Letters To The Editor

WASHINGTON STATE

I-164: Let’s stick to facts

I welcome Dave Baker’s difference of opinion on Initiative 164 (“I-164 critic in error,” Letters, May 21). Public debate is healthy in forming public opinion. However, several of his claims are in error.

Baker claims, “planners don’t like I-164 because it requires a cost benefit analysis.”

Fact: A cost benefit analysis is not required. Planners will prepare the required economic impact analysis required by I-164 if it remains law. We always follow the law.

Baker claims that I used used county taxpayers’ time, facilities and computer to generate editorials to the paper.

Fact: Absolutely not true. I have no county computer in my office and am not fluent with county word processing software. My letter was telephoned in to The Spokesman-Review at 11:35 at night. No other activities are contrary to the law.

Baker claims, “Mosher says the Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) is opposed to I-164.”

Fact: That’s not what I said. I quoted from a letter from the environmental and land use law section of the Washington State Bar Association, which offered the WSBA’s opinion of a version of the legislation.

David, do your homework and know your facts. Thomas Mosher Spokane

Burning law defies public safety

For over 45 years the grass growers have been burning their fields without regard to the health risks of the public. Recently, grass growers persuaded our state legislators and Gov. Mike Lowry to enact a state law abolishing almost all restrictions on grass field burning.

This is in direct conflict with the 1991 Washington state Clean Air Act, RCW 70.94, which states that it is public policy to preserve, protect and enhance the air quality for current and future generations.

It also states that air is an essential resource that must be protected from harmful levels of pollution and that improving air quality is a matter of statewide concern and in the public interest. It is also the intent to secure and maintain levels of air quality that protect human health and safety, including the most sensitive members of the population.

Studies have shown that field burning particulates aggravate heart disease, irritates eyes, lungs, throat and sinuses, reduce lung function (especially in children) and increases severity of existing lung diseases such as asthma, emphysema, pneumonia and bronchitis.

We will never know the exact numbers of people who have died as a result of this.

Has this culture lost all sense of its priorities?

Please, don’t let the economic benefits to a few outweigh the health risks of the many. Cherie Rodgers Spokane

SPOKANE MATTERS

I fear for Girl Scouts

Who is going to take care of our young girls who are in Girl Scouts? Should they make up their own gangs now or go out and get pregnant just to be comforted?

Give the Girl Scouts the time and the money that they need so they can have fun as young girls to grow up to be good women. The Girl Scouts helps girls have fun, learn to cook, camp, etc.

Come on, people, wake up. If you are embezzling money, you are just taking from children. Mimi Cooper Spokane

First, monitor commissioners

The county sued over the Colbert landfill in the amount of $25 million. County commissioners settled the lawsuit for $2 million.

Were the taxpayers cheated out of $23 million? That’s a lot more than the $150,000 in revenue we lost with the county assessor’s rollback on hotels.

The county commissioners should hire someone to manage their office. Joanne Austin Spokane

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Apostle’s admonition becomes more apt

I must admit to becoming mortified analyzing the article on assisted suicide and “Doctors back taking organs from ill babies” in the May 24 Spokesman-Review. What on earth are we becoming? Monsters, I fear.

If we continue to let these issues and others, such as rampant abortion, eat away at the fabric of what’s left of our society, we’ll end up coming to nothing good.

Much like the apostle Paul said, in the end, people will love themselves, covet, boast, lie, disobey their parents, be unthankful and unholy, without natural affection, truth-breakers, fierce, despisers of those who are good, traitors, heady, high-minded lovers of pleasure having a form of godliness but denying that power and having no restraint on their being lewd.

What an indictment. Bob Spaulding Post Falls

We’re in grip of sex abuse paranoia

Bob Herbert’s (Opinion) column of May 23, “Schools sweep sex abuse under the rug,” is detrimental sensationalism. Herbert uses the documentation of two professors. In order for documentation of child abuse to be correct, they would have to have been at every incident to write the truth about it.

There is a paranoia in America where “trust” is becoming a word of an era past. The truth also is that children learn about child abuse in school and oftentimes blame another for something they have done wrong which has nothing to do with the person being accused.

My own life experiences have taught me so, and it was painful to live through. I well understand the pain our past principal and his family are now living through. Because of what has happened in my own school community, I am now afraid to take a child’s hand, to give a hug or a pat on the back to a child for a job well done. Would I be accused of inappropriate behavior?

Those in the communications industry, clean up your act. We no longer want your stories of detrimental sensationalism of violence and fear. Give us some of the modern-day miracles sweeping across the Americas in the name of Christianity.

To Dr. Don Andrews Jr. and family, I thank you for teaching our daughter more about respect, generosity and kindness. Thank you for teaching her to become the best that she can be. This is true sensationalism at its very best. Joan Henderson Spokane

Read of Holocaust, resolve never again

I am a high school freshman and I recently read “Night,” a book based on the Holocaust, written from the viewpoint of Elie Wiesel.

