Letters To The Editor

Wed., May 29, 1996

WORDS AND DEEDS

Fair housing - a clarification

Staff Writer Jim Lynch’s article concerning the Northwest Fair Housing Alliance requires clarification.

The section of the Federal Fair Housing Act addressing discriminatory advertising is not “fine print.” Since March 1989 it has been illegal to advertise using language which discourages or discriminates against families with children. Terms like “empty nester” are not appropriate because they indicate that the housing is not available to families with children.

Congress included advertising in the Fair Housing Act because people who read housing ads which say “empty nester” or “adults only” assume that housing providers can legally refuse to rent to families with children and simply accept discriminatory treatment.

NWFHA has legal standing to bring complaints, but we do not “collect fines.”

The administrative complaint process is an opportunity to examine potentially discriminatory practices and remedy them without litigation. In the administrative process, there is an opportunity for early resolution through conciliation. Each party can outline its conditions for acceptable settlement. NWFHA proposed reimbursement of our expenses in bringing the complaint and joint sponsorship of fair housing advertising training for the entire community. The Realtors are free to respond.

Finally, I object to Lynch’s characterization of my comments about the Spokane Association of Realtors. I described an effective working relationship between NWFHA and the association, and our mutual efforts to develop fair housing education and training.

NWFHA is committed to identifying and eliminating discriminatory practices for the benefit of the entire community. We firmly believe that Fair Housing opens doors. Florence Brassier Northwest Fair Housing Alliance, Spokane

Making a name, of sorts

Nobody believes discrimination in housing doesn’t exist and nobody really believes it can ever be completely eliminated. The May 19 article about the Northwest Fair Housing Alliance filing 17 complaints against Realtors about their “biased” advertising seems a classic example of bureaucratic belligerence, where politicians or other bureaucrats with a little authority chooses to throw the weight of their office around.

The Northwest Fair Housing Alliance appears intent on enforcing a narrow interpretation of the law without considering traditional mores and established usage considered acceptable by society for more than 2,000 years. Most of the terms they object to are used in everyday conversation and nobody is offended, except maybe Florrie Brassier.

No politician or public servant afflicted with tunnel vision who attempts to impose his or her personal agenda upon the public who pay his or her salary can effectively serve that public.

Such conduct evokes a vision of someone desperately seeking their 15 minutes of fame. If Brassier is trying to make a name for herself she may succeed. But she may not like the names she earns. Dave Perkins Spokane

WASHINGTON STATE

Catch-22 for low-income workers

I am a single parent. I have fibromyalgia and diabetes. I have been treated for depression for 20 years.

I have a full-time job. Unfortunately, I am employed by a small business that cannot afford medical insurance.

Washington state offers medical insurance for low-income families. It is rightly named Basic Health. I pay a monthly premium based on my income. I also pay an $8 co-pay per office visit, $5 per generic prescription; 50-75 percent on very few name-brand prescriptions.

This program is very helpful, except it doesn’t cover my diabetes medication or supplies. It doesn’t cover the message therapy I need occasionally for pain relief. It doesn’t cover the only antidepressant that has ever worked for me. It covers only one of all the medications I need.

Eventually the state will cover my medical expenses when my diabetes is out of control. I won’t be able to work because of the lack of coverage for an illness that is fatal if not monitored and taken care of.

If I were to choose to stay home with my children and be 100 percent dependent on the state, all of my medical would be taken care of. I would be sent to a physical therapist who costs almost three times as much as a massage therapist and is not as effective for the fibromyalgia. I would also get free food, legal services, college education and discounted phone service.

There are plenty of perks for people who don’t work. Wouldn’t you think the state would want to keep low-income workers healthy also? C.S. Booth Spokane

SPOKANE MATTERS

English provide for diapering needs

I wholeheartedly support Derek Altamirano, who, in a May 20 letter advocated baby-changing facilities for men.

My family and I are holidaying in Spokane from England and I have noticed that the baby-changing facilities are quite Spartan here. I consider myself fortunate to find a counter in the ladies’ room and occasionally I have had to make do with the floor.

In England, in addition to the ladies’ and gents’, many establishments have a parents’ room with counters and comfy changing mats, sinks, bottle-warming facilities and usually a curtained area for breast-feeding mums. Some shops even provide their own brands of baby products to use. I guess they think we’ll like their stuff so much that we’ll start buying theirs. I’ve bumped into men in these changing rooms, so they seem to be well-used by mums and dads.

America is such a lovely place to visit. It’s a shame more shops don’t make things easier for busy mums and dads and their children. Paula Viles Cromer, England

Dellwo’s commuting ideas off course

While Robert Dellwo has great intentions (“Make special routes for bike riders,” Letters, May 22), he speaks for himself, not the cycling community, and is very wrong about the preferred routes of experienced cyclists.

Mutli-user side paths such as the Centennial Trail are fine for casual, recreational riding but are totally unsuitable for commuting. They rarely lead where a commuter needs to go and are the least safe places to ride.

