Letters To The Editor

Tue., Aug. 31, 1999

SPOKANE MATTERS

Sterk’s decision endangers staff

This concerns Sheriff Mark Sterk’s taking television away from prisoners.

Did the sheriff give no thought to the psychological and physical well-being of the corrections officers who spend eight hours alone in the quadrant with 60 to 80 inmates? Doesn’t he understand that some amenities are helpful to his staff in maintaining order and control?

Even though they have body alarms, male and female corrections officers have been physically attacked. It’s difficult for one officer to observe all things at all times.

Three suicides are evidence of that fact.

I hope no officer gets hurt because of this edict that contributes to a dangerous work situation. It is not OK for our top law enforcement officer to act before thinking, to put his personal agenda before the well-being of staff, to embarrass this county by displaying mean-spirited and punitive behavior.

Dan P. Coyle Spokane

Profit expectations not unreasonable

Re: “Nordstrom’s Top Priority: Rack up Higher Profits.” (Business, Aug. 17)

The article seemed to indicate there was something wrong with the whole notion of Nordstrom expecting higher profits after building a new store downtown.

As owners of Rings & Things and Boo Radley’s, two local downtown businesses, and as members of the Downtown Ratepayer Advisory Board, we understood Nordstrom’s desires - for we hope to profit from a healthy downtown also.

None of us are in business solely for altruistic purposes. We need to pay our employees, feed our families and provide valuable merchandise and services to our customers. In any business, big or small, one always works toward sales growth and higher profits.

As two local businesses, we have eagerly anticipated the opening of River Park Square and Nordstrom. In fact, without the promise of this development, our stores and many others would be long gone from downtown.

We commend all the new investments in downtown Spokane. Downtown is once again a great place for shopping, dining and entertainment. We invite everyone to come see what all the hubbub is about! Russ Nobbs and Andy Dinnison Spokane

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Pro-burning arguments don’t hold up

Cindy J. Wigen (Letters, Aug. 26) cites the advanced ages (79 to 95) of those whose obituaries appeared in a recent issue of The Whitman County Gazette and offers this as an argument against critics of field burning. While it is nice these people lived so long, this does not prove her case.

She admits there was heavy field burning when the deceased were younger. But her figures do not show how many of their age mates might have died back then or felt forced to move elsewhere because of the burning. Present day younger residents may not show up in obituaries because they have turned to hospital emergency rooms, holed up inside their homes with an air purifier or likewise moved away - all at considerable expense and inconvenience to themselves.

The fact is that smoke, like plant pollens, does not affect everyone the same. Some people develop severe hay fever from plant pollens while most people don’t notice them. As someone with a lung disease, I know what it’s like to be affected by smoke that doesn’t bother others.

I lived on a farm as a child and am sympathetic to farmers. But field burners threaten my health and save money at my expense.

Wigen mentions vehicle emissions. Field smoke comes as an additional burden, increasing the total load of air pollution we are all trying to deal with. Ruth Anne Forman Colville

Escalator crush cause for concern

Yesterday, my family and I enjoyed a movie at the new River Park Square cinemas. After the movie, which was on the fifth floor, we started down the escalators. We literally ran smack into a design flaw at the landing for the escalators on the fourth floor.

We were amongst many people coming down the escalators from the fifth floor. There were also many people waiting at the top of the fourth floor escalators to go down (they must have just gotten out of a movie on that floor). There were so many people coming from the fourth floor, that those of us coming down the escalator from the fifth floor had no room to go anywhere. We literally had no room to step off of the escalators and started scrunching together like sardines at the bottom of the escalators.

This may sound trivial, but we had small children with us and there were elderly people behind us. What if any of them had lost their balance because of the backup? The momentum of the escalators pushing one into a crowd could cause one to fall onto the escalators. What would happen then, if the person who fell got their clothes or body part stuck in the escalator?

This situation needs attention before someone gets hurt! As for me and my family, we’ll take the elevator from now on. Sandra J. Hansen Spokane

WASHINGTON STATE

I-695 wrong tool for the job

Initiative 695 is starting to receive a fair amount of attention but, oddly enough, few people have actually read it or objectively considered its implications. The text is only one page long. Here are its two main provisions:

All vehicle license tabs fees will be made uniform at $30 per year.

Any increase in any monetary charge by any state government entity will require voter approval.

Consider the implications.

First, most state transportation improvements are funded by the motor vehicle excise tax (license tab fees). I-695 provides no means to replace revenues it would eliminate. Therefore, I-695 would eliminate most of the street and highway improvements proposed everywhere in the state.

The second provision is even more onerous. No government entity could increase any fee for any reason without first obtaining voters’ approval. For example, a library district couldn’t increase its late book return fee to help cover increasing book replacement costs. A public facilities district couldn’t increase its special events parking fees to cover increased security costs. A water or sewer district couldn’t increase rates to cover the increasing costs of protecting and improving water quality.

We need both good government and reliable transportation infrastructure. Most of us recognize that the existing license tab fee structure isn’t fair and should be changed. This initiative, however, is not the way. I-695 is the functional equivalent of using an elephant gun to kill a fly. Carrying the analogy a step further, the fly is sitting on your nose. Jim S. Correll Colbert

State overreaching and undherhanded

I’m the retired trooper who thought I had the right to sell my property in Washington state, house included, and move to another state. The only way I could afford to buy and live in a motor home full time was to move to a state that had affordable tax and license options for retired people.

When I left Spokane the summer of 1997, I had no intention of living here again. The only ties remaining were my family and friends. I paid rent in Oregon, had all my licenses there, registered to vote, paid for insurance and banked in Oregon.

I traveled throughout the U.S. for the next two years and only came to Spokane to visit family and friends for short periods.

