Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Roskelley doing a good job

Anton Wurtz (Letters, Feb. 2) and others complaining about Commissioner John Roskelley should investigate reasons behind Roskelley’s comments.

Roskelley, since he has been in office about two months, is doing what every elected official should do: (1) Look at the bottom line of the department’s budget; (2) Talk with the employees to build a viable team and get to know the department’s responsibilities to the public; (3) Find out if the department is overstaffed or understaffed; (4) Use common sense in decision-making and what may be best for the situation with the public and the budget; and (5) Thoroughly investigate each proposal before formulating a response.

Golfers who responded to Roskelley’s proposal and wrote letters to the editor spoke of city golf courses, not county ones. Maybe city and county golf courses should merge and have one manager. Or maybe we should privatize the courses, with a percentage going to city and county parks and recreation departments for the dwindling youth programs, after the bonds are paid off.

Roskelley has put himself only on committees mandated by legislation, so his time is spent on county business, as it should be.

Complaints are fine as long as you have possible solutions or alternatives, not just negative responses. John Tuft Spokane

Road crews work, shovel also

This is in response to letters by taxpayers Deany Borlin (Voice, Feb. 1) and Virginia Field (Roundtable, Feb. 9), concerning Spokane County snowplowing.

Some facts are: We have 2,700 miles of roads to plow, both rural and residential. This is accomplished in less than four days - a feat in itself.

Wide blades are used to plow snow, with fewer passes needed, which saves time. So-called boots can’t be used on these blades. Boots also prevent getting close to mailboxes for delivery, and in turn, some driveways will have some snow in them.

I hope you don’t speak for all your neighbors, as service and road safety are our primary concern. Not every area can be first.

We aren’t inconsiderate, as you say, but plowing is a difficult job, at best. Professionalism is our goal.

Also, as taxpayers, we go home at night, whether it be in the city or county, and we, too, have to shovel our driveways and sidewalks from snowplowing. Ed Ellenz Spokane

Police response praiseworthy

I recently saw what I thought was a burglary in progress, so I called Crime Check.

Before I could get off the phone, an officer knocked at the door and I noticed two policemen were circling the house I thought was being robbed. These officers had responded within three minutes.

Thank goodness, it wasn’t a burglary. I still will give the Spokane Police Department a big thumbs-up. Good job! The police proved they could be there when needed. Judy House Spokane

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION

I support discipline effort

I fully support the new “processing,” or timeout, discipline system being tried out in Spokane School District 81. Anything that reduces low-level disruption in the classroom and increases teaching time should be applauded.

We’ve heard so much about time being taken out of the classroom to deal with everything but teaching. Here is a program that many teachers will tell you really works.

When my children enter the door of their school, I’m quite willing to let teachers determine the best way to handle the children. After all, that is their profession.

As parents, we undermine confidence in the system through rumors, petition drives and overreacting. There are options to public schools if you don’t agree with what they are doing. There are proper channels to go through for policy changes. Penny Schwyn Spokane

Dress code makes good sense

Re: the public school dress code mentioned in “Bills advocate school dress code” (Jan. 24).

As a 24-year-old, I do not consider myself too far removed from students to understand their point of view. But with all the talk about student rights, it seems as if the most important point is being missed: the right to an equal education among all students, regardless of income and fashion consciousness.

A regulated dress code surely would decrease the pressures these kids have to deal with in regard to fitting in and would enable them to focus on school. Lower-income families no longer would have to be concerned about a weekly wardrobe. They would just need a couple of shirts and pants to be mixed and matched.

Perhaps the school district can get a contract with a clothing company to make these clothes more affordable.

Most of us agree we need to get back to the basics of education and away from gang violence and disrespect that has moved into our classrooms. If a dress code has been proved to do this, I think the school district has an obligation to consider this more seriously. Pamela Anderson Spokane

‘Processing,’ no; responsibility, yes

In 1994, Dr. William Glasser, president of the Reality Therapy Institute, spent time in Spokane. A series of three one-week workshops followed.

