Letters To The Editor

Fri., Feb. 26, 1999

SPOKANE MATTERS

At issue: Who does mayor work for?

Re: Staff writer Kathy Mulady’s Feb. 12 article, “Plugged into power.”

I read the article a number of times and I find this relationship disturbing. I originally thought Mayor John Talbott to be an independent thinker - his own man. However, he has proven to be in bed with an outside interest.

The mayor has surrounded himself exclusively with current and former employees of Metropolitan Mortgage as advisers and staff members while maintaining a strained relationship with other council members and top city officials. The question is, who is really running the mayor’s office - whose ideas and strategies are at work here?

The goal of this political network of advisers (Metropolitan Mortgage) to Talbott is to promote candidates for three City Council positions in the fall that will be in line with Talbott and Metropolitan Mortgage. The citizens of Spokane should be concerned with this alliance.

The mayor stated, “There is no sinister connection between me and Metropolitan Mortgage.”

If it talks like a duck and walks like a duck, it’s a duck.

The forthcoming election will be Metropolitan Mortgage-backed candidates against the incumbents. I can only say read the article in the Sunday paper - it’s scary. This marriage between the mayor and Metropolitan Mortgage will be a major campaign issue. Richard L. Waite Spokane

Paper plugs `old guard’ interests

Re: `Plugged into power, Feb. 21.

Several times during the past year, editorials have appeared on the front page of The Spokesman-Review and Sunday’s second-in-one-year attack on C. Paul Sandifur was one more example.

It has been obvious for the 14 years I have lived here that there exists an old guard - a few families controlling politics and wages, causing a lack of progress in this community. The Cowles family has been an active member of this old guard. Apparently, they have a problem with someone other than them having an influence at City Hall, but have no scruples about using the only daily newspaper to advance their interests.

Some people say (a phrase used by the newspaper to quote sources) that they are thankful for the influx of people in the last 10 years which has led to the possibility that they can have a voice in the election of a mayor and the future of this community. Some people say they read the local alternative newspaper, The Inlander, intentionally to get a balanced view on such projects as the ill-proposed Lincoln Street bridge. Some people say they are thankful for the alternative leadership of John Talbott, Stephen Eugster and powerful families such as the Sandifurs.

Envision a newspaper that keeps its editorials on the editorial page, labeled as such.

Envision a Spokane where the Cowles family can rise above its personal interests and work with the city even if the mayor is not in their pockets. Mary Ann Reichmuth Spokane

Not bad power to be plugged into

Re:“Plugged into power,” Feb. 12.

I’m glad it’s not been some out-of-town developer advising Talbott. I know something of Sandifer and I believe he has the best interests of Spokane at heart. Of course, providing assistance for the mayor could have been a little more, um, refined. But all those concerned seemed open about furnishing interviews and information on the subject. It’s pretty hard to criticize that.

Frankly, I hope the mayor’s counselors suggest that he be more inclusive in his contacts around City Hall, that he expand his circle of advisers and that he not forget the county. Thomas D. Hargreaves Spokane

How about that county-owned SUV?

On our way back home Sunday, we stopped at a convenience store in Wilbur to get a snack. While waiting in the parking lot, a new Ford Expedition pulled in and parked. I was admiring this top of the line vehicle when I noticed Spokane County Fire District written on the door.

My questions are: 1, Why an Expedition, $35,000, is necessary for the job when an Explorer or equivalent would suffice at $10,000 less?; and 2, What was this beautiful vehicle doing in Lincoln County on Sunday? Was it burning taxpayer-bought fuel? Are there meetings Sunday afternoons? I doubt it. Where are our tax dollars going? Who decides to spend that kind of money on county vehicles?

Why can’t this big spender purchase vehicles with the thought that he is spending his own money, instead of somebody else’s. Jim R. Skeie Otis Orchards

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION

Socialist plot behind public schools

Congratulations to Jeanette Faulkner (Street Level, Feb. 14) for her superb commentary on the key problem with public education, and to the Review for having the grace to publish it.

Her theme is summed up in one paragraph: “Refusing to allow children to see how God is central to all they study is not a separation of church and state issue but it does point up the need for separation of state and education. That’s the needed reform.”

To scoffers who doubt the truth of her thesis, I recommend a careful reading of Samuel L. Blumenfeld’s book, “Is Public Education Necessary?” He traces the history of education in America back to the early 1800s, when socialists such as Robert Owen schemed to do away with private education.

A secret society founded in 1829 by Owens and others aimed to achieve universal public education. One of its members later wrote: “The great object was to get rid of Christianity. … to establish a system of state schools from which all religion was to be excluded … to which all parents were to be compelled by law to send their children.”

The reason for their phenomenal success can be attributed as much to the apathy of trusting parents as to their working in secret like, termites under the house.

Educators and politicians continue to excuse the failure of public schools by crying for more money. That is like painting the house while the termites are destroying the foundation. Dee Lawless Post Falls

Throwing stones no help at all

As a school board member, I am appalled by Jeanette Faulkner’s commentary concerning our public schools (“Public and charter schools hobbled by secularism,” Roundtable, Feb. 14).

