Letters To The Editor

LAW AND JUSTICE

We can add to problems in a snap

On reading the Feb. 10 article, “Bill allows ticketing by photo-cops,” I question how accurate the photographs of the alleged drivers are.

I assume that when a driver is issued a citation he signs it as a promise to appear in court, not as an admission of guilt. How far can the courts go if the registered owner of the vehicle in question doesn’t appear in court? He has signed nothing promising to appear in court.

I also assume that half of the citizens who receive these photo citations will appear in court, plead not guilty and ask for either a court or jury trial. Is the city or county going to hire additional traffic commissioners to handle the additional case load?

Also, what about overtime paid to police officers for court appearances?

There will be lawyers who will question the legality of the photo citations. That will cost the citizens more money and further add to the court system’s workload.

I agree something should be done about speeders. But, as everyone seems to agree, something should be done about drivers who run red lights. R.M. Anderson Spokane

Photo-cops purely fund raisers

In response to “Bill allows ticketing by photo-cops” (News, Feb. 10):

Photo-radar is a bad idea. There is abundant evidence proving that radar does little or nothing to control speeding or improve traffic safety, according to the reputable Federal Highway Administration and the National Academy of Sciences.

How can a citation in the mail stop person from speeding three days prior, or stop a speeding drunk from continuing on to injure or kill someone? It cannot!

Radar, especially photo-radar, does only one thing: generate revenue in the form of citations - and radar citation is big business.

The real motive for this measure is made clear in the article: “Photo-cop machines can write two tickets per second. The human version generates only 10 to 15 a day, police say. Speeding tickets would start at $66 and will go up from there.”

What does help control speeding is awareness. Photo-radar creates no awareness as does a real, live police officer with a well-marked patrol car or adequate signs and flashing lights that command a driver’s attention.

Until such awareness is created, I consider this an underhanded, ineffective attempt at enforcement that will accomplish nothing other than to further fleece the motoring public and create a great deal of resentment. Thomas M. Ryan Spokane

Tune up whole traffic system

Spokane is contemplating ticketing speeders using a camera and radar. More people would support this idea if some additional changes are made.

First, adjust the speed limit on the major arterials to between 35 mph and 50 mph. For example, the speed limit on Division should be 40 mph to 50 mph. The Ash-Maple corridor should be 45-50. Hamilton should be 35-40. These are the speeds that people are currently traveling on these major arterials.

Additionally, a better effort should be made to coordinate traffic light timing. I have traveled Hamilton on a daily basis for over 20 years. It is not possible to make the lights during rush-hour traffic unless you are going in excess of 35 mph. As a result, drivers are rewarded for speeding.

I recently visited a Southern California area that has a metro area similar in size to Spokane. The major arterials have speed limits that vary between 30 and 50 mph. People travel between destinations quickly and efficiently without mayhem.

Traffic on our major arterials is already traveling at that speed for the most part. Why don’t we formalize the arrangement by making our current driving habits legal and by offering substantial negative incentives to discourage people from going any faster

One last suggestion: Enforce the Washington state law that requires those who prefer to travel at less than the posted speed limit to stay in the righthand lane. Hal Dixon Spokane

LAW AND JUSTICE

No subsidies for gay marriages

We taxpayers reward man-woman marriages with tax benefits and subsidies. These couples produce, nurture and educate the next generation, which is fundamental to the survival of any society.

Gay so-callled marriages may reflect love and commitment by two people of the same sex, but they deserve no claim for subsidies from society since they provide no benefit to society. Don J. Eagle Spokane

Be fair to noncustodial parents

I am so sick and tired of people like Sandy Inman (“Heitman begat 5; Agency begat 0,” Letters, Feb. 8) who don’t believe that noncustodial parents - usually fathers - have the right to go on with their lives and have more children if they so choose.

Why do custodial parents - usually mothers - have the right to go on with their lives, remarry and have more children with a new spouse?

My husband’s daughter from his first marriage is adopted. We love her and have never missed a support payment. Yet if Inman had her way, my husband and I would have been denied our right to our own biological children. Is that fair?

What about the rights of second families? Did you know courts have authority to protect the children of second families but most often don’t do it? When calculating child support, consideration is given only to the children from the first marriage.

Don’t be misled. The amount of child support paid by the noncustodial parent is only his or her proportionate share of support. For example, if each parent nets $2,000 per month, for a combined monthly income of $4,000, support for one child, to age 11, would be $609. Each parent would be responsible for 50 percent of $609.

