Letters To The Editor

Fri., June 20, 1997

WASHINGTON STATE

Replace excise tax with road tolls

I read with interest Patricia Hoffman’s letter to the editor, “Saying others do it solves nothing,” of June 9.

A lot is written and discussed about Spokane’s air pollution from particulates. I also think Spokane has problems with car emissions.

I moved here from Massachusetts in January. Although Spokane is a lovely area, the cars really stink. I noticed it right away: ancient pickup trucks spewing blue smoke, 1979 Honda Civics wheezing noxious fumes, old Camaros spitting pollutants from the tailpipe.

Perhaps the source of the problem is the excise tax. An excise tax on cars is an environmentally regressive tax. People think it is a good fine for the rich, but it really just encourages everyone to drive old, polluting cars. I’ve never seen so many junkers as I have in Washington state.

Now that the Federal government is allowing states to put tolls on federal highways, Washington should consider removing the excise tax from Spokane County and other areas with pollution problems. A toll can be set up on the Idaho border to capture the lost revenue. This is especially fair when you consider how Spokanites use that border to avoid sales and car excise taxes.

Let’s push this idea with our representatives. Down with the excise tax! It gives us asthma. Stacy E. Swider Veradale

SPOKANE MATTERS

Flawed thinking too entrenched

Why do people like Phil Williams, city director of engineering services, continue to call federal and state money anything other than taxpayers’ money? And who pays gas taxes?

This really reminds one of the gobbledygook of the incinerator costs flaunted by Williams. Could Spokane be hoping to produce more bridges in this city than any another city in the nation, no matter what the cost?

Nature seemed to be telling us something with her display of river behavior this year.

Both columnist Doug Clark’s piece on changing the name of the city back to Spokane Falls and the “Bridge to the Past” by J. William T. Youngs in the June 11 issue of the Inlander delivered the message well.

The ability to change course seems impossible before the fact. Perhaps the After the fact, if it doesn’t work statement that has been said so often is buried too deep, as it continues to be repeated. Examples such as Five Mile and Moran prairies come to mind.

Developers continue construction without flood protection. Why not demand governing bodies stop grandfathering-in errors? Why re-elect people dedicated to repeating them?

We are fortunate in hearing new voices. Make Blueprints 2000 your vision and your plan, as requested by County Public Works, division of long-range planning. Ora Mae Orton Spokane

Library art: We can do better

Although I am not an uncouth Klingon when it comes to art, I must protest the hiring of a Tacoma artist to create glass panels for the new Shadle Park Library. Surely, a local artist could have been located.

Better yet, why not place the works of many local artists on display in our libraries on a rotating basis, thus educating the public and exposing the artists to potential markets?

If the industrial “art” at the South Hill branch is any example of what we have to look forward to, the $20,000 set aside for Shadle as well as money for the new Indian Trail library could be better spent on replacing reading materials. Alternatively, why don’t we use the money to pay librarians so that they won’t have to face any more unpaid leave days? Mary K. Singer Spokane

Helping organizations do us proud

I graduate from Eastern Washington University’s School of Social Work this week. An essential component of my educational program was my practicum experiences jointly supervised by community agencies and the School of Social Work.

Through my practicum placements, I was fortunate to be involved with some of Spokane’s wonderfully talented and community-conscious citizens. They were tremendous educators.

Spokane can be justly proud of the following organizations and their members for the community work they are accomplishing: Spokane Council of Ecumenical Ministries, Greater Spokane Coalition Against Poverty, Spokane Interfaith and Education Alliance, Spokane Housing Affordability Campaign, Spokane Neighborhood Action Program, Spokane Housing Information System, Spokane Housing Authority, The Children’s Alliance, Spokane Peace and Justice Action League, VOICES., Columbia Legal Services, Spokane Task Force on Race Relations, Spokane Low Income Housing Consortium, and NATIVE project.

These organizations enrich Spokane and deserve your continued support. Gregory R. Smith Cheney

Let private firms pave streets

Opinion editor John Webster’s recent fine editorial reflects what I suspect the majority of Spokane thinks. It is time to redefine government.

Is it the purpose of government to use our taxes to provide and protect jobs for civil servants or to provide necessary services? If private business can get our streets paved at less cost, then let’s get with it and let them do the job! We are tired of city crews wasting time on patch work. John W. Bauer Spokane

Housing crisis in the offing

Low-income housing in Spokane is facing a dangerous crisis in the very near future. Many Section 8 contracts are due to expire.

If Congress fails to provide adequate resources to renew expired Section 8 contracts, the result will be losses of large numbers of low-income housing units and displaced low-income seniors, families and people with disabilities. To say the least, it will mean massive numbers of homeless in our fair city.

Such a development would not fit in with Spokane’s future projects now being planned. Furthermore, it would create hardship for current private owners, apartment managers and service providers. It would also limit the effectiveness of state and local housing investments that attract and retain businesses and help communities remain strong.

