Letters To The Editor
IDAHO VIEWPOINTS
Sheriff, help us out of quagmire
A meeting was held Tuesday to address a serious problem. Many Bonner County roads are a muddy hog wallow, and county officials have been remiss in addressing the problem.
It is unconscionable that county officials have let things sink to the level that children have missed a month of school and seniors have been confined to their homes. Nowhere is it mandated that one must own a $30,000 4-by-4 to live on a county road.
I have thought of one possible solution that I’m sure will offend the sheriff. Taxpayers provide the sheriff’s department with all grades of 4-by-4 vehicles that deputies drive to and from work. In an emergency such as this, these radio-equipped vehicles could transport stranded school children to and from bus stops twice a day, and transport stranded seniors and others to grocery stores and medical appointments routinely, and respond to other emergencies as dictated.
Reserve deputies and other county employees could assist in driving these vehicles.
The positive image it would invoke would pay huge dividends in respect and goodwill, and help destroy the prevailing us-versus-them attitude.
As far as long-term solutions, there were plenty of politicians to spew out the usual political rhetoric most of those at the meeting have long since tired of hearing. There were even tasteless candidates trying to convert a serious meeting into a political forum by working the crowd and passing out campaign literature. Gary Carlson Sagle
Vote yes for reasonable remedy
The East Bonner County Library board of trustees voted unanimously on April 15 to endorse the Bonner County School District’s levy election on April 23.
We urge voters to consider carefully the needs of our children and the future they face in an increasingly crowded and competitive world. It is our responsibility to provide them with the best educational tools possible to survive.
The school board’s proposal is reasonable and critically needed. Please vote yes on April 23. Ted Bowers and the board of trustees East Bonner County Library, Sandpoint
IDAHO SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION
It’s time to meet kids’ needs
You’ve heard this cry before. The need for a third middle school has not gone away. It will not go away, and the opportunity to vote yes to build that school will be put before School District 271 voters on May 21.
Our kids are crammed into Lakes and Canfield Middle Schools and the patrons of this community must unite to change this situation. If you do not understand the overcrowding issue, I urge you to ask questions, visit either Canfield or Lakes, talk with the principals and tour the schools. It will be an eye-opener.
It’s true, portables have sort of eased the overcrowding temporarily, but the overcrowding in the core facility - bathrooms, cafeteria, library, lockers and hallways - is appalling and unacceptable for our middle school students. They deserve better from the adults who have the ability - by voting yes - to give them a quality situation.
The school plant facilities levy is one of only two ways available to Idaho communities to build new schools. There is no other solution for our state now. The levy will build and pay for the new middle school in two years. The land has been purchased and the need is more than obvious.
The time is now to get going on our school district’s needs. Our middle school students deserve an environment conducive to learning. Sara Phillips Coeur d’Alene
Need outweighs arguments against
On May 21, Coeur d’Alene School District voters will decide whether to approve a levy to fund construction of a new middle school.
Coeur d’Alene’s infrastructure has been stretched to its tolerable limits by the tremendous growth in population in the last few years. Our school system is no exception. Currently, our two middle schools, Lakes and Canfield, are critically overcrowded, topping out at 122 percent and 141 percent of capacity, respectively.
Projections are for 200 to 250 additional students, next year and yearly into the foreseeable future. It’s time to move beyond our awareness of this situation to a plan for its solution.
New schools are funded through 20-year bonds or school plant facilities levies (SPFL). An SPFL differs in that it allows for completion of the building and full payment in only two years, saving $6 million in interest. The new middle school would be paid for before students would enter its doors.
Some argue that increased taxes unduly strain fixed-income people’s already overburdened budgets, and say school districts should find some way besides taxing property to fund schools. While the value of that thought is evident, we must work within the present system. We cannot restrict the building of much-needed schools because we’re dissatisfied with the funding method.
Your yes vote for the SPFL on May 21 will be a vote for our children and for the quality schools so critical to the health and vitality of our community. Beth Hill Coeur d’Alene
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
How Nazi-like we’re becoming
As we observe Holocaust Remembrance Week, may I be so bold as to draw some very insidious parallels between that time and now.
