Letters To The Editor
(From Letters, May 27, 1999): A statement in Edward L. Schultz’s May 22 letter was incorrect. While Inland Empire Paper Co. received some land in the northeast Washington land exchange Schultz discussed, it was not a partner.
SPOKANE MATTERS
Billboard owners have rights, too
As a Libertarian, I believe there should be no restrictions on billboards located on private property. I don’t believe the Spokane County Planning Commission has the authority to put limits on the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Some may consider billboards a blight on the landscape. That’s their problem. Business owners must be able to advertise. I appreciate seeing a billboard to help me determine the location of a particular business.
Human stress? Right. If a person is distressed by the existence of a billboard, they have more problems than the removal of a billboard could possibly solve.
Traffic safety? Where’s the evidence that billboards affect drivers? Citizens for a Scenic Spokane cite national statistics on the issue but who generated that research?
Could they have their own political agenda?
Anything can distract a driver, including their kids fighting in the back seat of the car. Maybe we should ban car radios, because people might be listening to a conversation too intently or music that causes their mind to wander. Better stop letting people buy coffee at coffee stands and prohibit them from owning cell phones. Carrying passengers may cause distracting conversation or an argument, resulting in an an accident. Get real!
Some people just don’t like capitalism. They don’t like the idea that a business can advertise at all. Recent examples: limits on alcohol and tobacco advertising. It just galls them that someone can sell a product they don’t like. Is this still America? Janice M. Moerschel Spokane
Don’t piggyback land purchase issues
A while back, there was a movement on to change the name of Spokane to Spokane Falls. I have a more appropriate name for our city: Spokane Fools. That is, if we again accept a land purchase we don’t need.
There is a possibility we will get the chance to vote on a much-needed and deserving parks bond. It will improve and maintain our lovely parks in Spokane. But to get what we need, we will have to accept a $4 million parking lot purchase. I say, no!
We got the parking garage and River Park Square redevelopment shoved down our throats. That was enough. Now we have an opportunity to make money again for a few in Spokane at the expense of the many.
I agree it should go to a vote of the people. But let’s keep like issues together. Make it a two-part vote: park needs and the parking lot purchase. Let the people decide if they want either or both. This piggybacking unrelated issues is a government trick that probably irritates the taxpayers the most.
If we must make a choice, make it an honest choice, not an attempt to coerce us into accepting something we don’t want. Mark W. Harry Mead
Williams’ piece a `cruel joke’
In his lengthy guest column of May 3, Luke Williams pleads with Paul Sandifur, Steve Eugster and Erik Skaggs to “abandon the politics of vilification.” But of course, his column consists of exactly that - even going so far as to charge his opponents with having made false statements that cast “a pall of cynicism over our beautiful, All-American City.”
Worst of all, he has the unmitigated gall to write, “Please, just stick with the issues and let the people decide what they want, for this is truly a representative form of government, and people are perfectly able to make up their own minds without being manipulated by negative campaigning.”
What a cruel joke this statement is, in view of the fact that the Lincoln Investment Co., the Cowles family, The Spokesman-Review, et al, are determined to not let the people vote on vital matters relating to the development of Spokane. Ken Campbell Deer Park
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Reject bid to license animal breeders
The Doris Day Animal League, a fervent animal rights organization which opposes the ownership and breeding of animals for any purpose, has proposed that the U.S. Department of Agriculture federally license and regulate persons who breed dogs and/or cats in their own homes, and keep or sell the offspring for hunting, breeding, or security purposes. DDAL wants every person who breeds animals to be federally licensed and regulated.
Rep. George Nethercutt is a member of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee. Please write to him: The Honorable George Nethercutt, 2362 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20515, and ask that he vote to prohibit the USDA from requiring noncommercial breeders from being federally licensed. Commercial breeders are already required to be licensed by the USDA. This maneuver by the DDAL is another attempt to achieve the agenda of the animal rights movement to remove animals from people. Cherie Graves Newport, Wash.
Help Gorton push for pit mine
On May 13, it was announced that the U.S. House-Senate Appropriations Conference Committee, via the supplemental appropriation bill, voted to overturn decisions by the departments of Interior and Agriculture that effectively blocked the Crown Jewel project.
This move is sparking an outburst of opposition by those who have challenged the project from the first. The opposition comes from the same people who continually oppose economic development, especially in natural resources, in rural communities. Sen. Slade Gorton is receiving much criticism.
