Letters To The Editor

Spokane matters

End prosecutor funding handicap

I was shocked to read the recent article indicating a substantial disparity in the funding of the city prosecutor’s office when compared to the city public defender’s office.

I hope the city staff and City Council will immediately address this problem and correct it.

Those in charge at the city must remember the prosecutor not only represents the victim in criminal cases but the entire citizenry. As a community, I don’t think we want a funding situation that causes a loss of experienced prosecutors because they leave for better-paying jobs after being trained to do a good job representing us and the victims.

It should be remembered that the prosecutors must follow up after the police investigation to determine whether the case should proceed through the system and must have sufficient support personnel to accomplish all their tasks adequately. In addition, the prosecutors are responsible for all the cases brought to them by the police, whereas the defenders are assigned to represent only those who cannot afford to hire an attorney. Everyone should know inadequate resources leads to inappropriate plea bargaining of cases, which is not in the public’s interest.

I doubt those forming our governments ever thought those in charge would not do an adequate job of funding those charged with enforcing the laws. Otherwise, what is the purpose in passing them? Donald C. Brockett Spokane

Legal spending priorities faulty

I have called Spokane home for most of my 88 years. As a senior citizen, making sure that this city is a safe place to live is very important to me. It disturbs me to see big-city crime come to Spokane. It disturbs me as much - if not more - to see how the city leaders spend my tax dollars when it comes to fighting crime. It’s just not right for the city to give more resources to get criminals off than it does to prosecute them. Esther Meils Spokane

Businessmen doing much that’s good

Editor Chris Peck was one-sided last Sunday when he slammed Paul Sandifur and John Stone. According to your own Spokesman-Review poll, the most important issue for the voters in Spokane is the economy and more higher-paying jobs.

Peck, and many others, do not have to agree with Sandifur and Stone’s tactics - some even say gorilla tactics - but their mission is clear: a better local economy and more higher-paying jobs. This is clearly what Spokane wants.

Peck stated that Sandifur and Stone know nothing about high tech. Sandifur clearly knows about high tech; he has substantially funded a new venture capital division at his company. This new division is charged with funding local high technology companies. Other cities have clearly proven, when local venture capital is present, high tech companies follow the money.

Stone also knows about high tech. He founded and is the primary funding vehicle for The Spokane Symposium Series. This Symposium Series is now comprised of well over 150 organized local volunteers, collectively searching for ways to improve our economy by creating more technology-related jobs. Many businesses large and small are represented, most of the area colleges are on board, EDC, the Chamber of Commerce, SIRTI, even people at The Spokesman-Review are Symposium volunteers.

Go ahead and keep pecking at Sandifur and Stone’s tactics but give them equal ink on their positive efforts working toward what Spokane voters want - a better economy and more higher-paying jobs. Paul Vanderlinde partner, Spokane Regional Venture Associates

Calendar sales purely for charity

Re: Bobbie Cullitan’s Oct. 26 letter regarding the firefighter calendar for sale to benefit local charities.

I am a Spokane firefighter. Local businesses, firefighters and myself donated the time and funds to produce this calendar. The calendar is a completely nonprofit calendar with every penny going to the Wishing Star Foundation and The Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery. No money is being paid out to anyone else regarding this calendar - neither the Fire Department nor the city of Spokane profit in any way from the sales.

Furthermore Sparky’s Subs, Yokes and Hastings, which all sell the calendar, do not profit either. They have generously donated space in their stores to help sell these calendars and raise money for two great local charities.

I am sorry if anyone misunderstood who benefits from this calendar but I am in no way ashamed to support such worthy causes. The same is true of the businesses supporting these sales. I cannot speak on behalf of the police calendar, as it is a separate venture. However, I’m sure its intent is the same. Mike “Sparky” Sparkes Spokane

Sorry, this is not a working number

Eighty five thousand dollars for our county commissioners? Get real. What’s the logic? Because other counties pay that much. Great logic. This kind of thinking is why so many are fed up with government. What’s the average wage of Spokane taxpayers? Mike Robb Spokane

Health and safety

Adopt Amber Plan for Spokane kids

Re: “Abductions cut short by alerts” (Spokesman-Review, Oct. 24).

