Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

LC annex is an albatross - get it?

What, exactly, is the agenda of the Citizens for Standards group that is trying to block demolition of the tacked-on administration annex building on the Lewis and Clark High School campus? Aren’t they listening to the remarkable unanimous support by the teachers at LC for removing this building because the teachers feel it is poorly suited for teaching?

Isn’t it the most important function of a school to teach our children, regardless of the age, shape or style of the school building?

My eighth-grade daughter, who will begin her high school career at LC (er, Holley-Mason) this fall, got more exited about the article on this group trying to block work on LC than any other newspaper article I’ve ever seen her react to. She wants to go to school. She wants to learn. She doesn’t care about a mismatched addition to the building.

Like school districts everywhere, District 81 can spend its funds educating our students or spend them on still more “studies” and reports to jump through the hoops of dilettante obstructionists. I’d like the district to spend the money teaching the kids.

As for the Citizens for Standards, I wish they would find some lumber, build a bridge and get over it! Michael J. Czechowski Spokane

LC structure fails usefulness test

A few weeks ago, a billboard was put up across Stevens Street from Lewis and Clark High School. It read, “Five people voted to tear down this building” and had a large arrow pointed towards LC’s administration building.

It’s true that of the panel chosen to decide whether or not to keep this building, five voted to destroy it. But a majority of the public is behind this action as well.

The administration hall functions today as a music office and band room but is widely considered a poor use of space. Renovation plans possibly have a library or several classrooms in mind for this area. The argument that the administration building is too valuable to future generations to tear down does not hold water. Future generations will thank us far more if we offer them the most beneficial education package.

Where would we be if we refused to demolish all the buildings that we should have torn down 50 years ago? Adam G. Gorski Spokane

Utility’s foul-up is my problem

Recently, tree service workers came onto my property without my permission. My property is on the southwest corner of the Rosemond Bridge. The houses on Rosemond Avenue were built nearly 50 years ago in a staggered manner, so each home could enjoy the city view. My family had a lovely yard with many trees surrounding it that acted as sight, dust and sound barriers from the Sunset Highway below.

Along comes Avista’s people. They put up two large poles and wiring. They had to bring lines across the Sunset Highway. Other utilities have added wiring to these poles.

Now, my family has to tolerate dust, emissions from the wires and workers tromping through the garden. The privacy is gone from my yard. The view is ruined not only to my home but to my neighbor’s. My house is worth less because of this. Of course, the utility company told us that it’s just the price of progress.

Had the engineers just placed the poles on the southeast side of the bridge - there, there’s a large city lot with no houses, no views to ruin and no trees to cut. Why, when given a choice of harming no one and causing damage to a neighborhood, did the utility company choose to place the poles where they are located?

Remember, at any time power poles could be placed where they could cause any homeowner loss of a nice yard and view. It doesn’t seem fair for any property owner to have to bear the price of progress when our utility companies are making profits. Dorothy Bromley Spokane

What about our native poor?

While reading the newspaper the other day it brought a tear to my eyes to see the people in Kosovo run out of their homes and country. Then I read that we are bringing some of these poor people to Spokane and giving them a place to live, clothes to wear and food to eat.

What really brings tears to my eyes is to drive around Spokane and see homeless people with no place to go except downtown to beg for food and money. Believe it or not, some of those people are there through no fault of their own. Yet we rarely see the community joining together to truly help its homeless inhabitants. It seems as though we are too busy trying to help other countries instead of trying to help our own.

Let’s clean up our own back yard first, which will take the homeless off of our downtown streets and consequently make Spokane a more pleasant place for its residents as well as tourists. I hear people complaining about the homeless but doing nothing to solve the problem. Jerry Porrasa Spokane

Many helped with arts projects

Thank you to The Spokesman-Review for including the Spokane Arts Commission’s projects in the May 18 edition (pages B3 and B4). Unfortunately, not everyone involved got credit in the caption.

The Wall Street banners are a partnership between the Spokane Arts Commission (City of Spokane Arts Department) and the Downtown Spokane Partnership. Two architects, 10 artists and more than 20 volunteers were involved in creating 10 banners for display this summer. The mural at Dean and Chestnut was a partnership between the Spokane Arts Commission (City of Spokane Arts Department, PAL (Spokane Police Department) and Paint Out Graffiti. The mural was planned and painted with area youths and received the support of numerous volunteers. Project coordination for both of these projects was done by our outreach coordinator, Ralph Busch.

