Letters To The Editor

Sat., Aug. 29, 1998

SPOKANE MATTERS

Labor leaders making huge mistake

I’m afraid we might be seeing the beginning of the demise of organized labor. The end won’t come from any action employers might take, but from the hands of union leaders themselves.

I’m told that the organization representing the state, county and municipal employees has taken the unprecedented action of endorsing candidates from the party that has done its utmost to destroy the effectiveness of such groups.

I’m told that the association representing the deputy sheriffs has also endorsed a candidate for sheriff who, while serving as a state legislator, voted time and time again for bills that would harm labor and against bills that would help it.

I’m also told that only eight or nine deputies were present at the time the vote was taken to snub one of their own and that the majority of officers, more than 100, actually support Lt. Jim Finke of the sheriff’s department. I’ve talked to numerous members of organized labor and they support Finke in his quest to be the best sheriff this county has known. It’s the few so-called leaders of these groups who are trying to destroy their own reason for being.

Loyalty is a hallmark of the Democratic Party and the greatest example of this is its loyalty to organized labor. Unions couldn’t exist in a totally Republican environment. Organized labor is alien to conservatism, and for union leaders to endorse Republicans is to betray the people who have protected their existence for generations. That is reprehensible. Vi M. Bradshaw Spokane

Tucker better prospect for prosecutor

I am tired of hearing about what Spokane County Prosecutor Jim Sweetser did wrong four years ago. What I am concerned about is what is best for Spokane now.

Since Sweetser took office, many senior staff attorneys have left the Spokane County prosecutor’s office. I also understand that over the last few years the turnover rate for staff has been high. Spokane needs a prosecutor’s office with well-trained, experienced lawyers and staff. I don’t believe that can be achieved when the staff is constantly changing.

Also, I do not believe any other organization is supporting Sweetser for re-election. It’s important that our prosecutor be a leader with a good working relationship with others in the community.

Steve Tucker is supported by a law enforcement agency as well as the Council of County and City Employees. Obviously, these people feel they would have a better working relationship with Tucker.

When deciding who to vote for, please look at the facts. The Spokane County prosecutor’s office needs an experienced crime fighter and leader people can work with. Tucker is that person Nicole C. Leslie Spokane

Vote yes for EMS service

I urge every voter in the city of Spokane to vote yes for the Emergency Medical Services levy on Sept. 15.

Passage of this levy will ensure that for the next six years, every resident will continue to receive the best basic life support and/or advanced life support care that money can buy.

At a cost of $50 per year or $4.17 per month for property valued at $100,000, this insurance policy is one we can’t afford not to have. I’m sure the 16,000 thousand individuals who received this care in 1997 would wholeheartedly agree.

Please give our Spokane Fire Department the tools and training necessary to continue this vital service. Please vote yes for EMS. Howard L. Bennett retired Spokane Firefighter

Wal-Mart costing taxpayers money

We were disappointed to read that Wal-Mart is now going to take the county to court over its proposed north end store location. This means that your tax dollars and mine may now go to defend a decision that the commission made after careful consideration and with due process.

Perhaps Wal-Mart feels that justice will be more amenable to its point of view in another court. However, it is just as likely that Wal-Mart feels Spokane will eventually tire of fighting and cave in. Considering that Wal-Mart could probably afford to buy most of the north end of town, I fail to see why the company doesn’t just purchase one little parcel of commercial property and build its store.

This move does give the impression that Wal-Mart’s overriding concern may simply be that it never loses in an acquisition, anywhere, at any time. The rhetoric Wal-Mart has spread about the desires of so many citizens to have a Wal-mart right on this one very specific 40 acres is pretty darned thin compared to the fat profit it apparently expects to reap with this store.

We’ll be watching with interest to see what is next from Wal-Mart. Pam Beasley Spokane

WILDLIFE

Help end bad hunting restriction

The attack on the little girl at Sullivan Lake was unfortunate and maybe preventable, had proper management of cougars been in place in Washington.

A ridiculous statement by a Washington Fish and Game employee, that cougar populations are high because of high deer population, is wrong. Deer populations in northeastern Washington and northern Idaho are extremely low due to loss of deer during the winter of 1996.

Cougar are so abundant because wildlife managers lost the only effective method of control, hound hunting. That happened because of emotional rhetoric from the anti-hunting community that some people believed and so voted in 1996 to abolish hound hunting.

Now it is time for those same voters to support Sen. Pam Roach when she introduces legislation to overturn this initiative and leave management of wildlife to Fish and Game biologists.

Ask your legislator to support Roach and correct the error voters made at the polls in 1996. Ed A. Lehman Laclede, Idaho

Hunting won’t deter cougar attacks

Re: “Is it time to release the hounds?” (Aug. 19).

People opposed to the unsportsmanlike practice of treeing a cougar with a pack of hounds and shooting it like a duck in a barrel aren’t necessarily members of some “anti-hunting” movement. To the contrary, many who oppose this practice understand and respect the true sportsman’s right to hunt animals in a sporting manner. That’s why the sport is called hunting, not shooting.