The Common Sense Resource League, made up of residents working and owning property in the immediate vicinity of the mine site, came to support the Crown Jewel Project only after thoroughly studying the project. The project, now in its seventh year of the permitting process, with expenditures in excess of $80 million, is the best opportunity we have had to develop the rich mineral deposits of Okanogan County.
We fear that if the Crown Jewel project isn’t approved, there will never be another company willing to undergo the rigorous scrutiny and expense that the Battle Mountain Gold Co. has endured.
We ask readers to consider the facts, rather than accept the representations of the misinformation campaign which will follow reversal of the federal agencies’ unfair an unprecedented action.
Gorton needs your support. He has taken a courageous stand in the best interest of Okanogan County and the state of Washington. Richard Dart Common Sense Resource League, Oroville, Wash.
May a merry month indeed
He was a vegetarian, but Mahatma Gandhi would have celebrated the Makahs finally having bagged their whale. Gandhi, a champion of human rights and freedom, preached that simple majority rule could be tyranny, and that the law must protect minorities from such tyranny.
We can be proud that we live in a country where the government protects a tiny, poor minority from oppression by a rich, powerful and popular politically correct Mafia that wants to impose its values on everyone else.
Another cause for celebration was a federal appeals court decision on May 14. It threw out sweeping new ozone and particulate-matter rules imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency in July 1997 under the Clean Air Act. Among the reasons for rejecting the rules was unrebutted evidence that the ozone rules would do more harm to public health than good. Upon hearing the decision, someone from the Sierra Club - part of the special interest whose votes and campaign contributions the rules were intended to buy - yelped, “Ludicrous.” But one of the principle architects of the Clean Air Act, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) was quoted, “The new rules do not reflect the inescapable result of the available science, but simply the judgment of a political appointee.”
If that standard is applied to all federal regulations, a lot of rules by a lot of agencies will be rolled back.
All things considered, May has been a pretty good month for America so far. Edwin G. Davis Spokane
Support measure to exit from U.N.
It’s time to save America from the United Nations and the Friends of Liberty can help.
Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) has reintroduced HR1146, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 1999. Last year, 54 members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of getting us out of the United Nations. HR1146 would shut down the U.N. headquarters and cut off all American funding for the United Nations, including funding and participation in U.N. “peacekeeping” operations.
A letter to a member of Congress is considered the equivalent of 100 phone calls, because it means that you really care about the issue. Write to Rep. George Nethercutt, 1527 Longworth HOB, Washington, DC, 20515; or fax to (202) 225-3392. Tell him how much you really care about liberty and ask him to co-sponsor HR1146. Jon J. Tuning Spokane
U.S. AND THE WORLD
Time for NATO, U.N. to deliver
If NATO and the United Nations sue for a diplomatic agreement to end the current Balkan conflict without fully investigating war crimes by the Serbian military and paramilitary units, without arresting and prosecuting those responsible for war crimes against noncombatant Albanians, without removing all Serbian government officials who approved of war crimes and without returning all the displaced Albanians, then NATO and the United Nations will have lost the current conflict and proven to the world that they are totally useless. Angel Manuel Fitzpatrick, Jr. Fairfield, Wash.
Support end of Cuba boycott
For 40 years, there has been very little contact between the people of the United States and Cuba. A U.S. food and medicine embargo on Cuba has had a devastating effect on the health and nutrition of large numbers of ordinary Cubans. For the first time since the Cuban revolution, an exhibition baseball game between the Cuban National Baseball Team and a U.S. major league team (the Baltimore Orioles) was played in the U.S., on May 3. I hope this encounter will symbolize a warming in U.S.-Cuban relations.
An important next step in this process is the Cuban Food and Medicine Security Act of 1999 (HR1644-S926), a bipartisan measure introduced at the end of April by Sens. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., John Warner, R-Va., and Reps. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y, and Jim Leach, R-Iowa. I urge my elected officials to support this legislation that will lift the boycott of medicine and food sales to Cuba.
I urge you to write your senators and representatives and urge their support for this legislation. Adopting this measure would be a home run for Cuba and for the United States - a win for all concerned. Jim Pritchard, member Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, Ephrata
War is never justified
Images juxtaposed. The bloody, twisted bodies lie mute in school corridors, in deserted villages, in Serbian cities, in Iraqi hospitals. A father searches frantically for his son. A mother rocks her dying child. Bullets, bombs, hate crimes, sanctions. Fifteen dead in Littleton, Colo., hundreds in Kosovo, thousands in Iraq. Can one, anywhere, ever justify the killing of children?