Some might say that $300 a month is not very much with which to support a child, but you must look at the whole picture. With support from both parents, the child would receive over $600 a month. Therese Roberson Nine Mile Falls

Achieving a questionable balance

It should come as no surprise that police dogs are exempt from the law (“Back to take a bite out of crime,” Feb. 15), since their owners, the police, are also exempt from the law, (“Prosecutors clear police in death,” Jan. 29). Vicki Plastino Spokane

Murder case botched, badly reported

The recent article regarding self-serving, hypocritical, diabetic murderer Gavin Ritzler was at best misleading and a real affront to the 99.9 percent of responsible people who suffer from diabetes.

The subhead, “Diabetic accepts deal” would indicate that diabetics constitute an individual class of murderers. One would have to assume that since, in your reporter’s words, Ritzler “was having a diabetic fit” he could not possibly have been responsible for his murderous actions.

I called the American Diabetes Association and asked for a definition of “diabetic fit.” They had no knowledge of any medical meaning for that term. This kind of ignorant, irresponsible reporting perpetuates the myth that people who have diabetes are an unpredictable subclass of citizens.

Gavin Ritzler’s whine that he has diabetes and that somehow this relieves him of responsibility for his violent murder of a helpless child is truly pathetic.

The reaction of the child’s mother is even worse. If she were truly aware of his unstable, irresponsible reactions, why would she leave a child in his care?

I feel the prosecutor erred badly in plea bargaining this case. His attorney should have presented his experts on diabetes. They could have demonstrated conclusively that any diabetic reactions Ritzler may have been subject to were the direct result of his own lack of responsibility in managing his condition.

Rea Holbrook, the mother, should be charged with criminal negligence. Bill Arnold Deer Park

VIOLENCE

Causes of violence apparent

Violence starts at home. If parents are abusive, their child will think the availability of weapons isn’t a problem. I wonder where that Moses Lake kid got three guns.

Some people resort to violence because no one will listen to them. They probably think if they have a gun people will listen. Drugs probably also cause many cases of violence. Heather Nielsen, seventh grade Riverside Middle School

You can’t control all weapons

Let me enlighten Tom Aspray (“To prevent killing, control guns,” Roundtable, Feb. 11).

When I was a senior in high school I had to live through a horrible tragedy in my hometown that was similar to that faced in Moses Lake. During the spring of 1993, an entire family - father, mother and sons ages 14 and 6 - were murdered in their home.

They were not killed by a gun-toting maniac but by two of the 14-year-old’s classmates armed with knives and firewood. There were no guns involved. Had there been strict gun control laws then, that family would still be dead.

It is true that the nature of guns does make them a more convenient method for carrying out crimes. Yet, taking guns away from those who use them responsibly and in a law-abiding way is wrong.

A crime is defined as an act or omission in violation of the law. A criminal is defined as a person who commits a crime.

So, by definition a criminal is someone who doesn’t obey the law. What will a new set of gun control laws mean to the criminal? Absolutely nothing. Taking guns away from the law-abiding isn’t the answer. Providing tougher penalties for crimes committed with guns and more education about guns is the answer. Keith Cochran Cheney

Crime still not the gun’s fault

The Moses Lake incident should serve as a warning to those who take every crime as an opportunity to advocate further restrictions on firearms.

Focusing on weaponry rather than criminal behavior will serve only to induce a substitution of weapons, not reduce the frequency or severity of violent crime.

The relatively politically correct 30-30 rifle used in the Moses Lake killings proved lethally effective, notwithstanding the fact it lacked the rapid-fire capability of a semiautomatic that so many people find objectionable.

This proves the validity of the National Rifle Association hypothesis that focusing on “criminal” classes of firearms rather than on criminals themselves serves only to induce a substitution toward more powerful weapons.

The NRA’s effort to direct the public policy debate over crime toward criminal behavior should be lauded. Instead, the editorial response has been to vilify the NRA and reminisce over the days of yore when race or gender were sufficient causes to deny firearms ownership, or to place the blame on school funding and ethnocentricity.

Personally, I’ll stand with the NRA and blame the criminal. Jay Powell Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Defense spending dangerously low

The Clinton administration has cut the defense budget too deeply over the last three years, without forethought about the shrinking size of the forces and our continuing role as the world’s policeman.

