Letters To The Editor
IDAHO VIEWPOINTS
Want to help challenge rates?
Thank you, Paul Valanoff (“Way to go, Avista, IPUC, suckers,” Letters, Sept. 22). I’ve been wanting to say something similar to your letter for weeks but you are much more eloquent than I, so I’ll just add a couple of comments.
The Idaho Public Utilities Commission order approving the recent Avista electric rate increases was Order No. 28097. There were two petitions for reconsideration of this order. Avista filed one, requesting even more money. A Moscow customer of Avista filed the second petition, claiming unfairness and unjustness to him and all low-consumption residential customers.
In response to these petitions, the PUC issued Order No. 28155 denying both petitions. These PUC orders are appealable to the Supreme Court of Idaho as indicated in the final paragraph of Order No. 28155.
The Moscow customer who petitioned the PUC would like to appeal but needs legal help to do so. It is a huge job. Are there any members of the “herd of complacent bovine consumers” (I love it. What a phrase. Thanks again.) who would be willing to work on such an appeal as a possible alternative to becoming T-bone steak grilled over Avista-supplied natural gas? I believe the deadline for getting the appeal filed is Oct. 27, so as per usual, time is of the essence. David S. Baker Moscow
Nice to see some being cared for
We citizens of Idaho should be comforted to know that each of our 105 legislators has the best health insurance our money can buy.
H. Dean Stevens Priest River
Vote for new community center
How often is a community given an opportunity to express what it values? Such an opportunity is before us in the shape of the proposed Coeur d’Alene community center.
What defines a person or community are the values that guide us and the choices we make based upon those values. If you value an environment for our youths that would nourish their growth in a positive light, support the project. If you value recreation as a tool that provides the balance in our work worlds, support the project.
If you value the importance of a community meeting place where those of all ages might find a common thread of interest, support the project. If you are willing to improve the quality of life in your home for the cost of a cup of coffee per month, support the project.
You support the project by voting yes on Nov. 2. You embrace the opportunity to express your values by being counted through the voting process. You send a clear voice to the officials who represent you that there is more to your life than economic enhancement.
It’s the right thing to do. Charlie Roan McEuen Preservation Alliance, Coeur d’Alene
Teachers already way overpaid
If anybody in the Coeur d’Alene area deserves a pay increase, it should be our police officers. Unlike schoolteachers, these officers work under extremely difficult conditions and are on call 24 hours a day, every day, even Christmas and all other holidays.
Schoolteachers work basically part time when you consider the three months of summer vacation, Easter vacation, Christmas vacation and many other holidays and sick-pay days they get every year.
We don’t see our police officers marching down Sherman Avenue acting like a bunch of radical ‘60s hippies, screaming and chanting, “We are world class!” demanding more and more money.
Teachers already enjoy extremely good pay and benefits, yet they refuse to tell us taxpayers how much they receive now. Teachers know if we found out how good their wages are, they wouldn’t receive any more money.
Ask any police officer if they get three months of paid summer vacation every year and every holiday off to spend with their families. Police officers are underpaid in this area compared to teachers. The next time you have an emergency, who are you going to call?
Teachers who don’t appreciate the benefits this area has to offer should try teaching in Los Angeles or some other big city. Big cities pay much more money and they don’t mind having radical ‘60s types teaching their children. In fact, big-city schools don’t have teachers standing in line hoping to get a job, like the Coeur d’Alene schools do. James Booth Coeur d’Alene
WASHINGTON STATE
I-695 foes use scare tactics
Opinion editor John Webster, writing for the editorial board, has added his name to the list of people opposed to Initiative 695. His view focuses on his perception of the financial consequences of reduced tax revenue and, like the view of just about every other naysayer, ignores the real reason professional politicians and purveyors to big business and special interest groups are running scared.
