Letters To The Editor

WASHINGTON STATE

North-south freeway need acute

Spokane legislators again show lack of knowledge regarding the need for a north-south high-speed route.

Well, Spokane, where does that leave us? As citizens, you’re too quiet. Yet I believe we each recognize this construction is long overdue.

Rep. Duane Sommers calls it a “black hole,” in speaking against. Sen. Lisa Brown this term voted against funding, saying, in part, that some homes would be demolished.

In truth, the route proposed by the Highway Department would actually cause the fewest homes to be eliminated. However great the inconvenience to them, affected homeowners would be fairly compensated. Utilizing the former rail lines east of Market Street is a wise plan.

While pointless differences delay start-up, our residential streets remain as freeways. Traffic congestion, unsafe speeds, pedestrian and bicycle safety, quality of life, noise and emissions are some impacts Spokane citizens face daily. Add to these local street repair dollars for residential freeways. Marc Ramsey Spokane

Lawmakers sell out, defer and sidestep

I’m sure no one took Sen. Jim West’s recent antics seriously as a death threat. Of greater concern was the display of blatant and negative issues of today’s politics: money, influence, power and control.

It was a spitting contest between buyers and sellers, who’s calling the shots and who stays bought. It’s a clarion call for campaign finance reform as soon as possible.

Mean-spiritedness always turns me off. So do power plays that leave the public out of the equation. West appeared to set a record this session for backroom politics and trying to ram through bills without time spent for public hearings.

Democrats have been tagged as tax-and-spenders (we pay as we go along) but Republicans seem to have a habit of borrowing and spending, leaving the debt to our kids and grandkids. Borrowing into the future when we have excess funds piling up does not make sense to me (the transportation finance issue). Sidestepping the decisions makes me wonder why we have legislators going to Olympia.

Leaving decisions to the voters is not always prudent because we aren’t privy to all the relevant data for deciding. We tend to make decisions emotionally and egocentrically, without the pieces of the larger picture. Look at what we have already done - locked up all the money - and now we have to borrow to get things done. Valerie R. Smith Spokane

West comment laughable

I had a good laugh over Sen. Jim West’s statement, “Spokane should follow Seattle’s lead and pay for our own convention center.” Indeed, West. Pray tell, who is paying for the new Seahawks stadium? When Seattle voted to pay for a new stadium by raising its property taxes, the people there voted it down. Only when the rest of the state got stuck paying for it did it pass. Carl J. Sperr Spokane

Voters will remember West’s record

Just remember who to vote for and against in the next election. Sen. Jim West may be chairman of the Senate committee deciding how state money is spent, but we are the taxpayers who elected him. We won’t forget that West suggested more sales tax for the local people in Spokane.

Neither will we forget his very unprofessional remarks to a lobbyist. One doesn’t leave a threat on an answering machine to be used as evidence. That’s not a sign of intelligence. M. “Liz” Berg Spokane

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Repentent young man set good example

It was only a week ago that our doorbell rang during the dinner hour. As I spoke to the teenager outside my front door, I felt empathy for his request to help out financially. His golf team was heading to Yakima and he was trying to raise some of his own funds. After my teenage years of raising money for band and athletics, it was impossible to say no.

Much to my dismay, a few days later, I read in The Spokesman-Review that I had been scammed. There was no trip to Yakima, no golf team raising money. My only thought was that next time, I won’t be so trusting.

On Sunday my doorbell rang again. As I opened the door, the figure looked very familiar. He was before me again, this time giving me my money back and asking for my forgiveness. He had turned himself in to Crime Check and felt this was the first step in doing what was right.

Seems he had made some poor choices as of late and he was now trying to right some past wrongs. He again apologized and asked for my forgiveness. It was freely given, as were my words of encouragement and respect. I wished him well.

Our family discussed the event over dinner. His honesty and willingness to admit he was wrong, as well as his asking for forgiveness, impressed my younger children. What a wonderful example of someone taking a tough time in their life and turning it around for the good. You are an example for us all! Craig A. Lammers Spokane

Gypsies article unfortunately negative

After thinking about the possible consequences of your March 10 article, “Gypsies accused of fraud claim discrimination,” I believe some comments could be helpful.

This newspaper has made an effort in recent years to promote interracial unity, appreciation of diversity, social justice and so forth. This article, in isolation, seems to me to be moving in a different and negative direction.