There are thousands of people, including educators, administrators, board members, active parents and students, who are trying to make our schools a better place to learn for all who attend. Is the system perfect? No, it is not a perfect system. But this system provides education to a broad spectrum of a diverse and ever changing society and, all in all, does a pretty darn good job of that.

Faulkner, like other critics of public education, only picks on the shortcomings of our system and offers no real solutions, other than their shortsighted concept of one-size-fits-all education.

It’s ironic that Faulkner believes we should take away educational choices for our children when in fact she is exercising her freedom to choose what’s best for her children by home schooling them. No one is telling her she can’t. In fact, right now, parents have more choices than ever before. They can send their children to private schools, religious or otherwise. They can home school or they can choose public schools. Opportunities for education are wide open. Yet, Faulkner wants to eliminate that by making all schools subject to her sectarian rules which include a narrow world view.

Instead of bashing the system she’s so vehemently opposed to, maybe Faulkner should embrace the system and strive to improve it. After all, her children will be living in a society filled with people who received an education in public schools, and we all know how expensive ignorance is. John E Hill Kettle Falls, Wash.

THE ENVIRONMENT

USFS knows right but does wrong

The Colville and Idaho Panhandle national forests’ 153 million board foot logging sale is likely the largest timber sale in the entire country. It will clearcut over 5,000 acres. The Forest Service claims it wants to do the right thing but the agency’s own meeting notes state this is an opportunity to log because they “know we’re not going to stop the epidemic.”

Now, Forest Service supervisors have asked Forest Service Chief Michael Dombeck for a special status which would insulate the project and require logging implementation, regardless of public comment. The Forest Service has its agenda set to log. This request comes at the same time the inspector general released an evaluation of the timber sale program and found, “Specifically, the … environmental assessments did not include adequate analyses” and articulated the need for “immediate corrective action.”

According to Dombeck’s recent directive concerning restoration of damaged watersheds and protection of water quality, the Forest Service should never propose such a damaging logging operation. “Multiple use does not mean we should do everything on every acre simply because we can,” said Dombeck said in Missoula recently. “We must protect the last best places and restore the rest.”

As the Forest Service stated in its environmental impact statement, these beetle outbreaks have occurred historically in our forests and have been exacerbated by past Forest Service logging, fire suppression and road building. History seems to be repeating itself. Why should the public let our forests be pillaged for profit? Elizabeth Allen Kettle Range Conservation Group, Republic, Wash.

USFS no friend of forests

For many years now, we have put our trust in the Forest Service. Look where it has gotten us. Today’s forests, what is left of them, are a mess.

The Department of Agriculture’s inspector general recently looked at the Forest Service timber sale program. It found that the Forest Service did not ensure integrity in the preparation of its environmental documents and consequently permitted timber sales and other activities without limiting the environmental damage associated with those activities. The tragedy of the Forest Service is that we have allowed foresters to manage, or log, our public lands.

Logging does not emulate forest fires or other natural succession events and does not assist in the recovery of a forest. Logging can never be a healthy, sensible approach.

Douglas fir bark beetles appear most often in previously logged stands, yet many of the trees to be logged are healthy green trees at little risk of dying. The beetles attack already stressed trees, thinning the stand and allowing for regeneration. Beetle populations crash when they try to invade healthy trees; they expend all of their energy attacking the trees and are unable to breed.

Allowing the Forest Service to extract 30,000 logging trucks worth of timber from our National Forests is a mistake. This is not science-based, and is certainly not common sense. Joseph Ramirez Spokane

Logging companies rip off taxpayers

I still can’t understand how corporate timber interests mowing down a forest will save it, as the timber lobby would have us believe. It is apparent that unrestrained logging is how we’ve already destroyed over 90 percent of our nation’s virgin forests.

Biodiversity in the forest provides natural protection against insect infestation. In the event a forest is burned, infested or naturally destroyed, the nutrients from the soil that fed the trees and vegetation left standing will naturally return to the soil. However, if corporate timber interests remove the trees for a marginal short-term profit, our earth will lose the bio-accumulation of nutrients. This will do long-term damage to our forests while lining the pockets of a few individual corporate timber barons.

With timber prices remaining relatively depressed at this time, these corporate timber interests rely on taxpayer subsidies to profitably destroy our environment. In this manner, public tax dollars are being transferred to private pockets with the consent and support of our duly elected, corporate-sponsored government. Adding insult to injury, the public must then buy back the finished forest products at so-called free market value to complete the sham! Steve Bradburn Spokane

God’s work reduced to profit center

Re: “Many questions posed about salmon, dams,” (Feb. 21). As a taxpayer, I paid to build the dams. Now, my tax dollars are subsidizing the bargers and the irrigation projects, while the greatest salmon run in the world is forced into extinction.

The good Lord created this abundant natural resource for thousands of generations of humans and we managed to justify rendering it into pork for one generation. The first step is to admit that we have made some big mistakes. Governors, congressmen and senators, the lie that you are hanging onto will affect generations. Bill Clinton ‘fessed up, now it’s your turn. Patrick T. Behm Coeur d’Alene

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