Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Eugster’s polarity wrong for Spokane

I echo Maurice Hickey’s comments (Letters, June 14).

Steve Eugster has been Mr. Negative since he came to town. I cannot recall a time he tried to work within Spokane’s system of government. It seems if it’s not Eugster’s idea, we (Spokane) can’t do it.

I resent that deeply.

A great number of us in this town have, in our own small way, done our part to make this one of the greatest places to live in the country. Negative Eugster is a thorn in our side that needs to be extricated. I suggest he go find a town that really needs fixing.

Sure, there are some things that need fixing, but you can’t build by trying to tear down unless you want to raze the structure and start all over again. I, for one, am not willing to do that.

If Eugster would put all his efforts to the positive instead of the negative, think of the good he could have done by now.

As for all the naysayers about City Manager Bill Pupo, ask yourselves a couple of questions:

Is Pupo acting within the regulations governing his job? The only answer is yes.

Are personnel matters discussed openly in your job or business? Hell no.

I submit that Pupo has not only done a great job handling a couple of personnel matters recently but saved the city thousands in settlement and legal fees, and set an example for us in the private sector to follow. He handled two tough situations with poise and dispatch. Harv Clark Spokane

We need Eugster’s `positive vision’

Columnist Doug Clark’s attempt to discredit Steve Eugster’s bid for City Council scraped the lowest portion of the barrel in journalistic fairness and honesty. Eugster would not “muck up” the council. He’d cause honest debate.

I think Eugster has been supported by the majority of the citizens on issues concerning Department of Housing and Urban Development money going to a wealthy developer, stopping the building of the unnecessary Lincoln Street bridge, questioning the council for buying land when streets are going to hell, requesting from the city public information it is apparently hiding from us, representing citizens who want to vote on ballot issues, challenging why billionaire Paul Allen should have tax money for a stadium, asking why City Manager Bill Pupo is still on board after many financial and personnel blunders, and having a strong desire to improve the beauty of our great city and provide success for all citizens, not just the special interest few.

The city body we call a council is currently mucked up and it’s time to apply some cleanser at the polls by scrubbing Jeff Colliton and Roberta Greene from the roster.

New ideas, debate and questioning the status quo is healthy, not a deterrent to progress but the coal that stokes the financial furnace of growth. It’s time to cut the ties with the good-old-boy form of government. We need only one boss who reports to the people and that is a strong mayor.

Eugster has the positive vision to bring us to the wonderful city we deserve. Jonathan Swanstrom, Sr. Spokane

Craters no way to go

I agree with Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers on the slow, haphazard progression of the road construction on Indian Trail. I also live in that neighborhood.

Rodgers’ statement about the “craters of the moon” is so correct. What amazes me is that these craters are left there! Huge road-grading equipment just sits on the side of the construction site. How hard could it be to have them run a blade along the road and make these crevasses go away?

Once a person manages to navigate their way southbound through this site, there is nice, smooth roadway and driving. You are driving now at normal road speed when all of a sudden, umph! Your head is in the roof of your car, coffee spilled and you find yourself still praying!

There is an edge going from asphalt to an abrupt 3- to 4-inch rise into the preconstruction roadway without any sign or warning. It took them about four weeks to figure out they should have a sign indicating “bump” placed there.

Everyone who lives out in our neighborhood has nice vehicles that are being beat to pieces (no, not everyone owns a Humvee). I believe stupidity needs to be recognized and addressed. All residents who have had their tires knocked out of balance, front end alignment thrown off or other damage incurred needs to repair it and send a receipt with a claim form against the city of Spokane for this.

Maybe the next contractor will take some more thought-out precautions on their next road construction job! Tim A. Carson Spokane

Williams hit loophole jackpot

Phil Williams has just received a generous settlement from the City of Spokane, all wrapped up in legal mumbo jumbo. But it boils down to a loophole. After all, isn’t that what our legal profession thrives on? Morals and ethics be damned.

Instead of berating City Manager Bill Pupo, it’s about time that a serious look is taken at Jim Sloane, our city attorney, and his staff’s competency. Williams violated a policy that 20 years ago was adhered to in most corporations or in any place of business. You don’t mix business with pleasure, or whatever you want to call it, or you’re fired. It was as simple as that. Nothing was in writing. It was a social rule and company policy, even though in most cases unwritten.

