Letters To The Editor

WASHINGTON STATE

Bureaucracy gets what it wants

The governor and Spokane city officials want a gas tax increase in the upcoming legislative session, for the purpose of road and transportation improvements. In the meantime, city officials want to swipe parking meter money that could partially fund city road improvements and use those funds to fund the sure shortages on a new parking garage that will in no way ever break even.

State laws should be changed to allow a percentage of the taxpayer-driven Spokane Transit Authority’s huge revenue receipts to be tapped for road improvements in STA’s area. Why should STA be allowed to have a reserve of $40 million for capital improvements that mostly have already been made? The reserve grows, yet only a few oversee the funds. The new garage complex as well as the STA downtown building have already been built at taxpayers’, not just bus riders’, expense.

It makes me wonder where the city got the $2.8 million to buy Salty’s restaurant. The city took off the property tax rolls as well as lost a potential $160,000 per year in sales tax revenues when they forced the restaurant’s closure. The reason behind the scenes is simple. The city does not want any business marring the river or Centennial Trail.

Bureaucracy runs amok. Just ask, beg and plead for more money and pretty soon the public will fold, and the bureaucrat wins. Nathan Narrance Colbert

Another exercise in creative funding?

Why is the Washington Higher Education Facilities Authority scheduling a public hearing on Dec. 9 at the Sea-Tac Marriott Hotel, Sea-Tac, Wash., on a proposed issuance of $45 million in revenue bonds that will affect Spokane?

Bond proceeds will be loaned for a Gonzaga University project to purchase land, the postal annex at Trent, classrooms, law library, capital expenditures, refinance existing debt and to pay the cost of bond issuance.

Private schools? Is this another “opening of the door”? (P.S. The public is invited for oral statements. See The Spokesman Review, Nov. 25).

Is something awry here? Is this another creative financing sleight of hand? Edward Thomas Jr. Spokane

LAW ENFORCEMENT

WSP decision unsafe and untenable

It’s apparently unclear to the Washington State Patrol that, while upholding the constitutionally mandated sovereignty of the Native American nations, there remains an overriding public interest that must be put ahead of disputes over whether or not an officer’s arrests on a county road are “incidental” to his duties on state highways.

With a determination made in Trooper David Fenn’s favor regarding civil rights issues from the overseeing federal office, perhaps it’s time for an honest nation to invite serious oversight of its inevitable participation in the nation within which it is contained. Upright people have nothing to fear from equitable law enforcement.

As an air traffic controller, I cannot help but wonder if the authorities and public, Native American or otherwise, would appreciate or recommend (let alone enforce) that we disregard pilots who demonstrate unsafe behaviors if they fly for certain international carriers or from airports that might indicate their likely minority or foreign status. If that would be unthinkable cause for endangerment in the skies, why is it not only acceptable but required of Fenn on our highways? Many more are killed there than in the air.

While WSP should be commended for its desire to ensure that all people are treated fairly and with respect, authorizing this sort of action in Olympia without even reading the file is something only a government bureaucrat would do. Actions adverse to the public interest erode public confidence and foster cynicism - and rightly so. It’s imperative that this matter be redressed. Gary L. Miles Deer Park

SPOKANE MATTERS

Request for finder of envelope, money

This is to the person who picked up the envelope on Nov. 22 outside Aslin Finch at the North Division Y, took out the money and discarded the envelope, which was marked “steer” and contained a receipt with my granddaughter’s name on it.

Did you know this was the proceeds from a loan to feed her FFA steer for the winter and to bring him to market at the Junior Livestock Show in May? This project was to help earn money for her college tuition. She had dropped the envelope as she was getting into the truck, noticed it was gone as they pulled out onto the road, circled the block and returned to find the discarded envelope where you dropped it.

Could you find it in your heart to return the money to Aslin Finch, for Elizabeth, and restore some faith in people to a very disillusioned 17-year-old girl? Lauralee Sicilia Spokane

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

Case of athlete’s foot-in-mouth disease

I resent being called a “Joe off the street,” as Washington State University athletics director Rick Dickson referred to individuals who are not Cougar Club members, season ticketholders or big donors.

