Letters To The Editor

Fri., May 30, 1997

BURNING ISSUE

Double standard for burning

Save Our Summers people and doctors, how come you are not protesting U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt’s call for prescribed burning in Idaho’s national forests? Babbitt called controlled burns “a necessary and urgent example of what we need to be doing everywhere.” We thought smoke was dangerous to people’s health. Is it only when grass growers burn their fields once a year? Maybe a study should be done by Washington State University to see what the difference is between grass field smoke and forest fire smoke.

Babbitt says 10 million acres of public lands need controlled burns. That is 600 times more than what the grass growers burn. There is clearly a double standard when it comes to allowing burning. If it’s bad, it should be banned for all. If it’s good, then the ban for grass growers should be modified.

Carroll and Edna Mae Schultheis Colton, Wash.

Burning OK only for some

Here we go again. It’s the same old litany each and every year regarding grass burning.

I drove over to my parents’ house last weekend when the weather was sunny and warm. In the short distance to their house, I counted at least a dozen small fires burning in residential neighborhoods. Seems like these small fires people set to burn yard waste don’t count.

No matter that these fires usually smolder for hours, produce a lot of smoke and usually are left unattended. Since they are set by “everyone,” they are OK.

If you have a pile of yard waste, set it ablaze. So what that it might be damp and cause a lot of smoke. Since the neighbors are all doing it, it’s OK.

But let a farmer burn his field off, God forbid! We all know that all he is doing is lining his pockets. We know that he sends all the money he makes out of state and doesn’t pay taxes. We know he hasn’t bent over backwards to try to accommodate the folks with breathing problems and burns only under controlled conditions and under careful watchful eyes. Let’s run this industry out of our states and let some other place deal with the smoke for a couple of weeks a year, and have over a million dollars added to its economy, and have all the benefits of having fields instead of parking lots. Kathie E. Fiessinger Coeur d’Alene

SEAHAWKS STADIUM

Vote ‘no’ on Referendum 48

According to Referendum 48, billionaire Paul Allen’s Seahawks will probably never pay rent to the taxpayers who own the new stadium/exhibition center. Page 9 of Referendum 48 calls for “payment of fair rent,” which is “solely intended to cover the reasonable operating expenses of the Public Stadium Authority (PSA), and shall be not less than $850,000 per year.” The provisions and rules for the PSA, its duties and powers to work on “design and construction with the team affiliate” and all parts of financing take at least 11 pages of the referendum’s 23 pages.

The PSA is the main agency working on all of Allen’s operation. It isn’t logical that $70,000 per month could begin to cover all of its expenses.

New Section 210 (page 17) of the voters pamphlet states that funds to pay for operation of the PSA may be realized from proceeds of the $300 million bond. This provision indicates that the original “fair rent” won’t be sufficient to fund PSA and there’s no other provision for actual stadium funds to be paid as rent by Allen’s Seahawks.

Taxpayer investment in the new Kingdome totals at least $650 million. This includes the present Kingdome and land at more than $250 million, new bond of $300 million and tax exemptions and waivers at $100 million to $300 million.

As master tenant, Allen has the right to retain revenues from the stadium and exhibition center, subleases, licenses, concessions, advertising, stadium naming rights and parking revenues (page 9, section 106).

Vote “no” on Referendum 48 by June 17. Ed P. Keegan Spokane

A win-win situation for state

The new stadium - should I vote “yes” or “no”?

Those who want me to vote “no” say that we need to spend our tax dollars on higher-priority items. What money are they talking about? I don’t see 400 million tax dollars sitting on the Legislature’s table waiting to be split up among education, roads and the proposed stadium. In fact, there aren’t any tax dollars there to spend at all.

The stadium dollars will be generated through user fees such as Seahawk tickets and parking at the stadium, by a small tax when staying in a King County hotel, with state lottery games, and dollars from a bond fund put up by Paul Allen.

Plus, Allen will put up 100 million of his own dollars and cover any cost overruns in the construction of the new stadium. I don’t know of too many team owners who have ever offered to do that.

Boy, I am feeling so overly taxed! What are we going to have if we vote “no”? A Kingdome with no major tenant. A city (and state) that lost a franchise football team that we will never get back without a new stadium, which by then will cost $1 billion.