Later, schools throughout the country, including Moran Prairie, joined the ranks of “quality schools” (Glasser’s school-improvement model). Moran has initiated a behavior-modification program - “processing” - based on reality therapy, in which a misbehaving student fills out a form explaining what the child wanted or needed.

Glasser believes behavior is based on needs. He teaches that all behavior is motivated by four basic human needs: belonging, power, freedom and fun. He defines responsibility as the ability to fulfill these needs.

Violence is increasing. We ask why, suggesting children lack responsibility. Perhaps at the next report of gratuitous, senseless violence at school or on the street, we should instead ask, “What basic need is the student attempting to meet?

Dr. William Coulson, as experienced as Glasser, spoke about this last month. He believes we must return to the traditional definition of responsibility, which is the ability to choose between right and wrong. This is the only way our society can survive.

Now, 75 families want processing removed. They are right. We all want to support our schools, but isn’t it more important to support our children first? Dr. David Turner Medical Lake

Home schooling, righteous schooling

In his recent letter, Jim Berry made some points about “love, happiness, having fun within the family and sharing correct information.” He also revealed his own incorrect information, or lack of knowledge, about home schooling.

Because I formerly was a public school teacher and a private school teacher and I now am a home-school mother, perhaps the task of responding to Berry is mine.

Home schooling, contrary to Berry’s perception, teaches children in a loving, sharing, enjoyable manner and setting. It provides children with more enriching knowledge, with deeper and broader understanding than can be provided in a strictly academic setting.

The home school is custom-designed for each child. No other school can even attempt such individualized education. This characteristic proves more important when we recognize the rightful place of religion in the child’s life.

Our Creator intends for religion to be essential to every human being. Because of misinterpretation and misapplication of the Constitution as to this truth, where can religion be taught freely, be learned and lived fully by a child all day, every day, except in the family? No school has as much potential for happy, wholesome learning devoid of all that is unwholesome.

What fun within the family is more fun than learning together and sharing newly acquired knowledge? Ellen McCabe Spokane

MESA: Good kids do their best

Nothing is more inspiring than watching the yearly MESA (math, engineering, science, achievement) competition at East Central Community Center, underwritten by US West.

For the past three years, I have had the privilege of being a judge at this competition. One hundred fifty middle-school students from Spokane’s minority community tackle physical math concepts with logic and enthusiasm. They compete for individual medals, the traveling school trophy and a chance to participate in the Washington state MESA championships in Seattle.

In 1994, Garry Middle School students won the traveling trophy. Chase was the 1995 champion, and this year, Glover moved from fourth place to first place in the last event to win the trophy. The media missed a great chance to see Spokane kids at their best, for this competition is won with hard work, logic and ingenuity.

Good luck to students going to state March 21. Ron Jackson Spokane

ANIMAL CARE

Humane society shelter deplorable

Freezing kennels, food, water, minus 24 degrees. The situation at the Spokane Humane Society on North Havana needs public outcry.

The majority of the staff and volunteers have been trying desperately to work through the deplorable obstacles but, in many instances, have been hampered by the director and the board of directors.

There’s been cruel neglect; i.e., many animals were euthanized that should have been adopted. The vet on call repeatedly put down healthy animals when, at other times, those animals in stress suffered and were left to die for long, lonely hours.

Even the special people who volunteer haven’t been allowed to humanely work for the benefit of the animals.

The staff is being cut, cleanliness is poor and the outside runs aren’t open. However, money was used to decorate the executive offices - but not to replace the worn-out furnace, leaky pipes and broken cages.

The killing room is in hideous condition, as is the isolation section, which isn’t quarantined, causing canine parvo, which runs rampant through the shelter.

The humane society has a contract with the city of Spokane and is overseen by the county shelters. I wonder why a Washington state law, Class C felony, is not being acted upon. The word “humane” certainly doesn’t apply to the humane society.

Watch the news and read the Roundtable. As has been said, “Animals in shelters, unseen they suffer, unheard they cry, in agony they linger, in loneliness they die.” Mary Cosentini Spokane

How did we get gulag for animals?

