Letters To The Editor

WASHINGTON STATE

Initiative targets vehicle fees

According to the Department of Licensing, Washington state collected $932,755 in combined excise tax and license fees in 1997. Each dollar collected is broken down as follows: 78 cents goes to the general fund, eight cents goes to law enforcement and 14 cents is divided between the Department of Transportation and the Department of Licensing. This 14 cents is mainly used for administrative costs. None of this money goes directly to the repair of roads, bridges and highways.

Initiative 690, sponsored by the League of Washington Taxpayers, would give money collected from registration fees directly to the Department of Transportation, to be used for the repair of roads, highways and bridges. It will also reduce vehicle registration fees for all types of vehicles. Car and pickup registration would cost $35 a year. Fees for motor homes would be determined by the length of the unit. Trailer registration would be determined by the weight and number of axles of the trailer. Registration fees would be significantly lower for all vehicles.

Washington citizens presently pay one of the highest vehicle registration fees in the nation. We need to get Initiative 690 on the November ballot.

Meanwhile, I’ll go dodge the potholes on the way to the post office to mail this. Patrick G. Moore Spokane

SPOKANE MATTERS

Nothing natural about shoreline

I read with interest Fred Malstrom’s April 22 letter regarding the Department of Ecology’s “ditzy” reasoning in denying a permit for the proposed Lincoln Street bridge.

Malstrom made some good points about the department’s apparent disregard for all the planning, studies, Department of Transportation recommendation, public involvement and expense that has gone into this project. His comments about the condition of the Monroe Street Bridge and the certainly increasing traffic were right on the button also.

However, Malstrom skimmed over the very point that shows how senseless the Department of Ecology’s decision really was.

It is not possible for the proposed bridge to endanger the public’s opportunity to enjoy the natural shoreline when that shoreline was drastically altered many decades ago. Spokane Falls was once a long series of rapids extending from a point east of the upper falls to the area below the Monroe Street Bridge.

The south bank of the falls near Lincoln Street is now landfill and a concrete retaining wall. The middle section of the falls has been flooded by the Washington Water Power dam. There is no natural shoreline left.

Yes, the Department of Ecology’s decision certainly was ditzy. Kevin P. Decker Spokane

High school’s name given in vain

As I started to read your Aug. 24 editorial headlined, “Lewis-Clark rich in time’s amenities,” I expected to gain keen insights about the college in Lewiston. I was most surprised to discover instead that the subject was Spokane’s own high school, located on the South Hill.

For 87 years, the name of the high school has been Lewis and Clark. You may refer to it as Lewis and Clark, or Lewis & Clark, or L.C., or “the best high school in Spokane,” but you may not refer to it as “Lewis-Clark.”

It is bad enough to have to endure the frequent imbecilic references to “Brown’s Addition” and “Brown’s Mountain” (both places named over 100 years ago for pioneer I.J. Browne and to see signs for the “9th Street Market” at Huckleberry’s (located on 9th Avenue. But now, getting the name of Lewis and Clark wrong! That’s where I draw the line.

Oh, and a word to those humorless hicks who are at this moment frantically searching for their crayons to compose a letter attacking me as a “naysayer” or “malcontent” (labels applied in Spokane to anyone who cares about the community, thinks and dares express an opinion): Please note that I spell my first name correctly, with a “ph” not a “v” (just like God spells it in the Bible). Stephen J. Franks Spokane

At least Rodgers was on right track

Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers asked the hard questions about the latest expenditure to squander public money ($238,000) on the Lincoln Street bridge blunder. The answers given were feeble at best. Common sense, I would think, should have prevailed with a no vote by all.

It makes one wonder if the Spokane City Council is concealing the truth. One would also have to ask, does Brad Blegen, city engineer, have the autonomy to spend these kinds of dollars? I think not.

You did your homework, as usual, Rodgers. Thank you for trying. Dick D. Adams Spokane

People hard on city employees

Re: Doug Clark’s April 16 column, “Street cleaner leaves jogger run down.”

My husband works in the same department as Lucy Miller, and he was working with her when she was chased by another screaming citizen in Peaceful Valley. Clark’s column made light of both incidents but both were upsetting.

Most people don’t know how often city employees are threatened while doing their jobs. A lot of people blame these workers personally for the pothole problem, for road work that may cause a detour, or people just get mad because they’re on the streets working. They get yelled at and several have been hit by cars driving by, or they have had to jump out of the way to avoid being run over.