Elie was a Jewish boy living in Sighet during the Holocaust. He was 11 years old when he and his family were taken from their homes and imprisoned in a Nazi work camp. Elie’s story is one of horror and evil that existed in our times. His story describes the terrifying annihilation of over 6 million Jewish people. His story was real. He actually lived it.

I hope for this book to be read in the hopes that we will not forget what happened not so many year ago. I hope this book is felt deeply and understood, because it happened. Too often, people allow themselves to become desensitized with the constant violence surrounding them. I admit to watching the local news and hearing stories of murder and crime yet not really caring. However, when I read this book, I was stunned. I cried and struggled with simply comprehending that what I was reading actually happened.

Elie’s story must not be forgotten. History repeats itself when we fail to learn from our mistakes. The cruel and unfair deaths of so many people should be remembered. It’s easier to forget than to face pain and sorrow.

“Night” teaches lessons everyone must learn. My own appreciation of the life I live was transformed somehow after reading this book. It is not comforting, but the lessons learned are worthwhile. Meghan Laughlin Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

We don’t need myopic media

Thomas A. Lumpkin (“Courting radical right a mistake,” Letters, May 18) seems upset that the view of people other than himself have somehow crept into the pages of The Spokesman-Review.

In my opinion, it would be poor journalism for a newspaper to only voice the views of a single person or group. Since we do not all share the same opinions, this fact should be reflected in the media. In this way we can broaden our understanding of the opinions of others in our society. When a newspaper reflects the widely diversified views of society, each reader will find in it things he or she both agrees and disagrees with.

Mr. Lumpkin, I am sorry you feel betrayed, but if you want things to always be “your way,” go to Burger King. Ben Messinger Cheney

Move Filmore’s fetid nest

The comic strip Mallard Filmore has bothered me several times in the past, but I have always passed it off as only a comic strip. However, recent attacks made in this strip have incensed me - particularly the attack on May 17 that implied that the mass suicide in Waco, Texas, was caused by Attorney General Janet Reno.

This type of comment is not appropriate for the “funny page.” If it is to be published, it should be on the editorial page. Mark D. Hernick Spokane

Northport has lots going for it

Re: your May 20 article on Northport, “Bordering on genius.”

First, I congratulate the Odyssey of the Mind team for making it to the world competition. But I am very critical of the way our “wee” little town was described.

Big is not always better. To say “there is not a lot to do in Northport” is far from the truth.

Northport is centrally located to almost everything. For instance, a world-class ski resort, unlimited hunting and fishing, plus we are close enough to Spokane to see attractions there.

Some of the things not available are fast food restaurants and the big malls, but we don’t have the problems that come with either. They complain about not having the big businesses to support them, then the next minute they complain about all the pollution that comes with them.

When they complain that our town has no money, they must have forgotten about the $16,000 practically given by residents and local businesses.

As for the quote, “We don’t have a real grocery store,” what do they want, a store that sends its profits to some out-of-state headquarters? We have two local grocery stores that also support the school as much as they possibly can.

If our town is so bad, why do Realtors keep trying to subdivide our rural area? It seems that a lot of out-ofstate city folks are trying to move up here. But we want to keep our peaceful little town the way it is. Ron Sauvola Northport, Wash.

Urge veto of lawless logging bill

Sen. Slade Gorton’s rider to the rescissions bill has been labeled the “logging without laws” bill because it suspends all environmental regulations for any cut deemed a “salvage” operation.

Edwin G. Davis (Roundtable, May 21) maintains this is good for the forests, and tries to convince us that scientific consensus supports his position. Many foresters agree that timber salvage has a role to play in forest management. In no way is there a consensus prescribing the chainsaw as the ultimate solution to forest health.

Consider the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s conclusion regarding the fire at Tyee Creek: “The fire burned equally quickly through 500-year-old virgin stands of timber and extensive stands of 20-year-old managed, thinned timber.” Seems Davis’ chainsaw management isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

There are compelling economic reasons to oppose the Gorton rider. Its mandate to cut 6.2 billion board feet of salvage timber won’t enrich the public coffers. In 1993 the Forest Service lost over $600 million on timber operations far more profitable than salvage cuts. When everyone is being asked to sacrifice for the common good, Gorton’s rider is a slap in the face to taxpayers.

Davis refers to a poll indicating 70 percent of respondents favored fire-damaged timber salvage. With current environmental laws and citizen input procedures in place, certainly a majority would support plenty of timber salvage. But another recent poll shows a majority of Republican voters feel current environmental laws don’t go far enough. Tell President Clinton to veto” logging without laws” legislation. Wyatt Davis Pullman