For specific information on these project or to volunteer, please contact our office at the City of Spokane, 625-6050. Karen R. Mobley arts director, City of Spokane

OVER THE LINE

Hospitality calls Spokane home, too

I have lived in Sandpoint for almost 19 years and we finally made it to the Lilac Parade, which was spectacular. The bands are my favorite. But what has left a most memorable impression on myself and my two girls is the kindness and hospitality of two spectators, Jim and Judy. They moved their chairs back enough so we could sit on the curb in front of them. As if this kindness wasn’t enough, they bought each of the two girls a toy dog.

Behavior of this sort is a common occurrence in Sandpoint but I never expected it in a big city such as Spokane. Our evening was so rewarding that we’re planning to come next year and stay in a motel. Jim and Judy, thanks for sharing and teaching my girls a valuable lesson in kindness. Hope A. Woodby Sagle

Bovill’s `Walkin’ Bill’ fortunate

Re: Bovill loses town fixture Walkin’ Bill (May 18).

Billy “Walkin’ Bill” Sanderson was lucky. Unfortunately, there are thousands of others like him in America who have no option but the streets or jail because our right-wing-controlled system chooses to ignore the mentally disabled and people everywhere else are too preoccupied with themselves to even care.

At least a lesson was taught to the people of Bovill. If only people everywhere else could learn from it. Karey S. Lawrence Cheney

VIOLENCE

`Compromise with those you dislike’

We are involved in a terrorist’s war of attrition. Teenagers have accepted our declaration of war. We have made what to them is nothing less than an illicit sacrament that’s being sold to them at the price of gold.

Small wonder they kill each other over this. Those who don’t come from a puritanical background are denied any kind of spiritual training, leaving them to cope on their own with the profane - much like leaving a pistol in the toy box. They have access to what they want but they must steal to get it. Then, when they use it, someone dies.

Please, compromise with those you dislike. If we continue to escalate this war on drugs, it will become outright civil war with all the trappings of going global. Please consider the fact that psychotropic drugs have been used for spiritual purposes for ages. Better they are traipsing around the dark side of the moon with Pink Floyd than fighting for a right to party with the Beastie Boys. James T. Noble Moscow

Our society engineers violence

Five school shootings in 20 months! Maybe it’s time for some reality for a society afflicted with chronic denial of how we treat our children.

For starters, we react to news that one-fifth of our children live in poverty and nearly as many have no health insurance, with stoic indifference. We implement a mean welfare system, call it “tough love,” with the admonition that doing without builds character.

In an economic system that values kids mainly as consumers, clever hucksters, utilizing talents of prostituted celebrities, relentlessly pursue them with the message they are what they have and wear.

Too often, rather than encourage students to care for themselves and others, schools teach them that in order to succeed in our highly competitive economy, they must look out for No. 1 in order to secure the credentials necessary to earn and consume more.

Most parents are caught up in the dog-eat-dog, work-more-for-less, haven’t-got-time-for-the-kids syndrome.

All these factors produce stressed kids who become alienated and more inclined to violent behavior.

Ours is a violent society. We engage in and support violence around the world. Our national budget provides $270 billion for the military and $35 billion for education. And our role model president implores kids to reject violence while he orders an escalation of the bombing in Kosovo.

Can we become a society of peacemakers who love and nurture all our children? If not, the violence will probably continue. Buell Hollister Post Falls

People know what’s needed

I just spent 45 minutes this morning trying to convince my 11-year-old son that it’s safe to go to school. I have not been watching the news but unfortunately, this morning, I did not change the channel when I turned on the television. Another shooting at a high school, in Georgia, was the news of the day.

When is everyone going to wake up? Our children are only doing what they have been seeing happen in our society in the last 30 years. We took away prayer in school. Death and violence are portrayed daily on television - news included - and movies. They sit in their rooms killing people in their videogames. They see criminals getting off because of stupid technicalities, murderers found not guilty on television in front of millions of viewers, a president with the morals and ethics of a sewer rat, and a group of congressmen who worry more about what their party looks like than what their conscience is saying to them.