Our Congress is finishing up the Anti-Terrorism bill that will effectively outlaw any concerned groups that are labeled by the attorney general as anti-government and will most certainly lead to the elimination of our rights to keep and bear arms.
As Adolf Hitler said in 1935, “This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient and the world will follow our lead into the future.”
Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, R-Calif., will attempt to lead us down this same path if they get their way. Gary and Virginia Tucker Oldtown
Cartoon slanders Buchanan
Again, the Socialist Review shows an obscene cartoon (April 13) involving the untruths about Pat Buchanan, and disdain for the Second Amendment. This cartoon stinks of liberal half-truths and blatant biased content.
The truth is that Buchanan loves and stands by the Constitution, and has the same mind-set as the writers and signers of the Constitution. I fear that the super showman, Slick Willie, will be re-elected, for he is the master politician. All who are corrupt or foolish love him.
If Buchanan were elected, international moneychangers (who are dismantling this country), the drug cartels and the socialists would be in terror and anger. He is a good, decent man who will never be elected, especially when you look at the status of the moral decay in this country. You slander him by associating him with a swastika. Dan V. Thackray Coeur d’Alene
Don’t misinterpret Jefferson
In the April 7 letter, “Religion doesn’t mean reformation,” the writer makes several claims among which he says Thomas Jefferson pleaded for a “wall of separation” between government and sectarian institutions. History proves otherwise.
The “wall of separation” is from a letter Jefferson wrote to Baptist officials in Danbury, Conn. This letter upheld his position that establishing or disestablishing a church was not an issue for the federal government. In his second inaugural address, Jefferson said that in religious matters, he had “left them, as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of state or church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies.”
Later, Jefferson stated that his views were based on the states’ rights Tenth Amendment as well as on the First: “Certainly no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline has been delegated to the general government. It must then rest with the states as far as it can be in any human authority.”
In conclusion, the wall of separation was between the federal government and the states. The First Amendment was never intended to build a wall of separation between church and state.
Something to think about today, when our country is running rife with domestic violence, sexual promiscuity and divorce, is this statement by Thomas Jefferson:
“I have always said, and always will say, that the studious perusal of the Sacred Volume (Bible) will make better citizens, better husbands and better fathers.” Bonnie Shannon Spokane
Let’s go to a consumption tax
I see the Internal Revenue Service employees are “more calloused toward taxpayers” than in the past due to the IRS budget cut from $7.5 billion to $7.3 billion. There is an alternative: no income tax and no IRS.
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., pushed to replace the income tax with a consumption tax. In Washington and Florida, it’s call it a sales tax. Neither state has an income tax and both seem to be doing very well.
Who collects it? We who sell. Mine goes directly to the state - no accountants looking for loopholes, no IRS trying to catch you, no judges to interpret the most confusing set of laws and regulations known to man.
We’re encouraged to take all legal federal income tax deductions. We stretch the legal part hoping our return won’t be flagged. This is moral? No law itself is immoral, but the income tax laws certainly promote it.
Then there is the underground economy, where it’s pay me in cash so there is no record. This is wholesome? And imagine what this country and economy would be like if all those enforcement specialists, accountants, tax attorneys and H&R Block types were teachers, engineers, doctors or entrepreneurs? This is wasted, dysfunctional talent.
I say, if you buy, you pay the tax. You have a choice. Put that $7 billion toward the deficit. Better yet, if you save, business borrows, we get more and better jobs, welfare is reduced and, most importantly, there is less Big Brother in your face. What could be simpler? Harry Merrick Chattaroy
GOVERNMENT AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Chenoweth ignorant about forests
Rep. Helen Chenoweth addressed a gathering of logging executives in Spokane on April 11.
She pleased her listeners with promotion of extensive logging, but evinced an indifference towards its effects. She told her supporters that a proper forest is one thinned by logging, conjuring the image of tangled clutter if allowed to thrive without human interference.
