Letters To The Editor
SPOKANE MATTERS
We can do better than the mall model
Another installment of the downtown planning process takes place today. This is an opportunity for all of us to gather to create a framework for the kind of downtown that everyone can enjoy and use. A quote from the April 6 issue of Forbes ASAP bears consideration as we figure out what to do with our downtown:
“Increasingly, the urban retailing districts creating buzz are not the big malls or the more and more mall-like downtowns but the funkier, less conventional, more Mesopotamian shopping areas: Manhattan’s Soho, Chicago’s Old Town and San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury. Landlords in these areas are able to charge $1.25 more per square foot (per month) than the malls are getting.”
Let’s raise our sights from trying to emulate suburban malls to emulating the most successful downtowns from around the world, like the Ginza and Aoyama-dori in Tokyo, Union Square and Chinatown in San Francisco, Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Via Veneto in Rome and the Kohlmarkt in Vienna.
New York’s Central Park is flanked by museums, grand hotels and expensive apartments. Riverfront Park is surrounded by parking lots. Is that the best we can do?
In all these areas, whether cars are allowed or not, the focus is on people: street plantings, benches, shops that open onto the street. Even the very first urban mall, the elegant Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, dating back to the 19th century, has a sense of inclusiveness that is lacking in so many modern malls. Christopher M. Kelly Spokane
Cheers for Bloomies, helpful boy
Honors to the Bloomies, walkers and runners. Real front walkers, like Drew H. Cunningham, a 10-year-old soccer and baseball player, who walked with his grandmother so she could finish Bloomsday as in years before. Last year, she had a serious illness.
Way to go, Drew! Jan Cunningham Spokane
Colliton remarks ‘out of line’
In reading the article on the Vietnam Memorial wall display in the Sunday edition, I could not help but notice the comments made by City Councilman Jeff Colliton. The ones that really struck a nerve with me were connected to his response to Hanoi Jane Fonda. “If you’re going to go to your grave with that hatred in your heart, then the wall probably won’t be any help to you.”
Being a Vietnam vet myself, I took offense at his can’t we all just get along attitude.
Fonda should be in jail. She’s not in jail because she was a movie star at the time and had connections.
Colliton’s comments about how I should feel when I look at the wall are way out of line. I will be looking for names of people I knew 30 years ago who did not make it back. I will be remembering.
Colliton does not represent the majority of combat Vietnam vets; he represents himself. John S. Pardee Veradale
VIOLENCE
Legal abortions undermine our values
Most Americans are justifiably shocked and outraged at the latest violence and shootings in the schools in Arkansas and Pennsylvania. Many are asking how and why this could happen.
At the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., a few years ago, Mother Teresa of Calcutta spoke so plainly on this subject to the president, his wife, Congressional leaders and an audience of 3,000:
“If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill each other? Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today - abortion, which brings people to such blindness.”
Abortion is a great destroyer of peace. I believe this. It contributes to the destruction of our children and our society. It is one of the reasons that our society is becoming more dangerous. Life is regarded as so inconsequential and its disposal has become so trivial, so clinical and so easy.
All human life is sacred, noble and dignified, not cheap, worthless and disposable. If we want to begin to abate violence in this country, we must start by stopping the violence in the womb. Ron Belisle Spokane
Rioters should pick up the tab
In view of the riot at Washington State University, a few questions come to mind. Perhaps someone will be able to enlighten me.
Who gets the privilege of covering the expenses incurred? The charge for the repair for emergency vehicles and public streets added to the medical bills and additional labor costs will be huge. Will the responsible students be asked to pay for this damage? Somehow, I doubt it. For some reason, I think it will be the taxpayer.
Will those same students be held accountable for the mayhem they so gleefully initiated? I wonder why I doubt this, too. How shortsighted it would be to deprive these young people (not their parents) of one of life’s most critical lessons. That of being responsible for what you say or do. How tragic. Tom M. Cubbage Deer Park, Wash.
THE ENVIRONMENT
Don’t let railroad site tanks on aquifer
Re: Burlington Northern Railroad’s proposal to put a refueling station and tank farm containing over 2 million gallons of diesel fuel and other contaminants on top of the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie aquifer.
Our aquifer is the source of drinking water for more than 400,000 people and businesses residing in Kootenai County and Spokane. Our county comprehensive plan specifically mentions moving industrial development off the aquifer and recharge area, to preserve the unique resource we have and to keep it from further degradation. Petroleum products are listed in the comprehensive plan as the main source of current contaminants from industrial sites.
Even if BN had a spotless track record, a project of this magnitude should never be placed over such a sensitive area. Environmental agencies in Spokane and Coeur d’Alene have stated that if the aquifer were to be contaminated from the tank site, the results would be more disastrous and far-reaching than they could predict. The length of time for recovery would be very long and they can’t even begin to predict the huge adverse economic impact it would have.
BN has one of the worst contamination track records for industrial pollution. We have no business letting it anywhere near our drinking water. Even with good technology, BN’s sloppy and irresponsible practices on site will guarantee that we join the ranks of many sites across the nation that are currently cleaning up messes made by railroads. Lucy M. Foeller Post Falls
Spokane people, help us fight threat
We have a growing number of concerned citizens in the Post Falls-Rathdrum area organizing to try to prevent Burlington Northern Railroad from building a refueling and fuel storage complex on the aquifer that provides our communities with drinking water. Our county’s comprehensive plan is against this type of industrial use.
I have been surprised by the individuals’ wide range of political backgrounds that have come together for a common goal. But the one thing that is missing is support from the largest group that could be affected by this facility. Spokane, where are you?
There will be an information meeting at the Cloverleaf Grange Hall on Mcguire Road, Post Falls, on May 19 at 7 p.m. Come and help us protect your drinking water.
For more information, call 773-2403, 773-5025 or 687-5059. R. Wayne Bailey Post Falls
PEOPLE AND ANIMALS
Better if ‘mushy stuff’ was the rule
How sad to see kids taught to kill the animals they care for (“No mushy stuff,” May 3). They are being manipulated into denying their natural affection for the living beings they are fond of.
Teaching kids that sentient beings do not matter because we choose to eat them is barbaric. Perhaps the kids should follow the animals into the slaughterhouse so they can see their friends hauled by one leg, slashed in the throat, screaming as they are dropped live into boiling water, while blood, noise of machines and death permeates the atmosphere.
I know in this town of overstuffed beings it’s sacrilege to suggest that people go vegetarian. The cruelty involved in meat production, and the gross, unhealthy consumption of meat and its byproducts needs to stop. We kill the animals and they end up killing us.
Don’t put kids through this emotional turmoil just because of greed. Go veggie. Deanna R. Kuhn Spokane