Finally, if Congress does not provide funding for affordable housing, these costs to taxpayers will simply be shifted to education, health and employment opportunities.

This is a nationwide problem. Spokane citizens can help by contacting their city and state officials and getting involved to help provide for a better Spokane. Robert J. Burk Spokane

LAW AND JUSTICE

Education best way to fight drugs

Before the hysterical reactions pour in to Russ Moritz’s call for the legalization of marijuana (Street Level, June 15), please consider that nobody avoids drugs just because drugs are illegal. Virtually everyone who wants to smoke marijuana today is already smoking it.

Education is the only successful weapon in the so-called war against drugs. The considerable money we put into punishment is better spent on education and on studying why people seek street drugs in the first place.

Also, hemp is a very useful product, providing us with fabrics, cords and ropes, soap, paint and varnish. This valuable commodity is lost to us, to our economic detriment, merely because hemp fiber comes from the marijuana plant. From all standpoints, including tax revenue, it’s time to lift the pointless ban against this plant.

If we truly want to do something about drug use, the courthouse and jail are not the places to begin. Fred Glienna Coeur d’Alene

Andrews case: Give it up

Why does our legal system continue to prosecute and persecute Joseph “Jo-Jo” Andrews? Has the system not racked up the costliest prosecution to date - half a million dollars? This, to convict a young man when there is only circumstantial evidence and non-credible witness!

Two juries have refused to find Andrews guilty. Now, will the district attorney reduce the charge again, hoping to get a conviction? Is this obsession to convict fueled by the fact that Andrews is black, from California and has black friends? Let’s be real.

Why is the Spokane Police Department obsessed with black? Or with the harassment of blacks and other minorities?

Andrews should be released - now. He has spent more than two years in jail. Enough! Let the man have a life. He has had two trials - neither of them the guaranteed “speedy.” Linda E. Thomas Spokane

Laws multiplying like flies

The recent letter from Curt Messex (“We face threat worse than Joe Camel,” June 4), about losing our rights, reminds me that Gov. Lawton Chiles of Florida just signed a bill that youths under age 18 caught smoking may lose their driving privilege. Other states, as we well know, revoke our driver’s license if we don’t pay child support.

It might be a little tough to pay child support if we can’t get to work. And what does a driver’s license have to do with smoking?

I sure hope Chiles doesn’t have any teenagers, because teens will smoke. And when they lose their driver’s license, they will end up in our court system because they will drive.

If the states want to save some money on their next budget, how about giving the legislators about five years off? They have nothing better to do than dream up laws as stupid as the aforementioned. We have more laws now than can be enforced, and we sure don’t need to lose any more of our rights.

(I am a nonsmoker with no child support to pay.) G. Ernie Long Coeur d’Alene

IN THE PAPER

Poll results appear made to order

The June 11 article on the proposed amendment to the Constitution to ban flag burning, sponsored by Rep. Gerald Solomon, R-N.Y., brought to mind that the old adage that “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics” couldn’t be more true.

The article starts out saying that 80 percent of Americans support such an amendment but then later fills us in with the important detail that this statistic was taken by Republican pollster Wirthlin Worldwide, which surveyed 847 voters for the Citizens Flag Alliance, a coalition of more than 100 veterans and civic groups that support the amendment.”

As I read the article, it sounded as if the people they polled were voters who already were known to support it.

Regardless of the statistic and how much supposed popular support it has, the whole concern over flag burning is an idolatrous, empty and truly distracting issue.

How about we focus on developing real citizenship - service for the common good of family, land and neighbor? How about we come together for positive action on the real issues of the day? Rev. Gary L. Jewell Spokane

Please, we’re not all backpackers

Here is yet another letter to request that The Spokesman-Review begin to highlight travel beyond the provincial realm of the western U.S. and Canada.

For the past four years, I have quickly scanned the travel section and, invariably, have tossed it aside. Like many “older” readers, I’m not interested in articles on campground sites, backpacking trails, regional rivers for rafting trips or the best bet for rock climbing ventures.

Many of your readers have a more cosmopolitan sense than is typically reflected in your travel section. Please acknowledge this diversity of interest and bring back a truly representative sampling of travel taste. Kathleen M. Morig Spokane

‘Winkerbean’ hits bottom

Comics are supposed to be funny. There is enough genuine negativity and violence in the world to supply plenty of bad vibes for everyone.

Read the rest of the newspaper and you will find plenty in reality that can subconsciously, even consciously, affect one’s psychological well-being and attitude. Shouldn’t comics provide a totally lighthearted respite from the harshness of reality documented in plentiful detail from many other sources?

The “Funky Winkerbean” comic strip prompted me to write this letter. The garbage it has contained with this John Darling murder thing is bad enough, but on June 11, the content is grossly twisted to an extent befitting Satan himself. Three sketches depicting arson in progress is its sole content.

Anyone who enjoys “Funky Winkerbean” or thinks it’s funny should take a good look at their own mental health status and be concerned about their thinking. Dan A. Systad Deer Park