It’s hard for me to think of Kent Hawley as a “nice, normal person” when I hear about him running back around the flusher, jumping onto it and yelling at Miller. In this day when people are getting shot by others who go over the edge, I’m sure Miller was scared to death. A nice, normal person jogging or walking down the street would have moved out of the way of the water spray, rather than react as Hawley did.

I hope Hawley will have to pay the fine. Maybe it will make an impact on other folks who decide to take out their rage on the city, county and private companies that are out there on the streets doing their jobs. Let’s learn to control our anger. Melody S. Larson Spokane

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Ban outdoor tobacco advertising

Tobacco is the single most preventable threat to our health. One in three smokers dies from tobacco-related diseases. Tobacco control efforts are reaching adults. Adult tobacco use is decreasing. This is not true for our children. Youth tobacco use is on the upswing.

We should not be surprised the tobacco industry continues to recruit young new smokers. Look at the messages that young people receive. At the same time that youth possession of tobacco products became a misdemeanor offense in our state, our children are bombarded with seductive messages about beautiful people and tobacco use on billboards, in magazines and movies.

Earlier this month, I joined several health officers from around the state in a meeting with Sen. Patty Murray to let her know that Congress must proceed with tobacco control efforts, including regulation by the Food and Drug Administration, raising the price of cigarettes, controlling tobacco advertising and providing funding for state and local tobacco prevention efforts.

The fight against the tobacco health menace must also be waged on the local front. Pierce County has withstood several tobacco industry-supported court challenges to a ban on outdoor tobacco advertising. Spokane County should follow suit.

At Spokane Regional Health District, we believe that our community cares about the tobacco scourge on our young people. We would like to hear about your support for a ban on outdoor advertising of tobacco products. Kim Marie Thorburn, M.D., M.P.H. health officer, Spokane Regional Health District

Do-gooders take a toll on health

I was going to write a letter bemoaning the anti-smokers’ brutal sledge-hammering of millions of our citizens who choose to smoke. Instead, I want to point out two of the arguments to counteract their one-sided defiance of any reasonable challenges to their theories.

Today, millions of people who are smoking are suffering the loss of many of their precious civil rights. They have been made into second-class citizens by publicity-hungry politicians and certain self-styled do-gooders who want to force all of us into their lifestyles.

Secondly, stress is recognized as a killer. It is well known that stress inhibits propagation of white blood cells, and in the cute vernacular, those are the little guys that by a rather uncomplicated process provide our bodies with immunity.

To make a long story short, tobacco users are fighting stress. The stress that lets the cancer cells have free rein. The tobacco haters are giving them that free rein. Some day, somehow, they will be made to pay for it. George B. Valentine Sr. Rathdrum

Laxity jeopardizes tourist income

In November 1997, the Idaho Board of Health and Welfare waived all mineral extraction areas from having to comply with Idaho’s own rules for ground water quality. In February, the board approved an increased concentration of lead in the South Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River that is 268 times the national standard. Allowed levels for cadmium and zinc were also increased.

Only recently, Idaho was the subject of national attention because of the effects of lead on children in the Silver Valley. The profoundly detrimental effects of lead on children include mental retardation.

Would the state of Idaho subject the 500,000 people of the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene watersheds to the certain dangers of increased lead levels? Knowing that the EPA must intervene to keep the Coeur d’Alene River Basin from becoming a toxic site, do Idaho’s senators really want to interfere with the one agency that can save the entire region?

Idaho is in a major public relations dilemma. Understandably, no one wants potential tourists to see Idaho as a toxic Superfund site. But at the same time, Idaho would discharge increased metals into an area that already has signs warning the public not to drink the water, eat the fish or breathe the dust.

Allowing increased lead levels can only hurt Idaho’s economy. Restoring clean, safe water takes effort, but the funds are a wise investment in the long-term health of Idaho’s economy and of its children. William R. Osebold Spokane

FIREARMS

Guns-cars analogy faulty

In her letter of April 25, “Things are not the problem,” Cindy J. Greever of Spokane uses a variation of the “guns don’t kill, people do” argument. She points out that drunk drivers kill more people annually than do gun users.

While that may be true, Greever overlooks the facts that cars serve a useful purpose, guns don’t. People drive cars to get to work, to go to the grocery store, to take their wives to the hospital to have babies.

People use guns to shoot other people, to injure, maim or kill them.