I bleed crimson blood, and have for over 20 years. Commonly, I have little voice left after yelling for my beloved Cougars. Unfortunately, my work doesn’t allow for making weekend commitments in advance and my donations have been spread between athletics and academic departments. Because of my situation, I am frantically searching for Rose Bowl tickets.

That being said, I agree with WSU’s criteria for “awarding” Rose Bowl tickets (as of my understanding on their proposed policy on Nov. 27). With all the demand, a line had to be drawn somewhere. The university’s decision seems reasonable.

However, Dickson should be using this tremendous opportunity to unite Cougars, rather than alienate them. A compassionate explanation of ticket distribution would be more appropriate than a condescending labeling of individuals who don’t meet the criteria.

Perhaps Dickson could get a few pointers on public relations from a polished Mike Price. Mike F. Wolcott Sandpoint

Dickson’s remark uncalled for

I guess the ability to empathize isn’t one of the qualifications for being Washington State University’s athletic director. Rick Dickson should apologize to Cougar fans everywhere for his reference to “Joes off the street” (front page, Nov. 25).

I was offended and I haven’t even remotely considered attending the Rose Bowl.

However, I did go to every Cougar home game and noticed that the reserved sections were never completely filled except for the last game. Some fans don’t contribute anything but their physical support to games and others contribute what they can.

A kid or two at WSU certainly eats into many people’s pocketbooks, and for most of us there is not enough left over to donate (Ted Turners we are not). We are grownups and recognize the sad but equal truth that money talks!

Dickson could have acknowledged the problem of too many people, too few tickets without the unintentional slur.

Come on, Dickson, be kind to us ordinary Joes! Pam Bunderson Pullman

THE ENVIRONMENT

Polls show people’s Reach preference

Three’s the charm! A third poll in as many years has again shown Washington state citizens want the last undammed section of the upper Columbia River, the Hanford Reach, permanently protected as America’s next recreational wild and scenic river.

A November public opinion poll by the Grant County Public Utility District is the third poll in a row to show overwhelming support for federal action to protect the Hanford Reach. A survey by Benton County in 1996 and a scientific poll by the Audubon Society in 1995 also reflected overwhelming public support for a wild and scenic Hanford Reach.

To Congressman Doc Hastings, Sen. Slade Gorton and local county commissioners, the message is clear. Overwhelming support continues for permanent protection for the Hanford Reach and surrounding public lands as proposed by Sen. Patty Murray’s Wild and Scenic Hanford Reach bill, S200. The bill is awaiting action in Congress. At the same time, no one except the vested interests that would profit want our public lands or the Hanford Reach divvied up by local county commissioners to be given away to a privileged few, as Hastings’ Hanford Reach bill proposes. Bob Wilson Richland

Inconsistency weakens Clinton position

Global warming sounds more like political science than environmental science.

Production and recycling of carbon dioxide has continued for millions of years. Every plant, from algae to the tallest redwood, consumes carbon dioxide. All of our food, timber and fuel are created from recycled CO2. Why is there no mention of our net carbon dioxide production? The fuel use balanced against the weight of all plant growth is the only true measure of a country’s contribution to greenhouse gases.

There is only one manmade device that can produce significant amounts of CO2 high in the atmosphere where it can’t be easily recycled. Why is commercial aviation never mentioned as a major contributor to global warming? Jet fuel consumption exceeds both diesel and heating oil combined. It is rapidly catching up with gasoline. As Air Force One wings its way across the country, it’s burning about 24,000 pounds of fuel per hour, producing 75,000 pounds of nonrecyclable CO2. I’m glad to see President Clinton is doing his part to help the planet. How many millions of pounds of CO2 will he generate on the trip to Japan?

If the president wants to determine net carbon dioxide production for all countries, differentiate ground-based recyclable production from high-altitude nonrecycled production and reduce his own pollution, I might believe he is sincere. At the moment, it just looks like another shot at the old energy tax scam. Mike P. McMullin Spokane

Don’t listen to Sierra Club Marxists

It’s telling that a story about the internal politics of an extremist organization like the Sierra Club makes the front page of The Spokesman-Review. Its proposed position is flawed in the same manner as the rest of its Marxist philosophy.

