Life’s Tough On The Streets

City efforts to keep motorists from cutting through nearby residential areas while Grand Boulevard is closed apparently haven’t affected all streets equally.

Among those efforts are $17,000 worth of traffic barriers.

“The traffic has not been rerouted away from our neighborhood,” says Lynne Haley. “It’s been rerouted onto my street, Hatch, which is an arterial that’s uncontrolled at many intersections, and we’re not getting any benefits whatsoever from the $17,000 solution.”

In the future, Haley suggests, the city should entrust such decisions to its professional planners, “neutral people who are not affected by specialinterest groups, which is what has happened here, especially on Garfield.”

Across town, meanwhile, Sandy Smith notes that her northside neighborhood suffers traffic problems because the city isn’t enforcing existing ordinances or keeping pace with growth such as what’s occurring north of the Nevada-Lidgerwood area.

“Standard Street and Cozza Drive are inundated with truck traffic, car traffic, speeders, etc., etc.,” she said.

“The city needs to enforce the dozens and dozens of laws and ordinances they have on the books. They don’t enforce the speeding zone in our area; they don’t enforce the no-trucks ordinance in our area.”

Friends and foes of Hentze

The saga of John Hentze, an official in the state Department of Social and Health Services, continues to attract diverse comments.

For example, Lorie Storms of Sacheen Lake finds it “terribly offensive that anyone with a criminal record is working with day-care providers.” She also objects to his $58,000-plus salary and thinks both Hentze and his boss, DSHS regional administrator Bernard Nelson, should be dismissed.

Hentze was the agency’s liaison to day-care providers when it became public that he has been convicted of assault involving a 12-year-old girl. After day-care providers and some DSHS employees protested, Hentze was assigned to different duties.

Peggy Williams of Spokane thinks Hentze has been treated unfairly.

“I am apalled by the behavior of ‘social workers’ to take such a stance at someone who has never in his 17 years of state service, been accused of inappropriate behavior toward any employee,” she said.

“So he was in charge of dealing with child care provider issues? He wasn’t going out to child care centers and sitting in the midst of children.”

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