In watching Tom Grant’s investigative reporting regarding the Spokane Humane Society, I was appalled. I could not believe my eyes when I saw the metal cages with big holes and dogs actually caught on the sharp, jagged chain fencing; the dog with the chain or rope embedded in his flesh, with ice for drinking water - it was horrifying.

The director seemed close to tears at one point, saying he had offered to turn in his resignation. How could the board of directors refuse to accept it? As director, isn’t he the one responsible?

Conditions obviously had been like this for quite some time. If the director isn’t responsible, who is? I thought a board was to oversee and make sure conditions were to be humane.

I remember hearing in the past that the humane society had a general fund of several thousand dollars and that $500,000 had been left to it by a benefactor. Where did that money go that conditions could be so terrible?

If the society has no money, where did the money come from to fix the problems as soon as the media got involved?

What in the world happened? It looked like a concentration camp instead of anything humane. Thank goodness for the workers who care. Edna Fisher Spokane

Director should resign

There was a segment on the news recently about the Spokane Humane Society. If the animals are being mistreated - and obviously they are - why was the director’s resignation not accepted? Anyone who mistreats animals, or allows anyone else to do so, should not be in charge of their care.

Animals have feelings. They feel pain just like you and I. Let’s stand up for them. Take his resignation and say good riddance. Ardis Tangen Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND THE ECONOMY

Government a drag on the economy

The headline on Chris Farnam’s Feb. 4 letter, “What you don’t know can hurt us all,” certainly applies to what he tries to make us believe.

First, we should realize the danger of believing the “flat Earth,” Keynesian, socialist sort of ideas that he thinks haven’t been holding us back economically since the 1930s: that we need government’s deficit spending to “fuel the economy.”

Certain macroeconomic facts of life should be known to get to the truth:

All tax revenues originate in the productive private sector. Therefore, taxation exacts a drain of resources from the private sector that is made up through higher prices, higher interest rates and debt levels, lower product quality, fewer jobs and lower buying power - all of which hit lower-income workers hardest.

In 1960, we spent about 15.5 percent of gross national product on federal taxes. We now spend about 24 percent of gross national product on federal taxes.

In economic terms, when you talk about government or government spending, you are talking about taxes. Deficit spending is an added backdoor tax on our savings, and it’s through our savings that we fund investment in small business, which employs about 70 percent of our total work force.

The key to fueling the economy lies in keeping more resources in the private sector through lower taxation, government spending as investment in the basic intellectual and material infrastructure needs for private-sector productivity, through minimizing/eliminating consumptive government services/entitlements and by strictly curbing or ending deficit spending. Jeff Schaller Pullman

Let’s go whole hog

I believe, yes, we should go ahead and eliminate the wealthy. That way, we could eliminate all the jobs they provide and all the businesses that they open and put the entire country on our welfare system.

That would be a perfect result and response to the wonderful cartoon (Feb. 13) about taxing them to the extreme, because that’s where the money is. Mark Miller Spokane

Government only manipulates growth

I respectfully must disagree with Tom Hargreaves’ guest colum of Feb. 11. Government, “enlightened” or otherwise, does not have the ability to control growth - other than diverting it in directions other than a market-based decision would take it.

Impact fees are just another way for governments to increase their budgets over and above the fees and taxes we already pay far too much of. John Hodde Colville, Wash.

IN THE PUBLIC EYE

I want off this marketing team

I don’t understand why we the people are financing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s book tour. If I had written that book, we the people most certainly would not pay for my promotions.

At first glance, her book is about children. Admirable. At second glance, her book says parents are not capable of raising their own children - therefore, government programs must do it.

Since this is something so clearly against my best interests, will somebody please explain why a third of my income is going to pay for it? Linda J. Reed Spokane

First lady’s values stack up well

I just have to jump on the Knight-Ridder article you were so quick to publish, “Taxpayers pay most of the bill for first lady’s book tour.” The book is about children.

A footnote and a little objectivity could have been shown by mentioning the fact that Barbara Bush’s book-tour expenses were paid in the same manner. However, she wrote a book about a dog! E. Madeline Hawley Spokane