The article implied that without the use of hounds, the cougar population could reach the point where there would be a “cougar behind every tree.” In all studies of cougars, their population has peaked and stabilized at about 20 square miles per adult. This is because cougars have very well marked home ranges. Transient cougars without home ranges don’t breed, thus ensuring cougars never overpopulate.

Finally, hunting isn’t a deterrent to cougar attacks. The majority of attacks are committed by juvenile animals, but hunters shoot adult cougars for their trophy sport. As the older animals are removed, the percentage of juveniles in the population is increased, because females have more cubs due to the increased territory available.

Cougars play an important role in the ecosystem and pose little threat to people. Many more people are killed each year by deer, rattlesnakes and bees than by these magnificent cats.

Just remember, it is the lion’s claw, the lion’s tooth and need that have given the deer its beauty, grace and speed. Ken P. Clark Moscow, Idaho

No need to put grizzlies before people

Re: Lupito Flores Aug. 18 letter, “Investigate bear killing thoroughly.”

The worst idea of our age is that there is too many people on the planet because that idea closes the door to humane solutions. Although population growth is a major concern, we need leaders with moral conviction and foresight to implement positive programs for the benefit of the entire human race. Protection of the environment should always be viewed as an outgrowth of this first principle, never the other way around or we end up with ugly, dehumanizing slogans like the above.

Grizzlies are not an endangered species. They roam freely over much of western Canada and Alaska. They are only endangered in our area, much as they are in downtown Spokane, Seattle or Washington, D.C. The bears have been transplanted here by a U.S. Forest Service that uses them to keep America from using its National Forests. It is a seriously flawed policy but typical of the elitist mindset in that it presupposes the average American is too stupid to be able to be educated in the proper use of the very lands his tax dollars have paid for. Tom Frisque Usk, Wash.

THE ENVIRONMENT

Global warming not due to man

Carol MacPherson’s Aug. 14 editorial on global warming wrongly contends that “legitimate scientists” support the Clinton-Gore scheme to save the Earth. I doubt there are many scientists anywhere who don’t believe the Earth has been warming. Disagreement is over the cause.

Many social scientists, journalists, foreign governments and leftist politicians blame capitalism, particularly U.S. industry. (Vice President Al Gore, speaking recently in Florida, also blamed Republicans in Congress.) And they want to impose heavy new financial penalties on U.S. industry for supposedly causing a so-called greenhouse effect - and send the money to bolster the economies of socialist third-world countries.

In contrast to politically driven theory, there is a sensible explanation for global warming. If MacPherson and other armchair environmentalists would simply return to school for a freshman geology course, they would learn what truly legitimate scientists know.

Over countless millions of years, Earth has repeatedly cooled and warmed - again and again. These natural cycles are called ice ages. The most probable cause is rotation of our Milky Way galaxy, repeatedly affecting Earth’s distance from the sun.

During each cooling period, massive glaciers spread over vast areas of our planet; then retreat as warming occurs. The last cooling cycle ended about 12,000 years ago - and the Earth has continued warming gradually since then. No, the cause of global warming is not capitalist industry but Mother Nature. Higher taxes and more government regulations won’t alter it one bit. D.F. Spellman Kennewick, Wash.

Treaty not likely to end warming

Thank you for the thoughtful editorials from both sides of the global warming issue (Aug. 14). We all need to be informed on this subject.

My reading on this subject indicates that less than 4 percent of greenhouse gases are manmade. Of the 167 nations that negotiated the treaty, only 35 developed nations are targeted for emissions limits. Developing nations such as China, Brazil and India already account for over half of the greenhouse emissions, which are forecast to rise over the next century.

The climate warming of the past 100 years occurred mainly before 1940, which in no way supports the results of computer models predicting drastic future warming.

The 2,500 scientists Carol MacPherson referred to in her editorial were not climate scientists. Mostly they were social scientists and government functionaries. Nearly 100 climate scientists signed the Leipzig Declaration in 1996, expressing their doubts about the validity of computer-driven global warming forecasts. Kenneth W. Duncan Spokane

IN THE PUBLIC EYE

‘Everyone should be outraged’

I feel sad for this nation. What has happened to our principles, morals, trust, honor? Everyone should be outraged.

A high school principal would be terminated for doing what the leader of our nation has admitted to. How can so many people say it’s not important? Jill H. Sherburn Spokane

Let’s get ‘embarrassing charade’ over

Interesting, isn’t it? The poll takers continually report that those who support President Clinton, in the face of his lies to the people of America, are in the great majority.

Maybe the people of Spokane are out of touch, but I took note that of the 10 letters to the editor in The Aug. 22 paper, only one writer wanted to “move on.”

I also want to move on - to Kenneth Starr’s report to Congress and the conclusion of this embarrassing charade. Jim Weisen Spokane

Big distraction and waste of time

What would be the benefit to the American people to know the details of the Monica Lewinsky-Bill Clinton relationship? We already know that she is ugly and stupid and he comes across more as a redneck than an intelligent man who knows how to enjoy life. Why would anybody care about more details? What right do we have to that information, anyway?

By wasting time and resources on Ken Starr, Linda Tripp, etc., we are taking them away from things that really matter. And that is the most immoral aspect of that whole saga. Peter C. Dolina Veradale

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