Letters To The Editor

Fri., Sept. 19, 1997

SPOKANE MATTERS

Sabey has more to do than meddle

Dave Sabey left downtown Spokane in the lurch. Can NorthTown be far behind?

With the opening of the new Valley Mall and River Park Square near reality, Sabey has apparently turned to politics rather than tending to business in his own shopping center to meet the challenges of competition.

Let’s hope Spokane voters aren’t fooled by his tactics and that, rather than spending all this Seattle money to influence our elections, Sabey comes to his senses and tends to business.

What is wrong with developing downtown? We have a lot of events that draw tourism, and these people aren’t going to walk to outlying malls.

I’m glad to see we are improving. As our population grows, there will be new areas downtown to attract tourists and provide job opportunities for our city. Kathleen M. Whitbeck Spokane

We have more to do than rename city

I say we go one step further and rename our city “Spokane Falls in a Chuckhole.” Come on, people, do we not have better things to do with our time and precious resources than to replace street signs we can’t even read due to the jarring conditions of our streets? Think about it. M. Melaine Sullivan Spokane

Tax diesel fuel, not gasoline

Everyone seems to favor a local-option gas tax. Most of the candidates for City Council say they are for it.

What about a local-option diesel tax? Why not tax the rigs that tear up the city streets, instead of 3,000-pound cars?

Central Pre Mix, ACME Concrete and Construction, United Parcel Service, overloaded city and county vehicles, Murphy Brothers Construction and Paving, Inland Asphalt - the list goes on and on. The heavy trucks that tear up the city streets go scot-free. A local-option gas tax doesn’t assess them a cent. They all burn diesel. Mike G. Sherick Spokane

Newspaper never fair or informative

Re: “Bright venue on road to progress” (editorial, Sept. 11):

To hold up the Spokane Transity Authority Plaza as a “monument to the value of a tenaciously constructive civic life” is preposterous. If the Plaza represents the quality and significance of your vision of the future, we are in serious trouble.

To suggest that people who don’t agree with the Cowles agenda are simply naysayers is disingenuous and a distortion of the truth. There are positive alternatives to the steamroller that you and your cronies have set in motion.

Please refer me to one article published in this newspaper that makes the slightest attempt to objectively analyze and compare alternative traffic patterns and their impact and cost. Show me any effort on your part to seek out various points of view, feedback or input from this community. Show me one example of this newspaper fulfilling its obligation to provide the information that we need to make intelligent choices.

On the contrary, this newspaper has effectively squelched any debate or participation in the creation of downtown’s future. The decisions that you are forcing, without debate or exchange of ideas, will have an irreversible impact on our town.

A bridge is a 150-plus-year decision and should not be done lightly or in haste, or under duress.

As for staff cartoonist Milt Priggee’s cartoon, don’t you dare try to compare the Lincoln Street bridge and River Park Square with Expo ‘74. The world’s fair was created by a community rallying together for the common good. Your agenda is driven by narrow self-interest. Jim Hollingsworth Spokane

Incinerator operation unsatisfactory

Re: letter dated Sept. 9 about the incinerator burning unauthorized trash from British Columbia:

I have a letter to the state Department of Ecology dated Aug. 22 which states that the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority can no longer guarantee the plant is meeting pollution limits. When Phil Williams burns unauthorized, oily trash from British Columbia, he is not meeting and abiding by Ecology guidelines to protect the health and welfare of the people in Spokane. I submit that the position he maintains is out of order.

This past Labor Day weekend, the southwest evening air was heavily laden with fine irritating dust from dusk to dawn, and there was severe coughing and choking. Angela H. Eudaley Spokane

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Menopause is not an affliction

Menopause isn’t a monster. Menopause is a natural period in life, wherein women may or may not experience a few symptoms related to growing older.

The “Big M,” the real monster, is the self-serving branch of our medical industry. It exaggerates.

Rather than taking drugs to cope with menopausal symptoms, the more mature and less risky options are aerobics classes, book clubs, meditation, Scripture reading, doing lunch with real live friends, being creative and just saying no. Colleen A. Kelley Spokane

Sidebar came as a low blow

I must object to your prominent placement on Sept. 14 of a sidebar listing the grotesque, potential symptoms that women endure as they pass through menopause.