President Clinton has said we must use words, not weapons, to solve conflicts. Yet what are we teaching youths when we dismiss 1.5 million deaths in Iraq as collateral damage? When we punish a country by starving to death 250 children every day? When fleeing refugees and journalists are “unfortunate casualties”? When we spend U.S. tax dollars to train Latin American soldiers to torture and kill civilians? When we execute children, women and people of color for emulating the violence we’ve shown them? When we’re so certain of our beliefs that we insist on the right to discriminate against gays and lesbians? Why are we surprised when others learn the lessons we’ve taught?
I have thought often this week of the words of A.J. Muste, “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.” Perhaps it is time that we all reflect on this alternative. Nancy J. Nelson Spokane
Send bombing mistake bill to Clinton
Huge-hearted Sen. Patty Murray wants the U.S. government, i.e., the American taxpayer, to compensate China for the so-called mistaken bombing of their embassy in Belgrade. I say not just no but hell no! Bombs-Away Bubba started this war, so let him compensate China out of his Hollywood-sponsored defense fund.
In addition, Murray and the rest of her crony Democrats can chip in by returning all of the illegal contributions their party received from the Chinese during the last presidential campaign. That should be more than enough compensation without even touching the illegal contributions the Democrats are probably receiving for Al Gore’s campaign. Bill R. Klein Nine Mile Falls
THE ENVIRONMENT
Industries benefit us all
Re: “More wilderness areas needed” by Frank Jezierski of Republic (Letters, May 18).
We need to temper Jezierski’s rhetoric from the green side with a little common sense and education.
He stated that logging and mining only benefit a few. Who would this few be? People who live in houses made of wood, with copper wiring, sheet metal ducting with gas furnaces? Or maybe it’s the people who drive cars, ride bicycles or take the bus to work every day - all made of metals and plastics (petroleum product).
Without the natural resources and extractive industries, our life would not exist today, period. Please remember, oil and minerals are found only where Mother Nature happened to deposit them, not where it is convenient for humans to find them.
I hope Jezierski comes to see the benefits of true multiple use for our state and federal lands. We in the natural resource and extractive industries want clean forests, beautiful lakes and all the other wonders of nature that exist. It is important that our children grow up enjoying nature and all the benefits it can provide.
I hope Jezierski changes his mind and supports responsible economic development of our lands. Everyone’s life depends on it. Bob Buto Athol, Idaho
Clean water everyone’s business
In a recent study done by the Washington Department of Ecology, 636 out of 1,099 bodies of water were listed as impaired. This means the water suffered from high fecal coliform, low dissolved oxygen, high temperature or specific contamination.
Many things are being done to improve the conditions of our water, but these are mostly inside the government. By going into schools, reaching out into the community and generally informing the people of our water problems, we can drastically improve the use of these waters and restore them to the clear, blue waters that were once the true symbol of the Northwest.
If people know the horrors that our waters face, they will be more likely to protect them.
As said by the Washington state Department of Ecology, if pollution isn’t produced in the first place, we have a better chance of saving our valuable resources. Julie A. Wheaton Spokane
Land exchange story not balanced
Staff writer Ken Olsen’s front page article concerning the Clearwater Land Exchange Co. was interesting but he overlooked key facets of the Northeast Washington exchange and only quoted the adversaries’ viewpoints. By doing so, Olsen gave the article a negative slant and misleads readers.
For example, Olsen seems to intentionally minimize the amount of timber land acquired by the Bureau of Land Management by using the phrase “several acres,” instead of informing the public that 2,500 acres were actually acquired in the Huckleberry Mountain area west of Spokane.
Three dissatisfied individuals are quoted to convince readers that the acquired land is “worthless” and that the lost land had great value. The “sagebrush desert” that BLM acquired is part of the Channeled Scablands geological region of Eastern Washington, which has very rich ecological values.
This land not only provides benefits to upland species such as deer, grouse, pheasants and quail, it also has numerous permanent and ephemeral wetlands, making it a priority area within the 1992 North American Waterfowl Management Plan. In addition, it is rich in cultural history and provides extensive recreational uses, including fishing, hiking, bird watching and hunting. None of these were even hinted at in the articles.
Finally, Olsen fails to inform readers that one of the partners of the Northeast exchange was the Inland Empire Paper Co., owned by the Cowles family, which also owns The Spokesman-Review. Hypocrisy? Edward L. Schultz Colville, Wash.