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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Letters To The Editor

IDAHO SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION

We must play catch-up - and win

On April 23, Bonner County voters can improve public education by voting yes for a school levy. Bonner County funds it schools at a low level - the lowest of all North Idaho districts - and we have a great number of needs.

We have a large district, many schools (16) and years of deferred maintenance. We have school buses with 200,000 miles on them traveling mountain roads.

We have children who don’t have textbooks or who are using outdated books. Roofs need replacement and several schools have code violations and unhealthy conditions. We have overcrowded classrooms.

Not having enough money to address these problems is not the result of poor management or budgeting, it is a matter of funding. The only way we can raise money is through a levy or bond issue.

This is why we are proposing a two-year split levy of $2.8 million per year. The levy will cost the average homeowner $1.35 per $1,000 net taxable value (not market value). Even with this levy, we’ll still be paying less than the state average and less than districts in Coeur d’Alene, Kellogg, Plummer/Worley and just slightly more than Boundary County.

Every school will receive money for maintenance needs and each school will receive the same dollar amount per student for curriculum.

This levy is critical to meeting immediate, essential needs in the district and will make a significant difference to more than 6,000 young people. Julie Menghini, Citizens for Better Education Sandpoint

Vote yes on school levies

Please join us taxpayers and patrons who are searching for alternative methods of funding Idaho’s public education system.

We must be united and make the changes necessary at the state legislative level. Don’t use our kids to fight other battles. Join us in providing for our students’ education by supporting the proposed school levies.

I challenge you to show me where to get $2.8 million for the buses and priority maintenance portions of the proposed levy out of the current Bonner County School District budget without turning off the lights, heat or telephones.

This must be accomplished following the state requirements; the salary pools and benefits funded by the state cannot be touched. Cutting those dollars would return them to the state to be reallocated to other districts.

Visit some of our older schools on a rainy day and look in the nooks and crannies, starting at Sandpoint Middle School and ending at Priest River Elementary.

I’m pleased construction of the last school of the 1987 levy, Kootenai School, will begin this year. However, the ‘87 levied money will build only a very small school today. Support the levy for a larger, more complete Kootenai School and save about $250,000 in a architectural and permit fees, as opposed to other new construction later.

Voting no on all issues that might raise my taxes or because of indirect issues is beyond my comprehension. Support education. Vote yes on April 23. Doris Matz Sagle

IDAHO VIEWPOINTS

Join fight against pandemonium

Regarding a Hot potatoes item on anti-hydroplane signatures in the April 9 Spokesman-Review:

D.F. Oliveria stated that “Many won’t sign petitions opposing an issue supported by Coeur d’Alene’s heaviest hitters.” As one going door-to-door circulating the petition, I find that not to be the case.

On Saturday, of the 100 petition signatures I received, I only encountered one or two people who would not sign it because they were for hydroplane racing. Others for it have signed the petition because they want their chance to have their say on the issue, which is all the signatures, in effect, do. But the vast majority are adamantly against the races and the potential trouble they would bring for most citizens in the forms of noise, crowds and the general party mentality that would accompany them.

Yes, there are motel and restaurant owners who also want them for the business they would bring. The races would bring business, but at what cost? Yet another weekend of even more noise and crowds of party makers is the last thing most in Coeur d’Alene want. Find a petition and sign it now. Katherine von Hagen Coeur d’Alene

Templin behind so much that’s good

Bob Templin’s 50 years of business in Idaho deserves special recognition.

He has belonged to (and usually led) every business promotion organization in North Idaho.

Who would have envisioned in the 1950s a destination resort rising out of the rubble of S. Second in Coeur d’Alene? Templin did, and built it. What visionary foresaw in 1980 a destination resort in Post Falls? Templin did, and built it. How many of our teenage children experienced the thrill of their first real job working for and learning from him?

Templin is not your normal business owner/investor who makes his money, cashes in and retires. He exemplifies the American entrepreneurial spirit. He keeps reinvesting in new jobs and new projects, all the time risking his own capital. How many of us have utilized God’s gifts as well as he has?

“Well done, good and faithful servant.” Thanks for everything you’ve done. You have made a difference. John McHugh Post Falls

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Don’t be puppet of external forces

The April 1 headline, “Did failed romance ignite Kaczynski’s rage in 1978,” speaks to an issue which is germane to all of us: He/she/it/they did such and such to me and because of that I did so and so. In other words, our problems are brought about by forces outside ourselves.

As we begin to realize that nothing outside of us can harm us without our permission, we can change our whole outlook. We cannot change the world but we can change the way we look at the world. As we assume personal responsibility for our behavior and cease blaming others or circumstances, we have achieved a significant milestone in our own healing and that of the larger world in which we live.

Think about it, even if you are not immediately receptive to the idea. Tom Durst Spokane

Do your priorities make sense?

What has happened to the priorities this country places on moral values? I’m an outdoor sportsman who has struggled with the issue of bait and hound hunting. I can understand the point of view of those who consider this type of hunting unsportsmanlike, although I do not necessarily agree.