Certainly, one of the benefits of working for local government in Spokane would be the generous package you may receive upon leaving, and I’m not talking about a monthly retirement check. James A. Nelson Spokane

Criticisms arose from ignorance

Re: “Children in fatigues? How appalling” (Letters, June 11), by an ill-informed citizen who complained about the color guard at the Memorial Day ceremony at Fairmont Memorial Cemetery.

If the author had investigated, she would have found that not all of the youths in the photograph were boys; that the rifles used weren’t even replicas of real rifles; that the Lilac City Young Marines do not teach military tactics or weapons handling other than as part of a Color Guard; and what we instruct our young “charges” upon are the core values (ideals, if you will) of honor, courage and commitment - the very antithesis of the acts that were perpetrated by the craven cowards at Columbine High School in Colorado.

The values of honor, courage and commitment (those words bear repeating) are those which are perpetuated by the U.S. Marine Corps. If more of us espoused these values, the rips and tears in the moral fabric of society would be less devastating. What the photo demonstrated was the dedication of the youths in the color guard. They were invited to render honors to all veterans who have sacrificed some part of their lives for this country, and especially for those who laid down their lives so that people like the author of that letter could live in a free society.

That letter writer owes the boys and girls in the photo, and all members of the Lilac City Young Marines, an apology. Dennis J. Dressler, paymaster Lilac City Young Marines

Tree felling selfish, unnecessary

As I gaze into my once very private and serene back yard, I am saddened by the ultimate lack of decency that I have faced. For I am a victim of someone else’s ignorance.

A few days ago, Avista workers chain-sawed down what was a majestic 40-year-old chestnut tree, at the request of its owner. The tree indeed was under the power lines and needed to be pruned. However, it need not have been completely removed. What was once home to squirrels and birds, along with my privacy, is gone.

I live on the South Hill and enjoy the many large trees that shield us all and have provided many hours of joy to my family. I have lost faith in my neighbor, who with very little concern for nature and beauty destroyed a tree that helped give the South Hill its charm. Now, my view is of a large two-story house and its kitchen.

Thank you, neighbor, for the hopefully temporary disappearance of the birds and squirrels. Thank you also for taking my privacy, however trivial to you. My respect and sense of community for you was cut down with that old chestnut tree. Noelle Brown Spokane

WASHINGTON STATE

Senn has done us no favor

Re: “Rural areas hurting for health care” (June 13).

One doesn’t have to live in a rural area to be caught in the health care bind of little or no coverage and outrageous premiums. My wife and I live in urban Spokane County and neither of us qualifies for employer’s insurance or Medicare. After our Cobra plan ran out, our monthly insurance cost has ranged from $1,240 to $657, with $825 being the likely extended cost.

Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn’s tactic of opening the high-risk health coverage is just one more sham of throwing bones to starving people. For us, it is even more expensive, since we are not high risk.

I have spent endless hours and considerable money on the phone and e-mailing Senn’s office, legislators, the governor and insurers about our plight and the problem in general. I vehemently blame the Legislature and the governor, aided by Senn, for neither solving the crisis in the regular session nor the special session.

In my opinion, the problem was universally agreed by most (not by Senn’s office) to be two features required of insurer’s by Senn’s office and the current state laws: the short period for pre-existing conditions; and the rules that allow insured persons to jump from carrier to carrier every time a lower premium appeared. These liberal rules, as nice as they sound for accessible health coverage, have simply resulted in little to no affordable individual health care coverage in 17 Eastern Washington counties.

Senn’s comment that the state’s “progressive” insurance reforms are not to blame is ludicrous. Thomas G. Mosher Spokane

How many strikes does it take?

Would someone, could someone, explain to me what “three strikes and you’re out” means when it comes to putting away career criminals?

Hardly a week goes by that we don’t see a Secret Witness notice on someone wanted with 10, 20 and sometimes 30 or more previous convictions on their record. It is obvious to me and to any law-abiding citizen that these people have chosen crime as their career.

