Letters To The Editor

MEAN STREETS

Foolish to rob STA for repairs

Must our government always have a love-hate relationship with its taxpayers? At times I see pure logic and common sense. At other times I see the fangs of forgotten history biting repeatedly.

Robbing the Spokane Transit Authority to pay for pothole repair is akin to forcing department managers to spend their whole budget for fear of future budget cuts. STA should keep its money for expansion, equipment upgrades, extended hours, etc.

I sure hope our local government has not forgotten that buses reduce traffic. We should be using this money to reduce traffic even more by increasing ridership. And don’t forget our traffic pollution problem. It’s not going to go away by patching potholes with bus money.

We need a comprehensive spending plan that encourages saving, not the penalizing of departments. Making across-the-board percentage cuts shows a lack of common sense.

Let’s create a comprehensive county-city community plan while we are at it. We need future goals that strengthen education, family values, job skills, neighborhoods and community involvement. We can start with revamping our spending habits. Craig Coppock Spokane

Oil companies don’t degrade asphalt

I am responding to Bill Wilson’s letter with respect to asphalt quality (“Oil companies degrade today’s asphalt,” Feb. 23).

There are two sources of rutting: studded tires and trucks. We do not know how to stop studded tire wear. However, we published a paper on how to stop the other type of rutting, the concepts of which are being evaluated in Spokane.

The same viscosity grade of asphalt has been used for at least 30 years. Thus, asphalt has not gotten thinner as Wilson claims. It is not possible for a refinery to take the “goodies” out of asphalt through cracking or any other process. No cracked asphalts are allowed in pavements. Even if what Wilson says were true, the resulting product would be harder, not softer.’

Refiners may have a cracker. However, the feed stocks are oils, not asphalt. Cracking asphalt results in coke.

What Wilson may have observed is the combined effects of heavier truck traffic and higher truck tire pressures, operating hot plants at lower temperatures (which results in a softer asphalt in the pavement) and possibly oversanded mix designs that are tender, hard to compact and tend to be soft in hot weather. None of these problems result from actions taken by the oil companies. Robert L. Dunning Petroleum Sciences, Inc., Spokane

City should get serious about potholes

Why is it that when we are driving through the city of Spokane, so many of us hear the familiar sound of a car tire dropping into a pothole?

I know I’m not the only one concerned with the condition of Spokane’s streets. I’ve heard numerous stories on local news broadcasts and have read people’s responses in the paper about this. Many are complaining, so why is it not much is being done?

Potholes are more than just a nuisance to drivers. At night, when it’s hard to see, avoiding a pothole can be nearly impossible. Hitting them can do more than interrupt a smooth ride. It can damage your car’s tires, and tires can be very expensive to replace.

You can ask the city to reimburse you for potholecaused damage but few ever get the money.

The city is putting its money in the wrong places. Justin Botchek Spokane

We need repairs, not sex surveys

Re: “Sex survey too intrusive, Harris says” (Spokesman-Review, Feb. 21):

We do not need to spend $10,000 of the taxpayers’ money on a survey of questions to which the answers are obvious to anyone with even minimal perception and common sense. Spend the money on pothole repair! Thomas M. Ryan Spokane

WASHINGTON STATE

Better fights and guns, Sterk?

Time for an educational crisis alert! Some teachers have really gone to radical extremes. They are introducing the concept of relaxation and stress management through deep breathing, yoga and exercise.

But we can rest assured that our vigilant state representative, Mark Sterk, is sponsoring a bill to ban relaxation in schools and suspend teachers for such unscrupulousness. Students today can continue to deal with stress the American way - with fights, guns, drugs and suicide.

Even though the few relaxation sessions offered at local schools were voluntary, Sterk thinks we should micromanage school districts and classrooms. I thought the fear of yoga practices went out with the 1994 Republican convention.

Why is Sterk, a former police officer, attacking techniques that offer our teenagers another option for dealing with violence? Maybe he should refrain from sponsoring education legislation, take some long, deep breaths and let that extra oxygen reach his brain. Sara Holahan Spokane

Society can’t see beyond Spokane

Your editorial of Feb. 16 prompts my comments on the Cheney Cowles Museum and its need for state funds.

Although my interest in and support of the Eastern Washington Historical Society dates from my student days at Washington State University, I’ve dropped my membership due to lack of activities in the area outside of Spokane. There is no magazine, no field person to help local societies in Eastern Washington. To use the facilities, one must go to Spokane.

