Ratings Get Mixed Marks From Retirees

Seattle’s rating by Fortune magazine as the No. 1 place in America to live, work and play just doesn’t add up in the minds of some Spokane readers.

They fail to fathom, for example, how anyone could seriously claim that the rainy city is blessed by an abundance of sunshine.

I scratched my head, too, over some of the magazine’s “Top 15” picks. Whoever heard of a Top 15 anyway? How credible is it to rate the industrial Rust Belt’s best - Cincinnati, St. Louis and Pittsburgh - above San Francisco for lifestyle?

And what about the District of Columbia’s No. 7 ranking? While conceding the other Washington’s murder rate makes it a scary place to live, the magazine seems to be saying that loads of culture somehow make up for the added likelihood of being slain, thank you. But as to the prospect of actually living there, the magazine concludes, “In fact you probably shouldn’t.”

How bizarre is this?

Anyway, the Fortune piece reminded me of the responses I have received to a series of columns which reported on popular retirement places as ranked by various sources. Quite obviously, the ratings I used didn’t always find total acceptance either.

For a couple who came to these parts from New York City, safety was all important.

“The main question to be asked when choosing a place of retirement,” says Jim Erlanger, “is this: Am I going to be personally secure?

“In Coeur d’Alene,” he says, “the answer is yes.”

Even so, when he was scouting out retirement havens, Coeur d’Alene didn’t rate so hot overall.

“In April 1993, my wife and I decided to get ready to retire,” says Erlanger. “I went to the library and found one of the books you have since written about. It ranked Coeur d’Alene 58th.”

(That was the original version of “Retirement Places Rated” by David Savageau. A later edition elevated Coeur d’Alene to seventh.)

“We retired Dec. 1 that same year, and nine days later we showed up at Coeur d’Alene,” Erlanger recalls. “Three weeks later we signed the papers to buy this house. We had never been here before.”

A native and lifelong inhabitant of New York City, Erlanger retired at age 55 as a nuclear engineer with Consolidated Edison. He worked in New York City. The couple resided in Westchestire County 25 miles to the north.

But they couldn’t afford to retire in place.

For a home of 2,000 square feet, taxes ran $6,600 a year there. Here, he says, a 3,000-square-foot house - once and a half again as large - runs $1,600, or less than one-fourth as much. A huge plus for Coeur d’Alene.

“However,” he says, “the rating system gives Coeur d’Alene bad marks for not creating enough retirement jobs.” Even so, of all the retired persons he knows, Erlanger says, “There is really only one who wants to work.” And he is an avid golfer who lives and works on a golf course.

This guy runs around doing little chores without ever breaking a sweat, Erlanger says, adding, “He would probably pay them for the job.”

Erlanger notes that Coeur d’Alene also “gets knocked for not being hot enough to suit the guys who do these ratings.

“But in St. Petersburg - ranked No. 2 overall - you have to get up early to beat the heat,” says Erlanger, “or it’s not fit for humans to go outside in the summer time.

“As to personal safety,” says Erlanger, “in St. Petersburg, it’s worth your life to go outside at certain times of the day or night.”

Not surprisingly, then, he says, “When we weighed the data, Coeur d’Alene came out No. 1 And in the time we’ve been here, the area has proven us right.”

Others echo the Erlangers’ experience.

Spokane’s Bert Lomax points out that “Retirement Places Rated” author David Savageau also has another book, called “Places Rated.” They’re both full, Lomax says, of “what passes for high science.

“But in one book, the author rates Spokane without considering Coeur d’Alene, and in the second vice versa. I am suspicious,” observes Lomax, “of what else Mr. Savageau may not have quite right!”

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes on retirement issues each Sunday. He can be reached with ideas for future columns at 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review