As a mother of three young children, I think that the Amber Plan described in the article would be a great benefit to the Spokane area. The Amber Plan uses the Emergency Broadcast System to alert the public when a child is abducted. This plan would benefit the Spokane area in many ways.

The community would learn about the child and the abductor within minutes of the crime.

Fewer children may be abducted if we use the Amber Plan. More perpetrators would think twice about committing the crime.

When the community hears a description of both the abductor and the child, maybe the child will be found faster and safer. The Amber Plan would scare the perpetrators away from our children.

Also, it will send a message to the children that the community cares about them.

A society should do everything it can to protect its children. Krisse Cassell Spokane

People should know AIDS still kills

I thank the editorial board of The Spokesman-Review for bringing attention to the current realities of AIDS. Closing of the Ryan White Foundation does mark a slow but clear shift of our national and local priorities when it comes to preventing and treating HIV/AIDS.

Sadly, new medications have given the public and those at risk the false impression that AIDS is no longer a major health concern. At the Spokane AIDS Network, we recently experienced the death of five clients within a five-week period.-Three of those deaths occurred in one week. Our staff experienced a powerful time of mourning over these losses - losses we have not seen in a long time. It spoke to us of the reality that AIDS is very much present among us and that Spokane will continue to experience the loss of family and friends. AIDS is not over. As a nonprofit organization committed to reducing the impact of HIV/AIDS in the Inland Northwest, we experience that truth on a daily basis.

Thank you for bringing attention to the continuing human cost of AIDS. Anne Stuvyesant executive director, Spokane AIDS Network

Health care

Favoring cuts not what I’m about

Re: “Public nursing cuts roundly criticized” (Oct. 22). The article was about the Board of Health meeting at the Spokane Regional Health District regarding the year 2000 proposed budget.

I was misrepresented by staff writer Ken Olsen. He stated I was in favor of budget cuts. I am not in favor of cuts. However, if the district is faced with reduced dollars, I am in favor of working to find the best partnerships and solutions possible for the health of the community.

I manage the HIV-AIDS Program, a program given the same direction as Community and Family Services to come up with a plan to replace or remove a percentage of local tax money from my budget by the end of the year 2000. My program, like all others in the agency, was given a charge nearly a year ago by our leadership to look at how we do business. Can we run our programs more efficiently and with greater involvement from our community partners? The AIDS Program has turned to community partners and to alternative revenue options in an effort to assure the continuation of essential and effective services.

I was encouraged to hear the outpouring of support for public health nursing. The community partners who came forward are essential in helping SRHD do business differently. As a voter, I am respectful of Spokane Regional Health District for asking tough questions about the use of tax dollars. As a program manager, I am responsible to my agency and to my community to respond to those questions. Susan M. Sjoberg, coordinator-supervisor HIV-AIDS program, Spokane Regional Health District

Good move, keeping public nursing

Thanks, community of Spokane, for taking the time and energy to respond to the very important issue of the possibility of losing public health nursing. I also wish to thank all the members of the Board of Health for listening and responding in the ethical manner that they did at the recent public Board of Health meeting.

Public health nursing is very much needed in our community. The nurses work with mothers and children.

If this work is not done, then it doesn’t get done, and we are all part of a very big problem later on. I am pleased to be part of a community that cares for all the people in the community. And I am pleased to be part of a community that understands that prevention work is where it is at. For every $1 we spend now, we save $7.16 down the road.

And I am pleased to be part of a community that has a heart. Public health nurses are part of the heart of our community. Just like how our Carrousel represents the heartbeat of our city, public health nurses represent the hearts of vulnerable women and children. Lindy Haunschild Eastern Washington University, alcohol and drug studies, Spokane

Appears doctor flip-flopped

I read with interest Dr. Donald Storey’s Oct. 19 letter, “Don’t make insurers whipping boys.” He seemed a little upset at the Washington State Medical Association for making statements not very complimentary toward health insurance companies.

I recall when Storey was in private practice here in Spokane before becoming QualMed Insurance Company’s medical director and later, with Regency Health Plan. He wrote letters to the paper not very complimentary toward health insurance companies. On Aug, 9, 1994, he quoted health commissioner, Pam McEwen, “If we are going to bring down costs, we have to be able to manage care.” Storey said, “I believe it takes little imagination to substitute ration for the word manage.” On Feb. 17, 1995, he wrote, “We’re terribly concerned with what’s happening with our profession and the undeniable intent of non-physicians to turn health care delivery into a business.” In fact, Dr. Storey advocated physicians in the state starting their own health insurance company.