When I attended the talk by Dr. Paul Pitzer on Grand Coulee Dam and wanted to tape record it for use in the Whitman County Historical Society, the staff refused to do so. Also, when I contributed papers of my wife’s grandfather on the local Spokane duck hunters group, I was told they were not of interest. Why?

Until it serves the people residing outside of Spokane, I don’t agree that state tax funds should be made available. The name should be changed to the Spokane County Historical Society, not the Eastern Washington Historical Society. Bruce C. Harding Pullman

IN THE PUBLIC EYE

Fuhrman’s a good man and neighbor

I’m tired of business leaders blaming Mark Fuhrman for their perceived economic woes. They act as if Fuhrman has no right to live here. He was born and raised in Washington state. That alone makes him a true Northwesterner. Are you?

They act as if Fuhrman is a public enemy. He served his country in the Marine Corps. He spent his time defending the United States in Vietnam. Did you?

Fuhrman was a homicide detective in Los Angeles. Do you think that was easy? He made some - how would politicians say it? - mistakes. Fuhrman regrets his racial epithets. I know because I have talked with him.

Have you never said something you regret?

Leave Fuhrman and his lovely family alone. I prefer him for a neighbor any day over Duane Hagadone. I hope Hagadone and his cronies stay 60 miles south of here. Henry Warlow Hope, Idaho

FORESTS

National forests not cost-efficient

There is little doubt that national forests operate at a loss (Spokesman-Review, Feb. 20). In this region they have four times higher costs than the state of Idaho and half the revenue per timber unit harvested. Where Idaho’s industrial timberlands sustainably and profitably harvest 6 percent of their suitable inventory each year, the Forest Service achieves only 0.6 percent.

Either federal foresters are extremely inept tree farmers or their mission is not really as timber focused as popular rhetoric contends.

I study federal timber programs. The largest budget on most national forests is labeled “timber” but it functions as a general forestry operating pot where as much as 80 percent of expenditures may enhance non-timber objectives. An analysis of 19 below-cost forests showed that if timber sales are stopped, it would take an average of $11 million each in new annual appropriations to maintain the level of non-timber achievements.

The Wilderness Society equates national forest losses with timber industry subsidies. For this to be true, log buyers must gain something for nothing, but they don’t. Highly competitive auctions for public timber establish winning bids which would return any surplus back to the seller.

All the excessive Forest Service costs must actually accrue somewhere else. They could represent the dead weight losses of an environmentally gridlocked bureaucracy or subsidies to the millions of us who demand and enjoy all the intangible benefits of public forestry. Charley McKetta, forest resources economist Moscow, Idaho

Road building isn’t charity work

In David Way’s Feb. 24 letter, “Government ignorant about forests,” he states that “loggers aren’t making a profit from building roads.”

Are we to believe that these men are building roads with their big, expensive machines out of the gratitude of their hearts? Not quite. Companies get paid between $20,000 and $50,000 per mile of road. Nobody does anything for free.

Most roads being built on the national forests these days are strictly for logging, with no recreational value.

Way then mentions fires and how little Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt knows about forest management. If Way would read a basic ecology book on Western forests, he would find that fires have been part of this system since forests developed. He’d learn the plants and animals depend on fire for long-term survival.

Babbitt only said that prescribed fire should be used more in the management of our forests, not as the only management tool.

Logging, of course, is still the No. 1 choice of management by the Forest Service. Many times, prescribed fire follows a timer sale to reduce fuel levels and allow certain forbs, shrubs and trees to return that are beneficial forage for wildlife.

Way was also incorrect when he said that the government pays no taxes. The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management pay approximately $230,000 to Stevens County and approximately $500,000 to Ferry County every year, regardless of how much timber is cut. Anthony Van Gessel Republic, Wash.

Get ready for more missteps

“It’s astounding,” Wilderness Society economist Carolyn Alkire is quoted as saying about a Clinton administration announcement that national forest timber harvests cost more than they make (News, Feb. 20). “It’s what we’ve been saying all along.”

The Forest Service denies the harvests lost money, however, and wants an independent audit to prove it.

Somehow, I’m not astounded. The announcement is partial payment for support in the last election by environmental groups. A lot of what they spent on it was tax money from the $40 billion that goes to elderly and environmental groups annually as federal grants.

