Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Clark’s satire part of devious plot

Talk about hypocrisy! Doug Clark’s June 13 column regarding City Council candidate Steve Eugster reeks of it. While attacking Eugster’s attempts to get answers to questions and concerns affecting all of us by using the tools of his profession, and at his own expense, Clark gets paid to use his column as a bully pulpit to try to negatively influence city voters. This is journalism?

If anyone doesn’t believe this newspaper and its owners regularly attempt to control the thoughts and minds of its readership, they are sadly mistaken. The press is a powerful tool. It should be used responsibly and objectively to inform, educate and entertain. Clark’s column is a blatant attempt to influence and manipulate, weakly and pathetically disguised as satire. Are the rest of the candidates going to be subjected to the same disparaging attacks by Clark, or some other paid sideshow? That should bring out the best among us to run for office. Or is that the purpose? Discourage any change on a City Council whose primary focus is on downtown (except in election years) by using slanderous attacks against new candidates? Makes you wonder.

Maybe one of the reasons that Spokane is missing the economic boom the rest of the country is enjoying and is rated 161 out of 162 cities as to being business-friendly is that the other cities don’t have a newspaper trying to run them. David Bray Spokane

Gang that couldn’t protest straight

Doug Clark’s June 13 column, “Litigation-crazy Eugster would muck up council,” appears to be one of those stories Clark must occasionally write to protect his position as a columnist for The Spokesman-Review. I believe I can make this statement since I am a former self-appointed president of the Doug Clark Fan Club. Having heard the gregarious Clark play the guitar, I can appreciate how important the writing job is for supporting his family.

Clark points out that Eugster is the self-appointed president of the Spokane Research and Defense Fund. The group, also known as the Sniveling Reactionary Dilettante Fund, seems more like a little boys club. They probably have a secret clubhouse, a secret handshake and a magic decoder ring for members. They appear similar in format to a KKK organization. Even their newsletter is secret.

As bizarre as Eugster and his band of secret agents are, they do occasionally raise interesting questions. The problem is, they are so elitist they will not try to sway the public to their point of view.

The River Park Square project is an interesting case in point. The government redevelopment loans reek of corporate welfare. The purpose is to construct beautiful stores, staffed by minimum wage employees, selling goods made overseas by sweatshop laborers, for multi-billion dollar corporations. There are legitimate social issues involved. Unfortunately, Eugster and his mental eunuchs are so blind from the bright glare of their egos they do not appreciate the importance of explaining them. Thomas L. McArthur Spokane

Outlaw billboards and you’ll buy them

Now our planning bureaucrats want to do away with a legal business called outdoor advertising. Billboards are an integral part of any commercial activity and provide a useful service to the community. The advertisers pay big dollars to advertise on these signs and rely on them for directions to their place of business and new product sales.

Billboards can easily be regulated by placing restrictions on height, size, zoning district and spacing. An outright ban by amortization intrudes on private property rights and has not been successful in other areas. Existing signs have been allowed to remain and new ones must meet the new regulations. The Federal Highway Administration has paid millions of dollars to remove legal but nonconforming signs, as the courts have determined they cannot be removed without just compensation.

If a sign meets the local jurisdiction’s requirements and has a permit, if one is required, it cannot be removed by the agency through amortization, which our planners are attempting to do. Removal can happen only by just compensation from the governing body or upon agreement between the sign owner and the owner of the property.

The planners are blowing smoke if they believe the sign companies are going to sit on their hands and let their business be destroyed without just compensation.

One wonders what legal business is next on the planners’ agenda. Douglas P. Wendler Spokane

Banning getting to be bad habit

As a Libertarian, I oppose the proposed ban on billboards for several reasons.

First, billboards are private property. If local officials ban them, their owners should be compensated.

Second, the ban restricts a legitimate form of expression. Along with commercial content, I have seen billboards that promote charities, advocate religious, ethical and political views, and act as public service announcements - such as the billboard that is a memorial to the victims of a serial killer.

Finally, if billboards are as unpopular as their critics maintain, then it is not necessary to outlaw them - the critics should be able to persuade local businesses to boycott billboards and to advertise through other media. If the demand for billboards dries up, so will the supply.

Alternatively, the “majority” who oppose billboards are free to pool their resources to buy and dismantle them.

Like it or not, billboards are a byproduct of a society that values free trade, the exchange of ideas and private property. If these values are truly important to us, shouldn’t we encourage persuasion and free economic choice over a law that restricts everyone’s choices? It has become the trend for government authorities to ban, outlaw, seize or excessively regulate that which annoys any persistent special interest group. And the list of groups and their grievances seems endless.

Ultimately, one is forced to ask: How many more things must be banned, seized or regulated before we reach Utopia? John M. Lemon Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

Beware of supposed absolutes

Re: Chris Peck’s June 13 Perspective column about Hope Anderson, a 4.0-grade-point-average valedictorian of Lake City High School: This talented and motivated girl shared some ideas with Peck.

We should commend Anderson for her achievements and wish her best in her academic development. But to help her grow we have to challenge her thoughts especially if they sound as if expressing “conservative” ideas while in reality they are nonsense.

“The foundation of this country has been corroded,” says Anderson. Well, shooting at high schools is terrible, but to me it still seems mild compared to killing Mormons, burning homosexuals, taking advantage of slaves. High school shooters are marginal psychopaths. All those other things were done by more or less mainstream, presumably concerned or law-abiding’ citizens .

So when was the foundation really corroded?

The statement, There is such a thing as absolute truth, is an example of dangerous nonsense that sounds good. Every statement can only be true or false in the system it is a part of. Truth is relative itself. But what this statement usually means is that there is an ideology that is better than all other ideologies: our ideology! So if I am a homophobe, I can label all homosexuals sinners and claim I can do it because of the absolute truth. On the international level, I can wage a war against infidels defending or spreading the absolute truth.

Anderson fully deserves her new car but also a little intellectual challenge not offered by Peck. Peter C. Dolina Veradale

Good to see Funseth story

We at The Arc thoroughly enjoyed the article on local artist Carl Funseth (June 8). For the past several years, Funseth has honored us with a donation of one of his unique paintings as a raffle prize at our annual golf tournament. Each year we have waited in anticipation to see what early Spokane street scene he would present us with for our drawing. Many a golf player has bought raffle tickets in hopes of winning a treasured Funseth painting to hang on his wall.

Thanks for the article. It was nice to see him get the recognition he deserves. Glenda Travis The Arc of Spokane