In the two years after leaving Spokane, the Washington State Patrol had one sighting of my motor home. That was by WSP Detective Tracy Hanson, who trespassed on a fellow officer’s property to photograph my motor home that was parked there for less than two weeks.

The Aug. 8 story reported I evaded $17,545 dollars in Washington vehicle taxes. Wrong. Over $10,000 of that amount is the fine the state of Washington assessed against me for retiring and moving to Oregon.

Washington voters will soon have the opportunity to get the WSP and Department of Revenue out of their checkbooks and vote for reasonable vehicle license fees. Its about time. Pete Powell San Diego

Car buyers must have insurance

Re: Paul Hendersons letter (Aug. 22)

The law Henderson so blithely suggested is already in place. I’m proud to say that I’ve been on the sales staff at Dishman Dodge for nearly five years. By state law, three things are required of every buyer at the time of the sale; correct name and address for the title, photocopy of the buyer’s valid driver’s license and proof of insurance.

What people do after the sale is their responsibility. Please, Henderson, don’t cheap-shot honest auto dealers before you know all the facts. Larry L. Fulton Spokane

THE ENVIRONMENT

Wilderness important to human spirit

Sept. 3 marks the 35th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. This act of Congress and the lands it has protected have made more of a difference in my life than any other thing.

The time was spring, 1973. I was stationed near Tokyo during the tail end of the Vietnam War. Lonely, away from home, family and friends, I took to drinking to find happiness. Then a friend offered to take me for a hike into the wilderness. What I found there forever changed my life. What I found there was as beautiful as a sunrise on a clear autumn morn.

Wilderness is more than beautiful. Its clean water, fresh air and solitude are priceless. Its hiking, skiing, horseback riding, hunting and fishing are enjoyed by millions of Americans each year. In this increasingly chaotic world, just knowing some wild places still exit is good for the soul.

Most people in the world don’t enjoy the beautiful mountain forests, rivers and grasslands as we do in the Pacific Northwest. For some, this unique quality is unimportant and not worth protecting. Yet it is these very qualities that have drawn us all here.

The anniversary of the Wilderness Act should remind us how generous we as a society can be. But also, it should remind us how much we’ve changed the world around us.

Hopefully, in the face of dramatic change and exponential population growth, we will recognize the need to protect what little remains of our wilderness heritage, and the timeless gift it can be to all the world. Timothy J. Coleman Republic

Let me amplify trail remarks

Re: “Group rails against trail,” Aug. 24.

Thank you, staff writer Julie Titone, for your interesting and well done article about those of us in Idaho who are against the proposed Mullan-Plummer trail.

Two incomplete quotations, however, need clarification to be understood better in the context of my conversation with you. First, I said that I knew (the south lake area, below Harrison) better than anyone working to promote the trail. By that, I meant state, tribal, and EPA officials, most being people who have never been to the area! When they do come, as you did, they often express surprise when they actually see the ecological or logistical problems unique to the area.

Second, regarding the tribe, the quote should continue to explain that they “do nothing” to recognize our individual landowner, patent-granted, reversionary rights. Apparently, the tribe chooses to ignore this very sensitive legal issue and hopes the issuance of a CITU will end forever our claims. This would be accomplished by Union Pacific’s fictional abandonment of the right-of-way under the flawed Rails-to-Trails Act, and the tribe would become custodians of land which many of us have used (and paid taxes on) for nearly 100 years. Toni Hardy Harrison

BELIEFS

Bible only fiction and fantasy

The Bible is a book of mythology. Overall it is approximately 1,100 pages of physics-wise impossibilities, many violent and sometimes obscene stories which are unrepeatable.

Devils and demons do not cause sickness and disease. A man could not pound four corners of the Earth flat.

Snakes, olive trees and donkeys do not talk.

It is impossible for a human to stop our sun’s motion by command.

A man could not live in a whale’s belly for three days - and on and on it goes.

Nor would I ever say that thinking and rational adults and young persons could not easily derive a code of good ethics without abusing the intellect by dragging ghost and fairytales into the situation.

Potentially, one can easily read the entire text of the Bible, place it in the mythology section of their library and move on to more advanced stories that are also readily available these days. Gordon C. Sanders Spokane

Change is God’s way

Re: Michael J. Lijenberg’s letter, “Evolution is about excluding God,” Aug. 26.

Some religious concepts support the perception that God is changeless. How can this be when I see that everything evolves, including God?

In every moment of existence, God is creating existence itself and everything within it. The work of God is to bring forth each new moment. Nothing is created without change and inherent in change is creation/movement. As the universe evolves, God’s understanding of creation evolves. God is the master learner/teacher, forever changing and creating anew. Suzanne Mathews Spokane

How about minds open to creationism?

Bravo to Michael J. Liljenberg (Letters, Aug. 26). The majority of the early scientists believed in a creator or higher power. Their belief in no way excluded them from scientific endeavors. As Liljenberg stated, they were motivated by their belief.

My objection to teaching evolution as fact is that no other theories are allowed to be taught as alternative explanations for what we observe around us. What happened to tolerance and the open minds of the scientific community?

There are so many areas of science in which to study, investigate, and experiment. It is not necessary or desired to force a single, prejudiced explanation of origins. Let’s use our time to employing scientific methods to learn, explore and collect accurate data, and recognize that the conjecture and speculation about the past are just that. They are interesting theories and not proven facts.

I pose these questions to evolutionists: How do you know what you know about the past? Were you not taught from textbooks written over the past 150 years of enlightenment? Is there any danger in accepting beliefs about evolution having never observed it for yourself? Could it be that the basis of evolutionary thought is a house of cards that has no true scientific basis but is based on terms like perhaps, maybe, may have been, may have evolved? William B. Stromberger Edwall

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