No institution is safe in today’s budget-slashing climate. The Defense Department budget has been hit hard, mainly due to the perception of a diminished threat from former Warsaw Pact nations and from communism in general. Consequently, force sizes have shrunk considerably compared to other government functions.

The number of deployments our military people have had to endure has not shrunk. Continual use of our military as the world police by the administration that cut its numbers has severely stressed not only our troops and their families, but also our fighting resources.

We must either budget more money for more personnel or deploy our troops less.

Our aging equipment is not being modernized. Nonmodernization coupled repeatedly with intensive use during deployments will result in lowering our war fighting capabilities to dangerously low levels. Defense spending must rise to meet the demands being put on the system. Douglas McKinley Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

Marriage can be a durable blessing

Thank you, Rebecca Nappi, for your wonderful editorial, “Respect, work make a marriage” (Opinion, Feb. 11). You were truly inspired.

I have been suffering excruciating pain needlessly for over six weeks because I failed to recognize the symptoms of shingles. This is a nerve condition that can attack anyone who’s ever had chicken pox. To make matters worse, Mary, my wife of over 56 years, had fallen on the ice and fractured two bones in her ankle.

I read this inspiring message on “World Marriage Day.” I came to the last paragraph, in which Nappi advised: “Overall, marriage is a lifelong friendship like no other. Couples promise to love and honor one another, to remain steadfast through sickness and health, through good times and bad. Work at those vows and when death finally does do you part, you’ll miss each other’s eyes, even though you saw them day after day for years.”

As I finished this thought-provoking editorial I looked up and our eyes met. Suddenly, an awareness came over me of how blessed I was, in spite of the pain and suffering, to have my high school sweetheart still with me to continue to love and share after all these years.

As Nappi states, “Good marriages require communication, friendship, mutual respect and an acceptance of ups and downs natural to any marriage.” How true. I can attest that the richness of the rewards that come from a lifelong marriage cemented by fidelity can only be experienced by those couples who have stayed the course. Eugene B. Brown Spokane

Victims loved restaurant work

As a restaurant owner and president of the Spokane Restaurant and Hospitality Association, I feel a need to express my personal and deep sadness over the tragedy at the Ridpath Silver Grill. That sadness extends through our whole industry.

It could have happened in a grocery store or other retail store, a post office or even an attorney’s office - but it didn’t. It was in a fine restaurant, this time. I say this not to compound the fear in our hearts, but to point out that all of our lives have come to be exposed to a certain amount of unwanted risk, no matter what walk of life we choose.

I express respect and special appreciation for all the workers in our industry who are there for us, day in and day out, doing their best to serve all and do what we as owners and managers have asked them to do. Hundreds of times a day they interact closely with people they barely know, or know not at all. And yet, these workers are some of the most vibrant and alive people I know.

I ask of all of you that Ron MacDonald’s injury and Marie Van Slate’s death not be in vain, that they be instead medals of courage worn by two people who loved what they were doing. They stand as signs that our industry will remain alert, yet not be bullied and paralyzed by fear.

I send my sincerest respect and regards to the employees of the Ridpath and their families. Geneva Ward, president Spokane Restaurant and Hospitality Association

North Pines kids ‘a fine group’

We read in the newspapers, see on TV, and hear on the radio that young people are bad news, no good, etc.

Believe me, the young people at North Pines Junior High School don’t fit this description. They distributed valentines to the people at Pines Terrace Retirement Apartments, right across the street from their school. A very fine group of young people.

Our thanks to them for this fine gesture. Harold Head Spokane

What about boys’ deaths?

News about the two young boys who died in a fiery metal shed in subzero weather has vanished since castigation of the coroner has become the public agenda.

Whether or not the investigator’s questions seem abrasive or irrelevant to the survivors, the issue is the death of the two boys. No mention has been made about charges of contributory negligence against Child Protective Services and/or parents. Are such charges viewed by authorities as politically incorrect? Tom Oldershaw Spokane

Real scenter of attention

I don’t know what else can be said about the despicable actions and reprehensible opinions of Coroner Dexter Amend. It should not be surprising that decent people from across the spectrum of political and religious beliefs have expressed their contempt for his ignorance, obsession and cruelty.

Hopefully, he will be removed from office and we will have a much better system for filling an important office.

Perhaps the real lesson to learn from all this can be found in a quote from Abraham Lincoln: “What kills the skunk is the publicity it brings to itself.” Jerry Kraft Cheney