Many writers, including Gail Sheehy, are already making big bucks convincing female boomers that menopause is not necessarily vile. Indeed, if one took the time to read correspondent Ronna Snyder’s complete article, you would see that these symptoms could be avoided.

I am a single mother in my early 40s who, until Sunday morning, clung to the hope that some day I wouldn’t be alone. I not only kissed those hopes goodbye Sunday, but practically lost my latte.

Not only were my chances torpedoed by your “Symptoms of menopause” sidebar, but I am wondering how I can avoid being with myself when the time comes. Your announcement of my impending flatulence, bloating, crabbiness and snoring has deemed pointless my consideration of buying a personal ad in your paper.

Many women don’t experience these symptoms at all, let alone walk about for years drying up, sobbing and shaving their mustaches while being followed by an odious smell. Thanks to you, future attempts to finger the perpetrator of flatulence will inevitably result in a quick indictment of the only 45-ish woman in the room.

In the name of equal time, please run a well-placed inventory of the ways men become repulsive in their 40s and 50s. Jani L. Gilbert Spokane

Article did what doctors failed to do

Thank you for your wonderful IN Life article on “The Big M” (Sept. 14).

In one afternoon, The Spokesman-Review did what the Spokane medical community has been unable to do, which is diagnose my condition - and all it cost me was the price of the paper!

Imagine my surprise to see my symptoms printed in black and white, and to learn that what I have been experiencing is completely normal and treatable. I find it ironic that one of your “specialists” failed to diagnose these exact symptoms four years ago because he felt I was too young to be experiencing anything of this magnitude.

For me there is finally light at the end of a very long tunnel, and I fully intend to expand upon the ideas your paper has put forth. I hope other women have found this article to be just as helpful. Deborah Cooper Deer Park

Audiologists part of sound decisions

Re: staff writer Julie Titone’s article on infant hearing screening, “Sound decision”:

As an audiologist, I was excited to see an article on infant hearing screening and commend parents who recognize and seek treatment for their children who have a possible hearing impairment.

Unfortunately, the article failed to acknowledge that audiologists are the professionals who work to discover, through their evaluations, the nature and degree of the hearing loss.

The article brought out the fact that hospitals need to be performing hearing screening on all infants. High-risk, intensive care infants have been screened at Deaconess Medical Center for 15 years through a program started by the Telephone Pioneers. It is only in the last couple of years that there has been a cost-effective method for testing all newborns.

Audiologists, nurses and trained volunteers will need to work together to carry out a successful hearing screening program. Barbara M. Peregoy Spokane

Cost of visit to specialist an eye-opener

Recently, I received a bill for an office visit to a dermatologist. The bill came because my HMO refused to pay it. (It had not been given a referral from my primary doctor).

I went to the doctor because my lip had been bleeding for several days. I was concerned it could be cancer. He looked at it and informed me it wasn’t cancerous. He then pricked it and another small lesion on my forehead. This took less than five minutes of his time. The bill was $68 for “consultation,” $52 for the first lesion and $26 for the second one. The total was $146. At this rate, he was charging $1,484 per hour. I am well-aware of his office and equipment expenses, but $1,484 an hour!

This is my way of protesting the outrageous cost of medical care by some doctors. I think especially of people who are unable to have insurance. Furthermore, I think of the cost of Medicare and wonder if it will still be available when my children need it. Eleanore H. Gullerud Spokane

LAW ENFORCEMENT

WSP seems indifferent to youth’s death

Recently, a motorcyclist was hit and killed by a motorist on Interstate 90. The Washington State Patrol mounted a manhunt and eventually flushed the man out. He was arrested and charged with felony hit and run. He will serve jail time, receive fines and a felon’s record. There will be consequences for the crime.

Another crime was committed recently that is of a similar nature.

Cooper Jones, a cyclist, was crushed and killed by a motorist outside of Cheney. Cooper was competing in a legal bicycle race that afforded protections most cyclists never see. The motorist sped through warning signs, through a start-finish area, through dozens of other competing cyclists, at 60 mph, only to crush Cooper against the windshield of the driver’s Cadillac. The driver did not even receive a traffic ticket.

Can a motorist kill a cyclist at will and not be held responsible?

If Cooper had been a motorcyclist, as opposed to a bicyclist, would a felony have been awarded? Maybe a traffic ticket?

Is the Washington State Patrol hoping that Cooper will just go away?

Nope. It seems the WSP has a problem here. Christopher A. Vogel Marshall

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