Consider Seeds From Which Grass-Roots Comments Grow

Advocates for more courtrooms and judges in Spokane County may bring regular citizens to county budget meetings to tell county commissioners their personal stories of justice denied.

What’s keeping those people from coming forward on their own at the commissioners’ regular weekly meetings? If their appearance is orchestrated by department heads, does that still count as real grass-roots comment?

What the M’s need, with their bullpen, is insurance runs

Safeco Corp.’s executives say they are going to do something “meaningful” to acknowledge taxpayers’ contribution to the $417 million baseball stadium that will become the home of the Seattle Mariners but will bear Safeco’s name.

That something, however, will not result in any deviation from naming the new park, simply, Safeco Field. It’s a decision the insurance company bought for $40 million (less than 10 percent of the overall cost), and they aren’t going to bend, officials told a grass-roots group hoping for something a little more in tune with some noncommercial aspect of the city.

Spokane baseball fans can be forgiven a smirk, stuck as we are with a baseball stadium named after a Seattle-namesake bank.

But Safeco and Seafirst marketing geniuses would be advised to respect the power of a people scorned. In Phoenix, the National League expansion Diamondbacks’ stadium is officially known as Bank One Ballpark. Acronym-happy fans just call it the Bob.

If Spokane and Seattle fans were as creative, what might our ballparks be nicknamed?

The cons of grass-field clearing

All those ex-felons who are concentrating in Spokane County after they leave prison might have a role to play in resolving a local environmental dilemma.

The state could underwrite businesses that recycle grass-field residue, which growers no longer may burn, and give the ex-cons decent-paying jobs therein, suggests reader Allan LeTourneau, Spokane.

“Could this community turn a blight into a model program for social reform and assist our devastated grass seed industry to become a model for byproduct recycling, environmental salvation and an even more productive agriculture?” LeTourneau asks. “This is my idea of public-private partnership.”