The stadium being built is a win-win for King County and Washington state. It is a big loss to this state if we do not build it. I know how I am going to vote on June 17. Steve C. Chandler Spokane

SPOKANE MATTERS

Way to go, Bloomsday runners

I would like to thank everyone involved with Bloomsday this year, especially the job done by all the volunteers, who make it a first-class event, along with the Bloomsday Roadrunners Club. The only complaint I have is that it would be nice to see a Bloomsday program back in our race packets again.

Also, congratulations to Kim Jones on her hometown victory and the media coverage she deserves. However, several Spokane runners who are national and world-class runners and an inspiration to all who come in contact with them deserve some recognition.

First, my congratulations to Jeff Corkill who, at 53 years of age, ran, in my opinion, the best of the best with a time of 41.15, beating a top-rated national masters runner who was recently featured in Runners World magazine. Also to June Machala who, at age 66, ran a half-marathon race in Indianapolis on Friday, setting a national age group record, flew back to Spokane Saturday evening and then won Bloomsday in her age division by 10 minutes, running it in 57 minutes.

All of us in Spokane should be proud of the tremendous running talents that reside in our city. Joe A. Machala Spokane

Where’s all the money?

Let’s see if I got this right.

We can afford a waste-to-energy plant but we cannot afford to fix our streets. We can afford to pay for consultants but we cannot afford to fix our streets. We can afford a new coliseum, but we cannot afford to fix our streets.

We can afford to fix Joe Albi Stadium but we cannot afford to fix our streets. We can afford to fund a parking garage for a private enterprise, but we cannot afford to fix our streets.

We can afford to buy a restaurant on prime real estate, but we cannot afford to fix our streets. We can afford to pay a couple a ridiculous interest rate on property that the city tried to strong-arm, but we cannot afford to fix our streets.

We can afford to pay our city administrators top dollar so we don’t lose them to other cities our size (which is not a problem because their streets are in much better shape than ours). These people are responsible for our streets, but we still can’t afford to fix our streets.

Where has all the money from the new industries and people who have moved into the area gone? If more industry and people have cost us taxpayers and citizens more money, then why are we asking them to move here? Ken G. Thornberg Spokane

LAW AND JUSTICE

Boise Cascade should be punished

According to a May 12 article, “Secret log plan uncovered,” Boise Cascade is trying to pull a fast one on the public. It is wrong how Boise Cascade and the U.S. Forest Service try to deceive the public about Idaho’s old-growth forests.

Boise Cascade’s commercials show how it is doing the right thing for the Earth, when actually it is destroying homes for wildlife, increasing erosion and ruining recreational spots that people have been appreciating. This incident by Boise Cascade was just another ploy to start logging old-growth forests before people could step in and delay the logging.

I would like to see Boise Cascade legally punished for trying to conceal its involvement in the destruction of Idaho’s old-growth timber. This immoral behavior is leading to the destruction of our forests and should not be tolerated.

Take a stand against these companies that are trying to take our forests away from us. Geoffrey S. Bell Cheney

Send the ill-behaved a message

Regarding the two kids who vandalized Sacajawea Middle School.

They should be punished much more than what has been stated. They should get a year in jail and very strict supervision until they are at least 18 years old. They should also have to repay every bit of damage they have done - I don’t care how long it takes.

Where were the parents of these kids? They shouldn’t have been out at this time doing things like this. We should send a message that we will not tolerate this kind of vandalism. L.M. Allen Spokane

LOGGING

Stop logging in public forests

One hundred years ago, on June 4, 1897, logging for profit in the national forests was authorized, and the result has been devastating.

Most people believe our national forests, like our national parks, are protected. They aren’t. Over 95 percent have been cut down. What grows back - if it grows back - is often a poor imitation of the original forests, whose diversity of plants and animals adds to our own health and quality of life.

Public concern is increasing, especially when taxpayers learn that national-forest logging is heavily subsidized by our tax dollars. (One estimate is that we subsidized industry with $765 million last year.) Americans now are beginning to regard the remnant virgin forests as reserves of great ecological value and natural beauty.

Some argue that large numbers of jobs would be lost if the nation were to move to “zero cut.” The truth is: Washington and Oregon are booming economically without natural resource extraction.

Last year, wood from federal public forests supplied only 3.9 percent of U.S. needs, which could easily be made up by better forestry and sawmill practices, less waste, fewer raw logs exported and alternative materials. Moreover, if logging subsidies could be redirected, we could devote $25,000 per person to help retrain displaced workers, with money left over for repaying the national debt.

The time has come for a change: no more commercial logging in the national public forests. Paul J. Lindholdt Spokane

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