Letters To The Editor

WASHINGTON STATE

Some hereabouts no help to I-688

Re: “Signing up for a raise” (June 11).

I was happy to see our local media giving some attention to Initiative 688. The dedicated volunteers of the Campaign to Raise the Minimum Wage have encountered many obstacles in Eastern Washington that were addressed in this article.

Some local event sponsors have been less than helpful, including the Lilac Festival organizers who asked I-688 volunteers to leave the city streets and sidewalks during the hours prior to the Torchlight Parade. One would think that people who care enough about their community to hold a great celebration like the parade would also want to see people within the community become more economically secure. The Campaign to Raise the Minimum Wage proposes to do just that.

I also want to clarify the statement about a 17-year-old signing the petition. This particular 17-year-old is almost 18 and will be a registered voter by the campaign deadline. People can legally sign petitions under these circumstances, as long as their voter registration is turned in to the Spokane County Courthouse by June 26. All of the Initiative 688 signature gatherers are instructed to make sure petition signers are registered voters.

I-688 still needs thousands of signatures by the end of June to make it onto the November ballot. Jennifer Ekstrom Spokane

SPOKANE MATTERS

Give your input about downtown

Today, you have another opportunity to comment on the shape of the Downtown Plan. It’s your downtown and this is your chance to make your voice heard. You can drop in any time from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Spokane Convention Center.

Judging from the map included with the Envision Spokane brochure last week, the steering committee for the Downtown Plan has its own agenda, which may not coincide with actual citizen comments. For example, the map shows the Lincoln Street bridge and Monroe-Lincoln couplet as a fait accompli, even though independent polls show a majority of citizens are opposed to a giant new bridge over America’s only downtown waterfall and another Division-Ruby-style couplet through a quiet neighborhood. Oddly, the Division-Ruby couplet and Howard Street have disappeared from this map, perhaps because it would otherwise clearly indicate how many major north-south arterials already exist between Division-Ruby and Maple-Ash (eight streets out of 15 north of the river). No wonder the city’s own traffic studies show that another arterial is unnecessary.

Even if citizen input on important citywide issues like the Lincoln Street bridge will likely be ignored by the Downtown Plan Steering Committee in its final draft, it welcomes your comments on less divisive subjects like the future of Riverfront Park, the design of the streetscapes and downtown activities.

The Downtown Partnership and city planning department have made a major effort to make this a more open process. Take part. Christopher M. Kelly Spokane

Many want new Wal-Mart

I have recently read articles about North Side neighbors opposing a potential Wal-Mart. It is frustrating to me that this group is trying to represent a large, growing community that actually supports a new North Side Wal-Mart.

For those of you who haven’t noticed, the North Side is growing at a rapid pace and the growth is not nearly ready to stop. This balanced growth will provide good jobs for area residents and tax revenue to fund infrastructure improvements. Good, solid businesses need to be leading this growth and Wal-Mart fits this description. Every Wal-Mart in which I have shopped has added to the surrounding community by offering numerous products at affordable prices in a safe environment.

The North Side community wants new development and Wal-Mart should be a major part of that growth. David Shull Liberty Lake

Extend art event to park

As a Spokane citizen who has immensely enjoyed Art Fest, I am pleased to see how this annual event has grown and become an anticipated community opportunity for regional artists.

I would simply like to share some thoughts as to how it might afford even greater opportunity for artisans/community to be involved to make this event even greater. My thought would be to incorporate the use of Coeur d’Alene Park in Browne’s Addition, to allow more space for more exhibits in a larger area to enhance attendance and participation for the community. By utilizing both the park and the Cheney Cowles Museum site, the museum would still benefit while at the same time allowing participants and attendees more relaxed, open areas in which to enjoy the event. Frank A. Shields Spokane

LAW AND JUSTICE

Double standard for politician?

The article, “Schools take tough stance on threats” (June 10), states that eight kids have been suspended from public schools recently in Washington and Idaho for making verbal threats. One school even refused to take a boy back.

Yet, when Washington state Sen. James West sent his death threat via a telephone message, he wasn’t suspended from his office, although his threat was much stronger than the mutterings of the students.

Why wasn’t he suspended? Students need role models, not injustice. H.G. Gohlert Cheney

Junking parole board a mistake

Re: “City of second chances” (June 14).

The Legislature’s abolishment of the state parole board, by adopting in July 1984 the “fixed or determinate sentencing” laws, repealed the “indeterminate system.” The old system was more successful than the national average and could have controlled the problem.