You have placed yourself in a position of responsibility, therefore, to demonstrate an awareness of the positive aspects of Gypsy culture, locally and internationally, in order to present a balanced and even encouraging perspective to Gypsy and non-Gypsy readers alike. How will it help a local Gypsy child, adolescent or adult (or non-Gypsy) to read only this negative reference to his ethnic group? Are you informed about the parallels in Gypsy history to the enslavement of blacks in America, Gypsies’ inclusion in the Holocaust, their current statelessness and consequent lack of basic human rights in Europe and elsewhere, the efforts through the centuries to eradicate them completely?

Gypsies are incredible survivors. Read Isabel Fonseca’s “Bury Me Standing” for a respected journalist’s view into their beautiful, tragic and courageous history and current struggles. Interview Gypsies about their culture, goals, hopes and fears. Gypsy Web sites abound. The information is at your fingertips unless you believe all the stereotypes and are content to live with that.

Please rise to the standards you, yourselves, have set, include the Gypsies in your list of “accepted’ minority groups and take a fair, proactive stance. Roger D. Olsen Liberty Lake

I should have to work around wrongs

Re: Jim Shamp’s March 1 Street Level column.

Here we go again. Why do white males resort to a whole lot of speculation instead of facts? Facts that people of color face every day?

Housing is one area in which it has been proven that discrimination is very much alive. If you say this is not so, why are certain criteria laid out by owners, management companies or even neighborhoods which certain persons have to comply with?

Shamp states, “In addition, the existence of millions of successful women and people who are part of minority groups is proof that we are able, as individuals, to overcome or work around prejudices that do exist.”

Excuse me, is that a racist remark, or what? Are you telling me you are willing to rent or sell to me because I am successful, I am a woman and I am part of minority groups that will overcome or will work around prejudices that exist? How dare you insult a population that refuses to work around prejudices that persist in oppressing them. When you write an opinion, please make sure your statements are true and make sure you don’t insult mine or anyone else’s mentality, because obviously, your sense of awareness is very low. Eileen K. Thomas Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

Nethercutt position hard to discern

A big thanks to Sen. Patty Murray for taking the lead in representing the rights of the citizens of Spokane to protect the water of the Spokane River and aquifer from Idaho mining pollution.

How come we’re not seeing a similar effort by Congressman George Nethercutt to protect his district and constituents? If he’s not speaking for us, who’s he listening to? Bart Haggin Spokane

Clinton has character where it counts

Re: Rev. Billy Graham’s March 18 column about the importance of character in our leaders.

We don’t know whether or not President Clinton lied to his family. If he did, that is a telling point against him. I don’t doubt the truth of the sexual accusations against him, but so far, I don’t hold them much against him. Character does matter, but Clinton’s character when taken as a whole is superior.

Character has to do much more with honesty toward one’s loved ones than with honesty toward the general public about personal matters. Clinton’s victories on the budget and the crime bill, and his easy re-election, still resonate as evidences of his strength of character.

In spite of $40 million and the best efforts of a dedicated band of Clinton haters, no one has been able to prove any financial impropriety against him. He has resisted financial temptation. For me, that would be hard; for a politician from Arkansas, that’s something.

He has demonstrated time and again that he knows how to respond with restraint to threats and attacks. In this, he sets a good example for all of us.

Future generations will look back at all this hysteria and laugh. Did they really have nothing better to talk about? they will ask. Those were good times. Greg H. Simpson Pullman

Clinton good for lying, taking credit

The most specious excuse offered by liberals for Bill Clinton’s sexual peccadillos is that as long as he’s doing a good job managing our country, the American public should be willing to overlook his human frailties. Each time this is offered by a vacuous liberal apologist as an excuse for deplorable, shameful, probably criminal behavior by the president of the United States, I simply cannot understand to what they are referring.

To say Clinton is doing a good job is to display supreme political bias and ignorance. Economic good times can in no way be attributed to anything Clinton has done. Thank, instead, Alan Greenspan’s astute management of the money supply and curbs on excessive government spending initiated by a Republican-controlled Congress. Were it not for economic good times, Clinton and his inept administration would be in a world of hurt.

Clinton was elected by and maintains his popularity through giving lip service to sensible, conservative principles, which he then twists to serve an all-powerful, big-government, redistribution-of-the-wealth philosophy he thinks most Americans want and which he hopes makes him the champion of the “public’s best interests.”

The only thing this charlatan has been good at is being the most skillful liar and manipulator of public opinion in U.S. history. He could readily be called the Chief Con Artist. Gene K. Ealy Coeur d’Alene