejudice

I have been reading over the past several months letters to the editor which excoriate your staff for biased reporting. I have searched repeatedly for the alleged prejudice which these writers claim and must conclude they have misinterpreted bad reporting and poor editing for bias. R.C. Heehn Spokane

Serious effort downgraded

I am very glad that The Spokesman-Review let people know that teenagers actually can do some good (“Teens fast to support relief group,” Feb. 26).

However, I’m a bit perturbed that the quotes used were selfish and superficial. There were other comments made that were more thoughtful.

We did this to help the children who are starving to death at the rate of 365 every 15 minutes. We chose to fast. Most people in Third World countries don’t have the chance to choose whether or not to eat. We did this to make a difference. Heather Adams Spokane

Militia people unjustly vilified

Innocent until proven guilty. Do you know why this used to be the cornerstone of our legal system and now it is no more? Lies, slander, guilt, accusations and falsehoods take but seconds; a 30-second sound byte on the news, or a two-page article in this newspaper. For example, your recent militia piece.

To write a truthful story might take some time and research. You would have to read the Articles of Confederation, Declaration of Independence, federal and state constitutions, Federalist and anti-Federalist papers, the right to keep and bear arms report of the subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 97th Congress, plus stacks of laws and war power acts. When you got through with these, you would not have scratched the surface of what most of these militia types, as you call them, have read and understand.

If you knew how far we have fallen from what our founding fathers wanted for our country, you would weep long tears, as most of the people you condemn have done. When they stopped crying they pursued every legal means possible to try to help fix the system. As always, you people are too lazy and stupid to listen or learn.

People would rather complain and sit on their butts doing nothing while believing TV and newspaper accounts. In America, people are guilty until proven innocent. James and Sally McWhirter Springdale, Wash.

Goodman right about tobacco issue

Congratulations on Ellen Goodman’s recent column, “Tobacco backlash clouds issue.”

Having lost my wife three years ago to a tobaccorelated cancer, I am extremely sensitive to those who campaign for smokers’ rights under the guise of protecting our other freedoms.

I am also against prohibition; it will never work.

However, calling upon the tobacco industry to pay its just dues because of misinformation and cover-ups which have harmed many people is something I find to be totally justified. I was particularly pleased that Rush Limbaugh was exposed as a champion of the tobacco industry. I have been long convinced that this conservative knight in shining armor is on the take from the tobacco industry. It was refreshing to see a little exposure of the dirty side of Mr. Clean. I regret we cannot show the clips from Limbaugh’s program, in which he warns us all to beware of those who focus on the danger of secondary smoke - we may someday have to face the issue of the hazards of secondary fat.

Ridicule used to be viewed as a cheap shot. It’ sad that well-intentioned people are now being swayed by this lowest form of argument. John J. Callahan Hayden Lake, Idaho