What really bothers me about this issue is that those who oppose bait and hound hunting as morally unacceptable also seem to be the same people who feel that abortion is an acceptable choice each individual should make for themselves.

If someone wants to try and impose their own moral judgment on others, why don’t they spend their time and effort on an issue supremely more important than the hunting of wild animals. Spend your time and effort protecting human life. Mike O’Neil Spokane

FIREARMS

Danger low and declining

Two thirds of people killed by persons with firearms have long criminal histories.

Per the National Safety Council, fatal firearm accidents have dropped 82 percent since 1904. Fatal firearm accidents for children have dropped 60 percent since 1975. Since 1968 firearm accident rates have dropped faster than other accident groups.

Firearms account for 1.6 percent of fatalities. Motor vehicle accidents account for 47.2 percent. A Harvard medical practice study found that the errors of the 684,414 physicians in this country, kill five times the number of people killed with firearms annually.

We need to focus on, and deal with, the human predators that stalk society. Calling adolescents and young adults age 10 to 19 years old children, and adding the numbers of their criminal shootings to child firearm statistics only distracts our focus.

Contrary to global socialist mythology, a lie told often enough does not become the truth. Vern O’Farrell Spokane

Control kids, not guns

I read with great interest (and some alarm) your article “Guns kill more kids than ever” (April 9). My alarm was occasioned by the fact that the most significant statistic in this study was carefully suppressed.

On second thought, considering the political inclinations of the agency behind this study, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Alarmed, yes, but not surprised.

The casual reader of this article might think that there were batteries of guns set out in the streets, firing at random at passers-by. The fact which has been suppressed is that more kids are killing kids than ever before. What instrument they use to accomplish this is beside the point.

Doesn’t look like President Clinton’s gun grab did much good, did it? Well, we told him so. Maybe next time he’ll try some legislation that restricts the activities of kids. Loue E. Stockwell Spokane

DRUG WAR

Zero tolerance and less good sense

In response to “What have we come to?” (Roundtable, April 10), I offer the following rebuttal:

You’re totally clueless, Terri Anderson. It is the vehicles, not their drivers or their owners, who were suspected of transporting drugs. The U. S. Supreme Court has ruled that inanimate objects have no civil rights. Therefore, the Fourth Amendment concept of probable cause simply does not apply. The fact that the students were inconvenienced, harassed and humiliated by the experience is irrelevant. Their rights were not violated, because it was their cars, not their persons, that were the targets of the searches.

Don’t you dare suggest that the entire purpose of the so-called war on drugs is to keep driving the prices up by increasing the risk factor for users and dealers. Furthermore, don’t even mention that, given that at least 50 percent of home burglaries are committed by drug users to get money to support their habits, household insurance rates have skyrocketed, thus ensuring oodles of profits for insurance companies.

Most of all, completely disregard the fact that violent, repeat-offender criminals are being freed before the completion of their sentences to make room in our jails and prisons for people convicted of minor, nonviolent drug offenses.

After all, you don’t want to be branded as some firebreathing radical who is probably a drug user and/or a drug dealer yourself, right? Welcome to the wonderful world of zero-tolerance. George D. “Martin” Maloney Spokane

Personal rights just impediments

I applaud Coeur d’Alene School District administrators for attempting to send the message of zero tolerance for drugs on school property. They, along with our law enforcement agencies, are trying to do something about a growing problem.

We are fortunate that most of the students supported the search, and there were only a few violators. The majority of our young people are sending the message that they don’t want to be in a drug-infested environment.

What is unfortunate is the criticism being leveled at administrators and law enforcement for their efforts to curb this problem. Those with liberal ideals have cast these people as villains and the rights of drug users and drug dealers should be supported at all costs. Not only do these liberal thinkers offer no ideas to solve the problem, they have become part of the problem, and the best allies the drug culture could hope for.

While we teach our young people to say no to drugs, liberals preach that loopholes exist to circumvent the law if you want to get away with it.

The message that we all should send is that if you break the law you have the right to go directly to jail, and our law enforcement people are there to protect us from those in our society who violate our rights to live in a violence-free society. Ray L. Fink Hauser Lake

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Take the money and run - or else

Most people probably think that anyone can run for president, can get on the ballot and have the same opportunity as anyone else. Wrong.

Libertarian presidential candidate Harry Browne recently qualified for federal matching funds. This means that he raised at least $500,000 for his campaign. Being a man of principle and not believing that the taxpayers should be forced to fund his campaign, Browne refused the matching funds.

Apparently, this did not please the Federal Election Commission as it has decided, since he’s not accepting the funds, he can be barred from participating in presidential debates. This will effectively shut him out of the electoral process.

The government should not be able to force people to accept taxpayer money against their will. Nor should it be able to take taxpayer money by force.

Browne has called for an “end to all federal welfare for individuals, corporations and politicians.”

It seems to me that the FEC has the power to decide who can have the opportunity to be president. Add this power to the power that states have to limit a candidate’s access to the ballot and third-party candidacies are severely hampered.

It is probably easier to get on a ballot in Russia. Janice Moerschel, chairwoman Spokane County Libertarian Party