The best and safest way to commute on a bicycle is to use the most efficient route to your destination and follow the same rules of the road expected of any other vehicle.

The key to encouraging cycle commuting is to first teach the cyclist that riding legally with traffic is the safest and quickest way. Second, motorists need to learn to share the road and to understand that every bicycle commuter means one less car contributing to rush hour gridlock.

The cycle commuter who blends in smoothly with other vehicles improves rather than impedes traffic flow. Steve Sauser, president Spokane Bicycle Club

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Consider the low-wage worker

When you make more than $100,000 a year, you don’t care much about $1,872, more or less. Well the person who works for minimum wage makes $9,048. If they work all year, 2,080 hours, that $1,872 could bring comfort or tuition to earn a better living.

George, where is your soul or compassion? Michael J. Nethercutt Spokane

Rise up, business people

Of the many letters concerning the minimum wage increase, most of the arguments - for and against - have been disheartening.

Those favoring an increase state their anti-capitalism and pro-socialism-fascism arguments. Those opposed apologize for capitalism’s virtues by arguing the practicality instead of the morality of governmentmandated wages. From the socialist with a degree in economics who spouts such Marxist rhetoric as “equitable distribution of profits” and “atrocious salaries paid to CEOs,” to the so-called conservatives who cry, “Me too, just not so much and not so fast,” both groups agree to the premise that some people are entitled to plunder other’s people bank accounts. Their only argument concerns the degree of plundering.

It’s sad when otherwise civilized people demand that businessmen be made sacrificial animals for the benefit of the poor or any other group in vogue. It’s appalling when people who count themselves as capitalists apologize for the economic system that gave birth to individual rights, raised more people out of serfdom and gave us the highest standard of living in the world.

The bottom line is this: It’s not our money to spend, not yours, not mine and certainly not Congress’.

Until the businessmen and women who turn the motor of the world rise up and demand their constitutional right to their own lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness, no one’s life, liberty or property can be safe. Sam Cathcart Spokane

Two changes could make difference

The May 18 Spokesman-Review contained two noteworthy articles relating to federal taxation.

First, you reported Rep. George Nethercutt’s idea of allowing the payment of a Social Security tax as a deduction from the otherwise taxable income of a taxpayer. Rep. Nethercutt’s idea should be implemented effective Jan. 1, 1996, and should apply to the Social Security payments made by the employee, as well as the self-employed person. It is wrong for the government to double tax people, as the present law requires.

Second, was a column by Greg Easterbrook (“America driving on borrowed gas,” Opinion) about the move by our politicians to reduce the 4.3 cents per gallon tax on fuel dedicated to deficit reduction. Our country is faced with an approximately $5.1 trillion debt - about $20,000 per man, woman and child in the United States. This enormous debt will not be eliminated unless sufficient federal tax revenues are collected.

Elimination of the 4.3-cent tax on gasoline is not in the public interest. For the many reasons cited in Easterbrook’s column, the fuel tax is appropriate and is one of the least oppressive taxes.

Our politicians ought to adopt Nethercutt’s idea, keep the 4.3 cents per gallon fuel tax in force and raise fuel taxes appropriately to pay for Nethercutt’s idea. This would hurt us today but would help our children and grandchildren. J.O. Neal Ephrata, Wash.

Tell senators to kill wage increase

I urge readers to contact their senator to oppose an increase in the federal minimum wage currently being pushed by organized labor.

An increase in the minimum wage sounds like a good idea but when the numbers are crunched they don’t make a meaningful difference in an employee’s take-home pay. Actually, an increased minimum wage is just a disguised tax increase.

For example, an average full-time minimum wage earner with one deduction, paid twice monthly, makes $359.55 per check gross; taxes are $64.50, take-home pay is $295.05. An increase of 50 cents per hour means that same person would gross $401.85; taxes would be $75.74 and take home pay would be $326.11. This is a raise of $31.06 per paycheck. By increasing the lowest wage class a ripple effect is created which causes an increase in pay in the next class level and the next and so on. This affects state and local governments in increased payroll costs, which must be paid by the taxpayers in the form of higher state and local taxes, which means the $31.06 is reduced even more.

What an increase will assuredly do is result in major job losses by forcing small businesses to stop hiring minimum wage, entry-level employees. These are the jobs that employ our children and put welfare recipients back to work. By removing these jobs we will see high unemployment costs and higher welfare costs. Jerry L. Schutz Moscow, Idaho

Democrat’s notion ‘baloney’

The May 18 Roundtable included a ridiculous letter from Sally Jackson, who claimed the gasoline price increase is a deep-seated oil industry conspiracy to defeat President Clinton in November.

It seems to me that in the spirit of good journalism you should point out that Jackson is a charter member of the Democratic Central Committee in Spokane County and has zero vision in political matters. Her oil industry conspiracy theory is in the same category as the invention of the square wheel - baloney. Russell R. Wyle Spokane

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