Letters To The Editor

WASHINGTON STATE

Let’s beef up school security

I applaud the recent series by The Spokesman-Review on school violence. The articles provided a comprehensive look at this important issue.

Like many others, I am troubled by the recent shooting incidents in schools across the nation. As people in Moses Lake learned three years ago, school violence can rear its ugly head anytime, anywhere.

As ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, I strongly support a school violence measure. I believe proposed legislation should focus on at-risk students and require a sheriff’s deputy to be assigned to each middle school and high school, or at least have a deputy rotate between two schools daily. Such a presence would help reduce the likelihood of violence and would improve school discipline and morale. At this stage of the legislative session, it is too early to predict which school violence proposal will reach Gov. Gary Locke’s office.

Prior to the 1999 session, my staff contacted the offices of all the school district superintendents in the Spokane area. I was pleased to learn that our local school districts have some form of school violence prevention programs already in place. Spokane School District 81 and the East, Central, and West Valley school districts currently have a security officer in every high school.

As The Spokesman-Review series clearly indicates, our local school districts take school violence and safety very seriously and have plans in place for both prevention and for response to any incidents. Sen. Bob McCaslin 4th Legislative District

Burning agreement intolerable

Can you imagine locking your family indoors with all the doors and windows shut on our 90-plus degree days in September? Do you worry that your son or daughter will be let out to play at recess, and it may trigger an asthmatic episode which could hospitalize your child? So many of you know the fear which pervades those of us with family members who are affected by the massive wheat stubble burning.

What you may not know is that this same smoke which overcomes us in the last few years is five times the rate of burning in the early 1990s. The Department of Ecology cut a deal with farmers to make so-called voluntary efforts to cut back levels, but the levels they want to achieve - over seven years - already make our children and elders sick.

When we called our state senator, Eugene Prince, he told us the solution to wheat stubble burning was for our family to move away from wheat country. Can you imagine a ruder response?

We are hard-working members of our beloved Pullman for the last 19 years. To be told to “get out of town” is outrageous, and I urge all readers to write to Gov. Gary Locke immediately to demand that he overturn this unfair agreement and work out a new agreement which takes health of Inland Northwest residents into account. Patti S. Gora Pullman

Parochialism has no place

I am surprised that a man of Opinion editor John Webster’s intelligence can succumb to hysteria in order to make his point: “The blood of Spokane crime victims cries out of the ground and demands the passage of this bill.” (“Bill would right a grievous wrong,” Feb. 2).

If those victims were from Seattle, would that make us feel better? If a foreign nation attacked Seattle, would Spokane look the other way? I think we would immediately fight the enemy.

Well, the criminals are our enemy and an attack on a citizen in Spokane is no different than an attack in Seattle. We are one state and we are in it together.

The question is not where to dump the criminals but how to keep them locked up for as long as they are dangerous. The question is how to execute the murderers without hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent in the process. The question is how to support our police force to make it really efficient.

Of course, should the tiny liberal minority in the western part of the state prevail, should they succeed in their interference with the police force, the penal system, the death penalty, then we should certainly let them enjoy all their favorite pets. Peter C. Dolina Veradale

SPOKANE MATTERS

Annex, outhouse share some attributes

Re: Milt Priggee’s editorial cartoon about the LC administration annex. He perfectly depicts the plight of preservationists trying to halt the demolition of the building long enough to educate District 81 about its importance. Many are unaware of the importance of the outhouse in American history, just as many are unaware of the importance the annex in the history of LC and the Spokane educational system.

The outhouse was a vast improvement over previous open-air methods of waste disposal and played a huge role in bettering public health. Even after indoor plumbing and sewer systems replaced the outhouse, many creative property owners found adaptive uses for the building as a disposal area and storage shed. Archeologists have uncovered huge amounts of information by excavating former outhouse sites.

Similarly, the administration building was an improvement over previous buildings on the same site. It is the only surviving part of a building destroyed by fire. To tear it down when adaptive re-use could continue its usefulness is indeed wasteful. Perhaps putting the new library in the building could allow it to become a repository of information for future generations.

While many people see outhouses as outmoded, maybe even ugly structures, others recognize them as historical remnants, even objects of beauty.

It’s not too late for the District 81 board and administration to learn from the public and change their stance on destroying a useful, beautiful building. Linda Milsow Spokane

Annex never got a fair hearing

Sheryl Krauser’s Jan. 22 letter regarding the Lewis and Clark High School annex debate opened with the phrase, “Enough, already!” An ironic observation. “Enough” is what was not done to present a case for saving the annex last spring, when the LC renovation project was presented to the public.

Many caring citizens showed up at the two meetings held at the high school and a standing-room-only crowd attended the school board meeting where the final decision was rendered by board members. Not once was there so much as a rough sketch presented at any of these meetings showing how the annex could look after renovation. In other words, we would only comment on a slick rendering showing an addition stuck onto the east facade of the existing main school building - and the absence of the annex.

My question is, how can these public presentations be described as legitimate - and good - public process when it was apparent from the start that the school board had already made up its collective mind to destroy the historically significant annex?

We all care about the welfare and education of the students who attend LC, but if the entire process had been done correctly from the start, perhaps there would be less need for debate. Margaret Watson Spokane

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Thyroid study should be regionwide

Re: “Thyroid study finds no link between Hanford, victims,” (Jan. 29).

They did not do a wide enough test study. Even in the Pacific Northwest there appears to be a higher than average rate of thyroid problems. Maybe if someone pulled all the files from all the doctors in the area, it would prove the point. Of course, that study would cost the taxpayers too much. The test would have to be broad to include all thyroid problems, not just cancer.

I am a 42-year-old woman and was surprised at the number of women with thyroid problems. I was raised in Seattle. No one else in my family has this problem. The sheer number of people I met with this disorder has made me wonder. Barbara Rock Spokane

Flawed study not the last word

In my six years as a member of the Hanford Thyroid Disease Study Advisory Committee (1991-1997), I closely watched the study’s design and implementation. From my initial examination of the material made public last week, I believe both scientists and the citizens of the Northwest should carefully scrutinize the study’s results.

There are at least four reasons why last week’s findings of no link between Hanford’s radiation releases and thyroid disease may change in the months ahead.

The study did find a very high rate of thyroid disease - many times higher than what was expected.

The study is incomplete because a crucial part of the study’s analysis plan - incorporating the uncertainty of the dose estimates - has not been done yet.

There are errors in the dose estimates that have to be corrected - errors so large that they could affect the study’s conclusions.

Through the course of the study, there was always concern about the ability of the study to have sufficient power for its results to be statistically significant. James P. Thomas Seattle

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

GOP - party most likely to recede

Some columnists and talking heads are predicting the voting public soon will consign the Republican Party back to its semi-permanent minority status in Congress as punishment for its sponsorship of the ongoing, expensive burlesque in those once hallowed halls.

What’s a poor Republican to do? Maybe it’s time to slough off the bigots, bomb throwers, racists and single-issue zealots under a new banner - the Party of Holier Than Thou. Its mascot could be the centipede, symbolizing the abundant targets needed by the members for repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot. Perhaps they could fashion lapel pins of litmus strips.

How delightful it would be to see in a newspaper story the phrase, “Rep. Robert Barr, PHTT-Ga,” or “Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, PHTT-Miss.” And what fun the on-camera reporters would have.

But are Republicans really in so much trouble with the voters? Is there a growing nationwide judgment that, “You had your chance and you blew it?” Well, think about this: Dan Quayle for president. Bob Hamilton Sagle, Idaho