The solution? Everyone knows what the solutions are. Are we strong enough to make the necessary changes or have we become as lazy and ambivalent as the government thinks we have?

I’ve been praying to God all day that I didn’t lie to my son when I told him I wouldn’t send him to school if I didn’t think he would be safe. I wonder how many other parents are doing the same thing, and does it upset them as much as it does me? Nancy J. Keller Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

Vehicle ads promote recklessness

Shame on the manufacturers of trucks, pickups, SUVs and ATVs that have ads on TV showing their vehicle charging through mud holes, creeks and all kinds of rough terrain, tearing up the landscape at breakneck speeds. What kind of message does this give young drivers in how to drive and how to take care of our fragile environment? Why would they want to treat a vehicle like that? Why would they want to tear up the landscape like that? It certainly is not the way to teach responsibility. Al Molsness Otis Orchards

Makah critics hypocritical

I would like to know what makes one animal’s life more valuable than another? How do we gauge cruelty?

There are people who say hunting a whale is obscene. I ask you, isn’t the meat industry obscene and inhumane?

We obviously haven’t evolved very far as a society if we are slaughtering cows, pigs (very intelligent creatures) and all other manner of beast for food. Aren’t they living, feeling creatures, just as whales are?

Don’t condemn the Makah as you eat your pork chops tonight. Don’t be sanctimonious. Those animals suffered for your food! Animals suffer for leather goods and cosmetics also. Do you think these products grow on trees?

These animals suffer. That is obscene.

Sea Shepherd appeals to people’s emotions. They sensationalize and lie. They have accused the Makah of killing a second whale that was found washed up near Neah Bay - an accusation that has been proved totally false, although the accusers won’t retract the statement from their Web page. And they won’t do it because people will believe anything Sea Shepherd tells them. Why? Because they said so.

If the Makah are murderers, so are we all. Katrina Q Moomaw Spokane

Celibate devotion is what’s needed

Re: “Vatican silences bishop on married priests” (Associated Press, May 18).

The Vatican has ordered the retired bishop of Victoria, British Columbia, the Most Rev. Remi De Roo, to remove his name from the speakers list at the International Federation of Married Catholic Priests Conference in Atlanta this July.

Anthony Padovano, who formerly headed CORPUS (a U.S.-based organization of married priests which is involved in arranging the conference), states, “Our organization is committed to opening up a dialogue with the Vatican to address the worldwide shortage of priests in the Catholic Church.”

A dialogue is not what is needed but rather a very clear understanding of priestly celibacy. It is not so much a promise to give up marriage as it is a choice of another kind of marriage. Instead of being bonded to one person, a celibate priest is bonded in a spiritual marriage to Christ. Through this holy, sacred bond, Catholic priests are committed until death to the service of Christ’s mystical body, the church - an incredible vocation! Suzanne Ryan Nevers Spokane

Item about home unsatisfactory

Re: “Cutter’s way,” IN-Life, May 7.

This year’s Mother’s Day Tour of Homes included five historical homes that were open to the public. Each homeowner volunteered great time and expense to prepare homes and grounds for this tour.

It is appalling that The Spokesman-Review allowed a reporter, Michael Guilfoil, to write an article describing these homes when he did not take the time to visit all the houses. In the case of the Malmgren House, which Guilfoil did not visit, he quoted a second party’s slanted view of the house and gave no pertinent information about the property. Being a charity event, his critical comments were inappropriate and undeserved.

Even though Cutter’s name is associated with the Malmgren House, this home was probably designed by Malmgren and is not a Cutter “want to be.” The Malmgren House stands on its own merits, built by Karl Malmgren, an outstanding architect in his own right. He was talented enough to be made Cutter’s full partner and this partnership lasted 13 years. Guilfoil ignored this fact and erroneously includes a quote identifying Malmgren as Cutter’s assistant.

The Malmgren House is one of a select few homes in Spokane on the Spokane Historical Register and the National Register of Historic Places. An accurate overview of this home can be found in the Nov. 28, 1996, Spokesman-Review article by correspondent William Berry. Berry took the time and effort to tour the property before he wrote about it. Marilyn Seago Grossman owner of the Malmgren House, Spokane