Why? As a legally enforceable law, a parolee must submit to the parole board a plan for appropriate residence, employment, associates and sobriety for a prerelease investigation by a trained state parole officer. The conditional release items must be in writing by the parole board and are legally enforceable based on many years of testing by the courts. A violator of conditions may be returned for a hearing by the parole board on a parole violator warrant and can be given additional prison time.

This continues until the person is discharged from such extended controls carried into the community under the indeterminate system and local police would not be required to check the continued accuracy of the original residence of a sex offender at time of release under the fixed sentence.

Other states have experimented with the fixed sentence system. But in 1994, only three states besides Washington continued to build more prisons and release to the community felons free to choose where they will live and work.

Abandonment of the indeterminate system automatically increased the medium time required to be served by two-thirds for all prison commitments. An increase of the medium time served by felons of one month requires an increase of 1,500 prison beds capacity. How many more prisons have been built since July 1984? A. LaMont Smith, D.P.A. retired professor of criminology, U.C. Berkeley, Spokane

IN THE PAPER

‘Feminist dogma’ unwelcome

After reading Jamie Tobias Neely’s June 15 editorial, I can’t help but wonder if she wrote that tripe in order to increase letters to the editor or is demonstrating for the entire Spokane area how dangerous it can be when one inhales the fumes of a burning bra. Neely’s unchaste use of history and prostituted facts lead one to wonder how she ever graduated freshman journalism and was hired for a job at The Spokesman-Review. I understand Monday is a slow day at the Good Paper, but I can read sycophantic feminist dogma for free at the next NOW rally I attend. Lee W. Gobroski Spokane

OVER THE LINE

More process is what we don’t need

The Lands Council (formerly the Inland Empire Public Lands Council) wishes to provide a clarification of its position regarding Superfund designation in the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene Basin.

Staff writer Ken Olsen’s (June 10) article reported that The Lands Council does not support expanding the formal Superfund site from the 21-square-mile box in Kellogg, Idaho. Unfortunately, the particular wording of that statement may confuse the council’s true position regarding the EPA cleanup initiative currently under way.

The Lands Council’s position is that EPA already possesses the authority under Superfund to conduct an investigation and cleanup of mining pollution in the basin, so there is no need for an entirely new Superfund designation process to occur.

This means the Council supports EPA continuing with its investigation of the contamination throughout the 1,500-square-mile study area, including Lake Coeur d’Alene and the Spokane River. Wherever it is determined that serious contamination problems exist, the council supports the use of federal Superfund dollars to enact cleanup and remediation.

But others, such as Coeur d’Alene Mayor Steve Judy and the Kootenai County commissioners, have expressed opposition to any Superfund expansion as an attempt to thwart EPA from moving forward with an investigation and cleanup outside the box. Our position is not to be confused with theirs. Michele Nanni, Director The Lands Council, Spokane

Land swap bad for most people

Bonner County is getting nothing in the Bureau of Land Management’s Howe Mountain land swap.

We’re losing the only parcel of public land on the north shore of the lake, which is an irreplaceable public asset. This parcel of public land will be sorely missed in the future. It has a lot of potential public recreational uses - hiking, camping and lake access. It is the key to gaining public access to the Bee Top National Recreation Trail located on the mountain ridge above the lake. Currently, the only convenient trail head is located on private land, which is closed to the public. The national recreation trail is potentially one of our finest assets, offering unequaled vistas of this spectacular country. Unfortunately, it is only accessible by the long drive to Auxor Basin and long hike after the drive.

People should be concerned. In the future, all the land around the lake will be private and in the hands of the wealthy. The working classes will be crowded into a few small parks on Lake Pend Oreille.

I think the highest and best use for Howe Mountain is public access, recreational and animal habitat. I don’t know why the ranger district is letting this happen. Supposedly, it has a goal of providing the public access.

Concerned individuals should call the Sandpoint Ranger District and the BLM’s Eric Thomson in Coeur d’Alene. S.S. Howze Sagle, Idaho

That was no radical right uprising

Re: D.F. Oliveria’s June 13 editorial, “Intolerance fans reputation.”

I am quite sure that former governor Samuels, Rep. Bob Campbell and Boundary County commissioners, as well as the men, women and children who gathered peacefully and legally at Boundary Creek Road, would be both shocked and dismayed to find themselves labeled as “intolerant anti-government yahoos,” “volatile followers” and the old media standby, “far-right extremists.” Oliveria has slandered an entire community and their duly elected representatives.

While endorsing the U.S. Forest Service position, Oliveria has accused the commissioners of sanctioning civil disobedience. If exercising our constitutional right of assembly is seen as civil disobedience, then so be it. I, however, see it as exercising our right to participate in the democratic process. Robert E. Rogers Bonners Ferry, Idaho