I applaud WSMA in their efforts to provide better health care access and wonder which Dr. Storey to believe - the 1994-95 version or the current one. Louis Koncz, P.A.C. Spokane

Higher education

EWU the real force in biotech here

I was amazed to read a front page article on Biotech in The Spokesman-Review which completely ignores the Eastern Washington University biotech program. EWU has the longest-standing undergraduate biotech program in the Western United States, one that boasts nearly 100 percent placement of graduates for the entire history of the program! A large number of EWU faculty members and students have started biotech companies in the last 10 years.

Professors from EWU lobbied intensively for the creation of the Spokane Intercollegiate Regional Technology Institute before WSU was really interested.

Professor Donald Lightfoot, founder of EWU’s biotech Program, has himself started a number of local biotech companies and is very active at SIRTI. Lightfoot is well known in the Spokane scientific community and has probably been involved at some level in every biotech company startup in the Spokane area in the last 10 years. He has developed close ties with local biotech firms as well as many on the West Coast and in Maryland.

This enables the EWU biotech program to stay at the cutting edge of the type of work actually being performed in current industry and research, and to consistently turn out exactly the type of graduates the biotech industry is looking for. This makes EWU biotech graduates highly sought after by employers and graduate schools, and explains why the EWU biotech program is the real front page story on biotech in this area. Clay J. Malinak Greenacres

Appreciation

Thanks for helping us help, BNSF

This letter is to thank our “good neighbors” at Burlington Northern Railroad. The World Community Service arm of Rotary International supplies the needs of disabled and disadvantaged people throughout the world.

For approximately 25 years, Rotary District 5080 has undertaken to ship hospital and school equipment to Nogales, Ariz., for projects in the state of Sonora, Mexico. These projects help in equipping local clinics, a trade school and rural schools with much-needed equipment and supplies, which have even included a fire engine and an ambulance.

The caring people who make up Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad have been transporting this equipment and material, amounting to thousands of dollars in transportation costs, to its intended destination at no charge.

Thank you again, Burlington Northern, for being such good neighbors. Kenneth W. Phillips District 5080, Rotary International, Colville, Wash.

In the paper

Our Generation picture a bit much

Our family and especially our children were disturbed by the picture on the front of the Oct. 25 Our Generation page. I realize this is a page geared toward teenagers and this is the week before Halloween, but was the screaming, decomposing face of a monster with flies streaming from his mouth really necessary?

Please remember that this is also the section with the comics, a section that many young elementary-age students read. My 8-year old daughter picked up the paper first that morning, and asked, “Dad, look at this scary picture. What is it?” My husband and I were both a little too shocked to know what to say.

We talk openly with our kids about the truly horrible things in life they have to see, hear and deal with: strangers who steal kids, injustice, death, disease, starvation. But please remember, there still are quite a few parents who don’t let their young children watch R-rated slasher films with gratuitous violence and gore. Reality is tough enough. Know that my daughter had never seen a picture that gruesome before. Please remember your responsibility to this younger group of readers. Nancy K. Janzen Spokane

Cartoon a disservice all around

Mike Carroll’s Oct. 24 Your View cartoon attempted to gain support for Initiative 695. It crashed when it scorned the Catholic bishops of Washington state. More to the point, the poor choice of caricature lost voters by ridiculing the Eucharist, a belief sacred to all Christians.

The cartoon is an art form, ordinarily welcome. We expect The Spokesman-Review to exact the highest standards in every form of communication. Brigid Mary Dempsey, SNJM Spokane

Cartoon unwarranted, mean-spirited

I am shocked that you would publish the vitriolic cartoon by Mike Carroll (Oct. 24). The idea that the Catholic bishops are hand-in-glove with the government is ludicrous and the suggestion that they are indifferent or hostile to the needy is disingenuous at best. No one in modern times has championed the rights of the poor more vigorously and consistently than the Catholic bishops.

Moreover, the cartoon mocks the Eucharist, a central belief of Catholicism. I am appalled that this mean-spirited misrepresentation of Catholic beliefs and social positions passed your scrutiny. Have you no sense of decency? Patricia A. Cain Spokane