Ban cars and society suffers. Ban guns and society flourishes. David T. Buxton Spokane

Right to bear arms clear, simple

What is it about “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” that letter writer Walter Becker does not understand? Please note that our founding fathers did not say “the right of the militia to keep and bear arms.”

For the Brady law to be declared unconstitutional, it must be challenged in court and appealed to the Supreme Court, and that court must make that ruling. Constitutional or not, it is a stupid law.

A young punk killed two people at a local fast-food restaurant several years ago by beating them to death with a fire extinguisher. Does that mean we need a waiting period to buy a fire extinguisher?

If Becker thinks gun control is so wonderful, I invite him to invent a time machine and travel back to 1935 Germany, the time when Hitler had disarmed the German people. Look at what a wonderful society that was - totalitarian control of the people by the Nazi Party. Jack Ranck Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

Provide convicts with a place to smoke

Re: “Tobacco in prison system prompts shake-up,” (April 16). I think that having a ban on tobacco in the prison system is only going to cause more penny-ante problems within the system. If they want to smoke tobacco, set aside a room for them to smoke. It might put a lid on some prison tensions. Dennis R. Martin Spokane

Don’t be misled about overpopulation

Edmund Peterson’s column about ecology, race and population (April 18) argues against population limitation. But population growth is not a matter of race.

Has Peterson or anyone who favors unlimited population growth looked ahead? Since 1890, the U.S. population doubled and then doubled again, so there is only one-fourth as much land per person as there was 100 years ago. Fourteen more doublings and there will be just 23 square feet per person, just big enough for his or her burial. This assumes every bit of land surface will be used, from the top of Pike’s Peak to the middle of Death Valley.

What then will the next generation do? Where will the food have come from even before that? Where will there be room for trees for paper?

At a rate of 50 years per doubling, 14 of them would take 700 years, about the age of Europe’s great cathedrals, some three times the age of the United States and only about one-third of the time since ancient Rome. It is not an eternity. Five more doublings would give each person less than one square foot of ground.

Greater population density in the rest of the world means saturation would come sooner. Of course it will never come to that. The question is, what will limit population growth - human intelligence or, as thought by Malthus 200 years ago, war, famine and disease?

And on April 20, The Spokesman-Review reported the latest famine, this one in southern Sudan. Robert E. Forman Colville, Wash.

Defense of Clinton ‘mindless rant’

Re: “Clinton’s proclivities preferable,” (Letters, April 15). Another mindless rant from the far left.

The gist of Nancy Lynne’s argument is this: Everybody does it; besides, the end justifies the means. There is also the usual load of name calling and character assassination.

Clinton has “worked hard” for one end only - his personal power and privilege. He has done this by pandering to every would-be victim group and voting/money-giving bloc in sight. Nobody can fake “concern and compassion” like he can. His approval ratings remain high mainly because he inherited a very positive trend. This trend is a result, primarily, of three circumstances: Least important, policies started by Ronald Reagan; secondarily important, demographies - the maturing of the baby-boom generation; and most important, the end of the Cold War. Clinton’s contribution to this economic rose garden was to have the political acumen to not screw it up!

One more time, the investigation, mandated by law, set in motion by Clinton’s attorney general and carried out by independent counsel Kenneth Starr is about possible perjury and obstruction of justice. It is not about Clinton’s alleged adulterous sexual habits. This kind of poorly informed, ideological braying is of no value to the discussion and is boring. Larry L. Morrison Harrison, Idaho

‘Campaign of innuendo’ wrong

Like the majority of Americans, I deeply resent the campaign of guilt by innuendo being waged against President Clinton. Those doing it obviously think he is the only citizen for whom the constitutional guarantee of presumption of innocence does not apply. Gene F. Larson’s April 23 letter is a good example.

Larson accuses Clinton of complicity in giving military secrets, but his story admits Clinton only knew of any such leak after the fact. Larson offers no evidence and prefaces his story with “apparently.”

If there were any truth to Larson’s story, can anyone believe Republicans would not have made it a major issue in the ‘96 campaign? Would they not be moving for an immediate impeachment now? Edward B. Keeley Spokane

Complainer could be much worse off

Re: Betty Von Heydrich’s April 25 letter.

Anyone who smokes for 40 years and complains about spending $250 to quit should have their head examined. Have you ever figured what you could have bought with all the money you put into cigarettes for 40 years?

I smoked for 25 years and I have not been as fortunate as you. I have respiratory problems due to smoking. My medications cost me over $200 each month. I wish my problem would have ended with a $250 patch. Louise T. Mitchell Coeur d’Alene