Letters To The Editor

Tue., Oct. 7, 1997

SPOKANE MATTERS

Vote and pass conservation futures

Re: 16-year-old Alison M. Biggs’ letter of Sept. 23, “Vote yes for conservation futures.”

You better believe I’ll be voting for Biggs and her friends, and everyone else. It makes me so happy to read about a 16-year-old caring about the future of nature.

I’m part of Generation X, and we can only begin to undo the damage that’s been done. But to hear someone of Biggs’ age caring helps me to think that maybe human survival will begin to leave room for nature, too.

Everyone who is old enough to vote, please do so - for our future, for nature and for our Mother Earth.

Natalie L. Conner Deer Park

Small cost to keep nature nearby

The modern trend is for setting aside more open space for people to enjoy. I invite Edwin G. Davis, who admits he is a nature lover (Letters, Aug. 8), to join in supporting continuation of the conservation futures tax (not a new tax) when it comes up for a vote in November.

Much of the land targeted for continuous conservation is already classified as open space and is taxed in a minimum amount, so the program would have very little effect on tax revenues, according to the Spokane County Parks staff.

As for the cost of this continuation, $6 tax per year on a $100,000 home wouldn’t even buy dinner for one person! Put that against the opportunity to escape the pressures of city life without having to travel long distances to do so.

Let’s save a little of the wonderful natural heritage that makes Spokane a great place to live. The chance comes again in November. Thomas H. Rogers Sr. Spokane

Let legal costs be Amend’s raise

Spokane County Coroner Dexter Amend has considerable nerve to ask the county commissioners for a pay raise after they have spent $33,000 defending his medical license.

Amend’s comments and actions are what caused the uproar. The money spent defending his license should be considered his pay raise. The $33,000 is more than he would receive in a pay raise from the commissioners by the time his term runs out in 1999, anyway. Steven D. Millard Spokane

Heads up, Airway Heights voters

Registered voters of Airway Heights had better pay attention to what is going on.

Out of 899 registered voters, only 297 people bothered to vote in the primary election.

The top vote-getter got only 133 votes, which is only 15 percent of registered voters. This means that if the same number of voters turn out for the general election, anyone with 151 votes (or about 17 percent of the registered voters) will be elected to govern the city.

One clan in Airway Heights can determine the outcome of the election and, in effect, control city government.

I urge the people of Airway Heights to get out and vote. Ed B. Booher Airway Heights

BUSINESS AND LABOR

Profit seekers bear responsibility

James Mahoney’s Sept. 29 letter (“Practice conservative management”) was short on facts and long on complaints.

First, I have never seen a property owner or rental agency submit a renter’s application to the utility for approval. If we denied service to a tenant or required a utility deposit after they had a lease, the property owners would sue for lost rental revenue. If a competent property manager had screened prospective tenants and was willing to sign a lease with them, they should have some responsibility for their actions.

Secondly, as a publicly owned utility, our responsibility is to provide water service at the lowest possible rate, while maintaining excellent safety and reliability. Assuming bad debts of landlords and property managers would raise the rates for all of the customers who pay their bills on time. Our customers already have to pay the costs of collection attempts we make for renters who’ve skipped out.

Finally, rental property owners and managers enter the rental business willingly, with the idea of making a profit. In order to make a profit, there must be a risk. The responsibility must rest with the individual making that decision.

Publicly owned utilities are specifically set up as nonprofit organizations. Our customers are not investment bankers for your risk taking, nor would you offer to share any profits with our customers.

At some point, property owners must accept the fact that they are responsible for their own actions and decisions. Kevin M. Wells, general manager Vera Water and Power, Veradale

WASHINGTON STATE

Initiative really about gun confiscation

Are you comfortable being deceived, being used? This is the true thrust of Initiative 676.

The initiative is a veiled attempt, under the guise of child safety (a conclusion that does not follow from the complete text), to ban private ownership of firearms.

If passed, I-676 would create an expensive new bureaucracy, rob us of both federal and state-honored freedoms, promote a false sense of security and limit self-defense. Surprisingly, I-676 could even result in more deaths. Gun lock manufacturers warn that a trigger clock on a loaded gun “may result in an accidental discharge.”

Consider two prime organizations and several people in the know who oppose Initiative 676. They include:

The Washington state Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors Association.

The Law Enforcement Alliance of America.

The president of the Washington State Sheriffs Association.

The chairwoman of Women for Responsible Gun Ownership.

Spokane Police Chief Terry Mangan.