Never mind that the most prodigious stands are those that grew on their own over hundreds of years. She declared old-growth trees should be cut down because they are prone to disease and pose fire hazards. The most impressive trees are old ones which are generally very healthy.
Her reasoning advances cutting of giant redwoods. She warned “if man doesn’t do something about our natural forests, mother nature will.” Heaven help us against such foreboding consequences. Her antipathy toward natural lands was epitomized in her final statement that our Northwest forests are as important to us as corn is to Iowa.
Her analogy refers to forests as mass-harvest crops. However, trees don’t rebound from harvest the next season as do crops. Logging involves more than simple tree removal. Machinery tracks the surface and produces road grids. The operation leaves extensive residue and divests the land of more than just trees. A desolate tract is left behind.
No one who’s ever enjoyed an illustrious natural forest believes the only good forest is one thinned by logging. Rep. Chenoweth’s implausible rationalizations appear to be motivated only by large profit, not by her feigned concern for the forests. K.V. Fredrick Spokane
National forests are for the people
In regard to Edwin G. Davis’ letter, “Privatization can help forests,” it is obvious that he is not an outdoors person or that he is a rich Republican.
Our national forests belong to the people and should stay that way. Where would average Americans take their families to hike, camp, fish and hunt if it were not for the national forests? Many Americans cannot afford to go to private resorts, etc.
Should we just forget these people because the moneyhungry timber companies want control of our national heritage? No!
We should cherish our public lands so our children and their children will have some place to to and enjoy the great outdoors. We must not sell off what belongs to all the people. Darlene C. Holcomb Spokane
Bad things happen in threes
As a native Idahoan, I am appalled by what is happening to our water, air, forests and wildlife. These things are important to me and I believe to most of us. However, they apparently are not important to Rep. Helen Chenoweth, Sen. Dirk Kempthorne and Sen. Larry Craig.
Chenoweth helped pass a bill that lets money dictate the quality of our water by allowing more pollutants to be dumped into our rivers and streams.
She is against bringing back endangered species to their native habitat and tells horror stories to the public about federal species protection while having no facts to back up her statements.
Kempthorne is trying to get a bill passed that would eliminate protection of distinct populations of endangered animals, such as bald eagles, grizzly bears and Pacific salmon. His bill allows large companies to rape our land and destroy endangered species’ habitats by killing our forests and ruining our streams.
Craig is co-sponsoring Kempthorne’s bill to destroy Idaho’s habitat. He also wants to amend the Clean Water Act. This would mean fewer regulations on our drinking water, allowing companies to dump more pollutants.
Craig is co-sponsoring another bill that removes 60 percent of every state’s remaining wetlands from federal protection.
Chenoweth, Craig and Kempthorne should be ashamed of themselves. Please call and tell them that we will not stand for this blatant attack on our beautiful state. James O. Wood Coeur d’Alene
Thank Clinton; He’s got it right
With Earth Day coming up, we owe it to our planet and ourselves to hold Congress accountable for its attacks on our quality of life and natural treasures.
Specifically, we need to take a close look at the sneaky anti-environmental amendments still attached to the 1996 Omnibus Budget Bill.
President Clinton has already vetoed this budget bill once and will have to again, unless Republican leaders agree to drop the destructive riders. These riders are bad for all of us and the planet we celebrate on April 22.
This outrageous budget bill would cut funding for enforcement of clean water and hazardous waste laws, extend and expand the devastating lawless logging going on in our national forests, endanger the Mojave Preserve in California, open more of the magnificent Alaskan Tongass Forest to clearcutting, and prevent the listing of new endangered species.
To celebrate Earth Day, how about giving the White House a call and thanking President Clinton for his strong stand for environmental and public health protection.
Tell him to keep on vetoing until Congress gets the message. Guadalupe Flores Spokane
IN THE PAPER
Oops; You missed a spot
There was one day in March that you missed your anti-Chenoweth headline. Ruthie Johnson Hayden Lake