Resources, even natural resources, aren’t a measured, set amount to be divided among the people (divided by government, of course). If this were true, we would have run out of trees long ago, taken by the charcoal burners of the 18th century, and wrought iron would be in terribly short supply as a result!

The fact is, as trees grew scarce, people learned to use coal to make iron. If a resource becomes truly scarce, technology improves, markets change and entrepreneurs leave the solutions of the statists far behind.

The Sierra Club should let each individual, including immigrants, worry about their own resources, property and pollution responsibilities. Let’s leave government coercion out of it. Besides, immigration may bring someone who invents the pollution-free car. They might even join the Sierra Club.

Give immigrants a break. They’re not the problem.

I have real solutions for immigration concerns: end welfare, public education, Social Security, minimum wage and other government edicts. The immigrant willing to come here under those circumstances isn’t looking for a free ride, supported by taxpayers. It would bring someone we all appreciate, willing to make the best of themselves, valuing freedom - just like the early immigrants who built this country. Greg D. Holmes Spangle, Wash.

Scoffing, denial no help at all

It frustrates me to no end to read how so much time, money and energy is spent to discredit global warming, acid rain or any other environmental threat in the name of “freedoms, property rights and rewards of capitalism” (referring to the Nov. 26 letter, “Key U.N. report was hijacked”).

Money and energy could be infinitely better exercised in ways that restore natural systems, ecological systems, to their rightful place, thus multiplying long-term freedoms, health benefits and property rights for ever-widening circles of human communities and generations.

How may this be done? By exercising the best that capitalism has to offer - mechanisms that promote creativity and innovation - and avoiding the worst that capitalism has to offer - namely, entrenchment in institutions of greed and bureaucracy.

Global warming may not be a “fact” in the same way that water and soil contamination are, but unless business institutions actively seek to make money through processes that clean up, make whole and include, then foolish debates about the relative costs of doing business (i.e. cost-benefit analysis of pollution) will be of no service to humanity, but in fact a major obstacle. Doug A. Demeo Spokane

IN THE PAPER

Paper doesn’t need ‘opinion censors’

Re: “Diversity of thought” (Perspective, Nov. 23).

Of course the Opinion page should reflect diverse opinions. The notion that journalists - some or all of them - are capable and entitled to decide what people should believe and to censor other opinions is outrageous.

That kind of arrogance is a throwback to advocacy reporting, widely popular in the 1960s and even more recently at The Spokesman-Review. The viewpoint of its staff-written editorials used to be far less diverse, and the wall between opinion and reporting in the rest of the paper was not just invisible but nonexistent.

I vividly recall when someone finally realized that the debate over clean air and water, beautiful scenery and wildlife was not about whether we should have them, as some claimed, but about how to achieve them; about stewardship vs. excluding man from interaction with nature. A staff-written editorial stated that the mining industry was necessary and not evil incarnate, and another one, published almost back-to-back with the first, approved of salvage logging. Wow!

Even now, stories by Karen Dorn Steele and Ken Olsen would sometimes be more appropriate on the Opinion page, but the bad old days of “Our failing forests” are gone, the Opinion page staff offers something other than the liberal viewpoint and “bad paper” buttons are rare.

I vote for inviting those who want to censor opinions that differ from their own to find work elsewhere. They may be in the wrong business. They’re certainly at the wrong paper. Edwin G. Davis Spokane

Get turkey defender the help he needs

It’s a sad occurrence when people with psychiatric problems are left without help. Some of them become homeless.

Emil Guillermo produces “NCM: New California Media.” His Nov. 27 Roundtable column,”Life’s no butterball when you’re part of this tradition,” suggests that he is more in a need of treatment than persuasion.

It’s hard to find out what point he tries to make. He does not like “white folks” and farmers are turkey murderers. People who eat turkey symbolically approve oppression. “We have our own celebratory food,” Guillermo exclaims, and it sounds like “we” is everybody but white folks. Isn’t that a little racist?

It’s great to see sexual preferences being a political issue and a dividing factor. What we need now is to add eating habits to the political spectrum and to declare it an eating sin to eat or not to eat turkey.

No, I have no hard feelings toward Guillermo; he needs treatment and that’s all. But, if National Public Radio employs people like him, I am not surprised by the demands to slash its funds. Peter C. Dolina Veradale