Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Cross-country skiing problems persist

Another winter of people complaining about the cross-country skiing on Mount Spokane.

We get snow early. We get lots of it and most years, we could ski into May. Despite a substantial budget and expensive equipment, Mount Spokane cross-country skiing remains in need of improvement. The people working for the park system aren’t skiers and the people who make decisions about our trails do very little skiing.

Per week, $1,440 of our tax dollars are spent to groom. More people are becoming ski enthusiasts, but the people in charge don’t view grooming as a priority. In an eight-hour shift, we can’t get 22 kilometers groomed. What gets groomed often has huge clumps of snow. The skate lane always has either a dip or a hump. Year after year, we hear excuses for why trails aren’t groomed or are groomed poorly.

Pete Woods, the head ranger, insists the grooming must take place by a set schedule because of the “union.”

Money and equipment are wasted when grooming is done in a snowstorm, and we want quality trails during holidays and on weekends, without excuses.

Despite Rich Landers’ accolades for the state park and derogatory comments about skiers who work hard to improve their technique, cross-country ski conditions haven’t improved. We need people who realize why they work on Mount Spokane, and The Spokesman-Review needs a Nordic writer who knows what he’s talking about, not one who goes after individuals who have a passion for the sport, and defends bureaucrats who don’t do what their paid to do. Linda Bauer Spokane

LC annex `flap’ - tell us more

It’s well and good for a newspaper to strike feisty attitudes on local issues, as Opinion editor John Webster did on the Lewis and Clark High School flap, but it’s sometimes good for newspapers to investigate and illuminate such issues. It would be good for a journalist to delve into the issues surrounding the old LC administration building.

We want to know whether annex preservationists are the uncompromising, fundamentalist zealots, obstructionists and naysayers The Spokesman-Review and school board make them out to be. And whether their cause is really the “belated bickering” of Webster’s refrain or were they on board supporting the Lewis and Clark project from the beginning, with the explicit understanding, documented in the Review, that the smaller building would be restored.

We want to know whether the much-touted overwhelming endorsement of the demolition by the LC staff was extorted by the administration. And whether the architects had accurately calculated the size of the present building before recommending that it be replaced by a new, presumably more spacious building. And whether the implications of demolition and rebuilding had been correctly and adequately evaluated on a site far below the street level and bordered by streets which are supported by the old building’s foundation. And whether the old building is really the obsolete architectural excrementum represented in a recent Priggee cartoon.

Would a newspaper, which sought to get to the bottom of local issues, be setting itself too high a standard? Wayne B. Kraft Spokane

IN THE PUBLIC EYE

Schmautz ruled by inner gold

During the recent impeachment of President Clinton, almost everyone who was pro-conviction had some form of the question: Do you want your children to learn morals from a president like this? My reply was that I don’t want my children to learn their morals from the president or any other politician - I want them to learn from their family.

Evidently, Steelworker Dan Schmautz’s family raised its children this way also. His son, Bob, is a fine example of a child brought up with the kind of moral courage more families need to instill in their children (“Blood is thicker than job,” March 5). Perhaps if more parents had raised their children this way, money and greed would not have become the powers that are driving this country.

Perhaps labor disputes such as Kaiser’s would not happen if people like Charles Hurwitz and Ray Milchovich felt a responsibility to the people who work for them and the communities that support them, instead of the almighty dollar. Perhaps there would be no scabs to cross the picket line if this kind of morality ruled instead of greed. Perhaps America would again become the most respected nation on Earth.

Remember, Hurwitz said, “There’s a little story about the golden rule. He who has the gold rules.” Who would you rather have in your family, Hurwitz or Bob? Michael J. Hart Post Falls

Beam him out, Scotty

The March 7 front page story, “King of Kaiser means business,” could easily have been titled, “Kaiser ruled by Klingon.” The article leaves no doubt that Charies Hurwitz is to responsible corporate leadership what Idi Amin was to participatory government.

After purchasing Pacific Lumber, Hurwitz told workers, “There’s a little story about the golden rule. He who has the gold rules.” According to one Maxxam executive, Hurwitz wishes he’d never made the comment.

I suspect the only reason Hurwitz regretted the statement was due to the insight it provided into his character.

The article remarks on his charitable efforts. It appears to me, he is the tycoon seeking redemption for nefarious acts against society.

The end of the article is fascinating. Emerging from a benefit, Hurwitz is confronted by striking Steelworkers. He quickly leaves the scene after telling an attendant, “I want my car and I want Security.”

It is one thing to sit in an office while underlings lay off meaningless faces to put more money in your pocket. It is quite another matter to actually see those faces and to look into their eyes.

Hurwitz ran. It speaks volumes about the man. Thomas L. McArthur Spokane

Hurwitz one greedy piece of work

Thanks for staff writer Karen Dorn Steele’s high-profile expose of corporate gangster Charles Hurwitz (March 7). Steele preserves the canon of objectivity by allowing Hurwitz to speak through his spokespeople, thereby damning himself with his own tongue. Fluffly non sequiturs (e.g., “He is a very witty and smart man”) follow the cold facts that establish Hurwitz’s career, mainly a string of official investigations, civil suits, penalties and payoffs to avoid pleading guilty to obvious guilt.

Here is Hurwitz in his own voice: “He who has the gold rules.” Presumably, this was said with the “reptilian calm” reported by California Business magazine. Hurwitz’s incestuous corporate tie with the felon Michael Millken summarizes his mentality, complemented by his reading of the pseudo-profound libertarian, Ayn Rand.

Spokesman Bob Irelan says, “I have no indication that Charles Hurwitz is anti-union.” This is about as plausible as the tobacco executives’ denial that nicotine is addictive. A reptile is as a reptile does.

And so the dark side of globalization comes home to Spokane, where 2,100 Kaiser workers who are our neighbors and fellow citizens courageously wage David’s struggle against corporate Goliath. Knowing who Hurwitz is should make it easier for us to see right through the scam. The strikers are fighting for all of us, for Hurwitz is only the transparency through which the logic of manic greed is laid bare, and no one who works for a living is immune to its depredations. Beverly and Tom Jeannot Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

Rowdies’ rights less important

If you want to improve safety in schools, how about starting with enforcing some school ground rules? Quit tying teachers’ and administrators’ hands with the threat of lawsuits. This might infringe on the disruptive student’s rights, but when his rights infringe on the many more students and teachers, something is wrong with the justice system. Jean G. Caldwell Spokane

McDermott underestimates us

Rep. Jim McDermott, explaining to National Journal why Medicare beneficiaries should not have more choices in their medical treatment plans, said, “This whole business that you put 35 million seniors out there with a book in hand and have them try to pick a program that fits their needs is erroneous from the start.”

What a resounding expression of confidence in the ability of people to choose what best fits their own needs! How fortunate we are to have Democrat politicians and bureaucrats willing - and able - to make those personal choices for us ignorant dolts.

Incidentally, one wonders why the U.S. Justice(?) Department refuses to investigate, with a view to probable prosecution, the felonious acts that McDermott committed several years ago as an accomplice to a felonious interception, recording and retransmittal of a private cellular telephone conversation.

Apparently, it really is true that Democrat holders of high office need not comply with the laws and ethical standards that apply to ordinary mortals, at least not as long as premier Clinton defender Janet Reno is the attorney general. Leonard C. Johnson Troy, Idaho