Isn’t the purpose for this law to remove from our community these lawbreakers who have no respect for themselves or anyone else? I wait for someone to enlighten us all on this. Richard Castleman Spokane

BUSINESS AND LABOR

Smokers treated better than mothers

Re: “Woman loses breast-feeding lawsuit” (June 11).

When I hear of a case like this, my first thought is always about employees who smoke and take frequent smoke breaks. Many buildings (and I would assume this would include a health care facility) are smoke-free. Because of this, employees all over the country go outside to designated areas to smoke, certainly as inaccessible as this mother was in a van with a beeper to alert her to an emergency.

This type of treatment is a symptom of our culture’s attitude toward women and children. I have seen companies turn down working mothers’ request to pump or breast-feed but allow a smoker to take several 10-15 minute breaks per day to smoke.

The average mother would only pump or breast-feed a baby 15-20 minutes if suitable arrangements were made to have the baby or equipment in a convenient place. The smoker is participating in an activity that will potentially harm his or her body, utilizing health care dollars for cure of treatment of illness related to smoking. The breast-feeding mother is participating in an activity that improves the short- and long-term health of both the infant and herself, decreasing the use of health care dollars and sick time benefits.

Instead of being punished she should be congratulated and helped to make this work. Glenda Dickerson, R.N., M.S., I.B.C.L.C. Birmingham, Ala.

IDAHO VIEWPOINTS

Voters rejected taxation proposed

While the recent turnout of only 12 percent of the registered voters is discouraging, it should be recognized not as an act of disdain or a uncaring attitude but as a definitive statement.

Voters did not want to raise their taxes, either through a sales tax increase or through a property tax increase. The message, rather, to our various levels of government, was to seek out other methods of raising needed funds for worthwhile projects. The broadening of our current sales tax of 5 percent with the inclusion of all kinds of service entities is a rational approach.

Most folks would not object to paying a sales tax on a visit to their hairdresser, cleaner’s, shoe shop, attorney, accountant, etc. This type of consumptive tax is generally preferred when weighed against increases in property tax. By broadening the base of sales tax revenue, rather than increase sales tax percentages, we could collect multi-millions from taxpayers without alienating the majority of them. And yes, I was one of the few who did vote on the new jail issue. Exactly how I voted is available only to me and my conscience. However, the fact of whether or not I voted is a matter of public record for which I harbor no objections. Dick Wandrocke Coeur d’Alene

Safe driving not just matter of sobriety

It appears that an unfortunate side effect in the campaign against drunk drivers is that temperance is becoming the official standard. If you drink, don’t drive. But if you choose to distract or impair yourself in almost any other way while driving, never fear. The law couldn’t care less.

That’s the implicit message in a sentence handed down recently in a fatality case. The driver was responsible for a collision in which three lives were lost. The judge ordered a suspended sentence and tacked on community service, for which he felt it necessary to offer an apology. “Sorry it has to be you …,” he said.

There have been other well-publicized cases that reinforce the impression that the state of Idaho and other licensing agents have little interest in enforcing safe operation of vehicles where drugs or alcohol are not a factor. Yet drivers who are merely careless, inattentive and irresponsible pose an enormous danger on our streets and highways. The accidents they cause result in injury and death indistinguishable from those caused by drivers under the influence. And the underlying cause is similar, too; simply a matter or someone making the wrong decision.

Safe driving standards set and enforced - only the states can do it - would make our roads safer for everyone. Del T. Cameron Coeur d’Alene

Beware of excess lead in water

While considerable attention has been given by many people to household air and soil pollution, little if any has been given to drinking water pollution in the Silver Valley.

As a result, in early May, I arranged to have a sample of water I took from my kitchen faucet tested for lead and iron content at Silver Valley Lab Analytical, west of Kellogg.

The test results revealed that there are 21 parts of lead per billion parts of water in my household water, when the current standard is 15 parts. The test cost $20; $10 for the lead testing and $10 for the iron, which proved to be 30 times more prevalent than lead.

Lead and copper in the human diet are considered dangerous to human health by the EPA and DEQ but iron and zinc are not.

A remedy for this problem of high lead presence in household water is to run a fairly good stream of water from that faucet every morning for two minutes so that the heavy metals that have settled overnight can be greatly reduced. (Of course, a household water filter can be purchased readily as an alternative.) Mary H. Wieman Kellogg