I’m only surprised it took so long. The Indonesian Lippo Group got paid for campaign contributions even before the election. Clinton made 1.7 million acres in Utah a wilderness area, which prevented mining a rare type of coal in it that would have competed with a similar type found in Indonesia, owned by you know who.

If the announcement signals a further shutdown of our public forests to logging, that is ominous. Forest health measures, public access and firefighting all depend on forest roads, which logging pays for.

Another victim will be K-12 education. A quarter of all money from federal timber sales goes to counties for roads and schools. These have already been hurt by the reduced timber harvest in recent years.

It’s ironic that after announcing a multi-billion dollar plan to help tertiary education, which doesn’t need it, Clinton may be ready to undercut rural K-12 schools, which do. Edwin G. Davis Spokane

THE MEDIA

‘Schindler’s List’ sobering indictment

After only about an hour of the movie, “Schindler’s List,” I’m in tears as I realize that humans really can be that evil. I’ve even seen it and didn’t want to believe it. Right now, the word humanity makes me sad. Cindy Peterson-Mitchell Spokane

View of public TV badly skewed

I couldn’t agree more with Jeff Jacoby on one point (Opinion, Feb. 15): “Mobil Masterpiece Theatre” is television of the highest caliber. Unfortunately, the rest of his column succumbs to the misconceptions posing as a book by Laurence Jarvik, whose vision and accuracy have been clouded because his independent production work was denied by PBS many years ago.

For 26 years, Mobil has funded “Masterpiece Theatre,” but that by no means covers the program’s entire cost. Public broadcasting wouldn’t exist without federal support and the donations of viewers and listeners. Without PBS, “Mobil Masterpiece Theatre” would be a glorious party with no guests.

Jacoby’s suggestion that public broadcasting could operate on corporate support alone is sadly unrealistic. Mobil’s generosity is the outstanding exception. Corporations fund only 20 percent of public television’s budget. It’s the combination of public and private support that keeps public broadcasting afloat.

We’re proud to bring “Sesame Street” to Northwest families, a program Jacoby accused of being a toy commercial. “Sesame Street” sells the healthy development of children learning their letters and numbers. We applaud the efforts of Children’s Television Workshop to bring in revenue to help pay for the series. Our children are the beneficiaries.

The system Jacoby advocates, total private support, already exists - it’s commercial broadcasting. If high-quality television needs no government support, why is it that government-supported, not commercial, broadcasting has given us the masterpieces he cites? Fortunately, the public, and our representatives in Washington, D.C., have noted the difference. Claude L. Kistler, general manager KSPS-TV, Spokane

Report on prostate cancer issues

As a reader of your paper and a person with advanced prostate cancer, I am very concerned about the lack of attention in the form of media coverage and lack of funding for research in finding a cure.

Public awareness of the debate raging in the medical community would be a great service to your readers, especially since many of them will at some time in their life be faced with prostate cancer. Richard G. Cooper Post Falls

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Naturopath helped after toxic exposure

Regarding Gulf War pesticide exposure

In a 1979-80 farm incident, I spilled a quart of concentrated, industrial-strength pesticide solvent all over me. Because of particular circumstances, I did not get it showered off until four or five hours later. By that evening, my thyroid was pulsating, I was vomiting, had diarrhea and just felt awful.

I went from being a workaholic to barely being able to function. As time went on, I got weaker and sicker, even though every doctor told me I was fine. In 1995, I knew I was spiraling down toward death. I was violently ill, burning up internally, had explosive pain in my head, pain in all my joints and my limbs were starting to go numb. I literally felt poisoned.

Only one doctor believed me and he didn’t know what to do. Finally, we found out about a chemical poisoning doctor in Bellevue. I was taken there and began a procedure to rid the body of all the toxins. I have been having these procedures done locally through a naturopath now four times a week for 24 months. It’s the only thing that has worked for me.

It’s a shame to be so violently ill and in pain, unable to get help from the traditional medical community, not be believed and have to shoulder the financial expense on your own, as most insurance companies will not cover naturopath doctors. The procedure is easy and not painful. Shirley Singleton Coeur d’Alene

Use four-way pause at intersections

A simple solution to too many red-light-runner accidents at intersections is to have the whole intersection be on red for a moment, before the green light flashes on. A Canadian visitor pointed this out to me. It may make us wait a moment longer but, in the long run, it would save on accidents and possibly lives. Pam Ames Spokane