If you were to fail to comply, knowingly or unknowingly, with all the fine print in I-676 and there is a handgun in your home, you would be guilty of a class C felony. The framers of I-676 cleverly wrote the initiative in such a way that it is impossible to implement by the mandated deadline. This translates into turning a tremendous number of honest, law-abiding Washington citizens into felons.

Felons are not allowed to own guns. This initiative then permits authorities to confiscate your firearms, including shotguns and rifles.

Initiative 676 isn’t about child safety. It’s about gun control and confiscation. Logan K. Urice Spokane

If measure passes, I won’t comply

I served my country honorably on Guadalcanal, Okinawa and in China as a U.S. Marine in World War II. I qualified (by Marine standards) as an expert on several types of weapons and used them all in various situations on Okinawa.

I will not obey any regulations contained in Initiative 676, should it pass. I believe most who agree with me will not comply, either.

I will not not surrender rights guaranteed by the Constitution to misguided, poorly informed, paranoid, regulation-loving bureaucrats and their liberal conspirators. Jerry W. Bell Colville, Wash.

Simple training all that’s needed

Re: The so-called common sense initiative 676.

I suggest that people use their heads. If parents or schools would teach kids fire arm safety there would be no such thing as gun accidents.

If everyone, especially gun owners, would teach their children just four basic rules of firearm safety, we could make gun accidents a thing of the past.

Always assume that any gun you see is loaded.

Keep your finger off the trigger unless you are going to shoot.

Never point a gun at anything you are not willing to shoot.

Be sure of your target and what’s behind it.

Even if one or two of these rules is broken and the others are still followed, you could still avoid a tragedy.

These rules are simple, straightforward and easy to learn. I taught my 6-year-old daughter these rules when she was 4 and she has never touched my guns without supervision.

These rules, if learned and followed, are the true common sense no trigger lock or safety license can replace. Chris E. Justice Spokane

PROMISE KEEPERS

Thankful my sons-in-law participate

I am not the wife of a Promise Keeper; I am the dreaded mother-in-law.

Yes, the husbands of both of my hard-working, career-oriented, contemporary daughters are Promise Keepers. These guys are both your normal type fellows. They watch the sports channels, earn a good living and go to church. They treat their wives - my daughters - with love and respect. They are both actively involved in the rearing of their children. They both do laundry, wash dishes and cook dinner when it’s their turn. And they lead their respective families in love and with a compassion that grows stronger each time they attend a Promise Keepers gathering.

They went to Washington, D.C., to sing, pray and repent before God and this nation. I am thankful they are willing to stand in the gap and I am very thankful they’ve chosen to be partners with my daughters, for life!

It would behoove us all to read Ephesians 5:21, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Myrna E. Graybeal Spokane

Anti-feminist views annoy

As a resident of Idaho, I am outraged at editorial writer D.F. Oliveria’s editorials, particularly the one on The Promise Keepers.

Oliveria would set women back a thousand years, if he had his way. I am sick of his rebuke of women in general and of feminists in particular. Two weeks ago, he denounced a Washington state legislator, who happens to be a woman, for initiating legislation regulating baby sitters. Now, he attacks the National Organization for Women and its president, Patricia Ireland. Let me suggest that if it weren’t for NOW and similar organizations, women would still be abused by men and subservient to men, as pointed out in the editorial by Jamie Tobias Neely and clearly reflected in the adjacent political cartoon.

As an Idaho resident, I resent having to be subjected to Oliveria’s rubbish. I also resent having to endure the white separatist, pseudoreligious views and organizations. There are enough of them around without further encouragement by Oliveria. Beth F. Allen Sandpoint

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Parents of gays do love their children

Bishops telling us we are now to love our gay children (News, Oct. 1) seems superfluous. We have always loved our gay children.

We also have known they did not choose their sexual orientation. However, as a founding member of the national Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, I can tell you our organization is grateful for the bishops’ statements and support. PFLAG has supported parents and their gay children for 20 years. We have been dismayed and hurt by the many churches and their treatment of our loved gay friends and relatives. Perhaps the bishops’ support will ease our work, and allow other Christians to follow. Katie E. Urbanek Spokane

Closed-minded should back off

Editor Chris Peck did a very good job in stating the case for allowing teams to continue to have the right to pick the names and symbols they wish to use as mascots. If school board members choose to take actions based on the requests of those they do not represent over the requests of those they do represent, they should be quickly replaced with ones who will represent the will of the people.

We must stop allowing the closed-minded to dictate to the rest of us how we should talk and live. John W. Axtell Valley, Wash.