If I-695 passes, not only will the revenue from the motor vehicle excise tax disappear, but the power to raise taxes will eventually be removed from the professional politicians and returned to the people from whose pockets the tax dollars are taken. Faced with reduced tax revenue input and the inability to arbitrarily generate more, the professional politicians would then be forced to confront the novel concept of properly managing what they have been given to manage.
The I-695 opposition is not so much about reduced tax revenue as it is about fear. Professional politicians fear the loss of power and influence, as do those big businesses and special interest groups that have benefited from it or hoped to. Scott Leiland Spokane
My need for I-695 was driven home
I, too, will vote for Initiative 695, after an experience I had last week.
I received an old Chevrolet pickup as an inheritance from my father, who passed away in September; no money involved, it was a gift. To be legal, I brought the truck into Spokane County to change the title to a Washington title. I had it inspected, as requested by the state. I went to get the plates and title changed to my name. The charge was $105.45 for a 40-year-old truck!
Do you see why people are licensing their vehicles in other states? It would have cost me $27 for the same service in Idaho. On second thought, I wish I had!
On the registration, it lists three taxes I paid, plus “other” for $74.47. Other what? After getting over the shock, I intend to get an explanation of the “other.” I urge everyone to vote yes on I-695. Estellene R. Shaver Spokane
Micromanage the budget? Big mistake
Are you having difficulty finding Initiative 695 on a Washington road map? We may soon be all too familiar with this road. It will, most likely, be a direct route to a state income tax.
Even worse is the provision of this initiative that voters will make any future decisions in regard to raising taxes. I guess that all the voters in the state can spend thousands of hours a year studying hundreds of issues and sitting in on numerous hearings. We can form hundreds of committees to study the very complex issues. Perhaps we can get several attorneys to volunteer their services to study the legalities of these issues, to determine if they comply with local, state and federal law. (Fat chance!) We can hire numerous consultants. Then, we can stress out over balancing the budget.
Sound like a burdensome, agonizing and impossible task? How about we vote no on I-695 and let the legislators do the job that we elect them to do? Then we can spend our leisure time traveling on well-maintained and improved roads, with adequate law enforcement to keep our communities and highways safe. Allan LeTourneau Spokane
THE ENVIRONMENT
Help shape roadless areas policy
The U.S. Forest Service is a wonderful institution. It is there to manage the forests for the greatest good for the greatest number. The trick is finding those opportunities when we can let the U.S. Forest Service know what we want. We have one of those opportunities today. We have to speak up to be heard.
Right now, the Clinton administration and the USFS are crafting a policy for roadless areas in our national forests. Clinton and the USFS have an historic opportunity to set aside 60 million acres of national forest. These 60 million acres are the last remaining unprotected wild areas within our national forests. They are known as America’s Heritage Forests. If we do not act now to set aside all these pristine areas from logging and road building, it will be too late. The wild forests will look like so many others around here - scarred, clearcut, barren and dead.
Write or call Sen. Patty Murray or Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck. Urge them to support our heritage forests. Exercise your political power and help protect your national forest. Have the USFS work for you. Matthew Stembridge Heritage Forest Campaign, Spokane
Timing of timber project diabolical
National attention will spotlight Idaho during the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark’s journey across America. More than one million visitors are expected to travel through the Clearwater country in the next few years.
At the same time, a massive 75 million board feet timber sale along the Lochsa River is planned, in direct conflict with the commemoration of the historic journey. An extra 15,000 logging trucks should slow traffic so people can see the fresh clearcuts, some as large as 450 acres.
The North Lochsa Face proposal will further push the wild steelhead and salmon toward extinction. Fish Creek is one of the most important steelhead spawning grounds in the entire state of Idaho and its headwaters are slated to be cut. More mudslides and more erosion can be expected to further compromise water quality in streams already degraded by past logging.
This proposal is a very poor example of public land management in the 20th century. It is contrary to Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck’s call for restoration. This confirms the continued Forest Service drive in Idaho to “get the cut out.”
The Clearwater has the only remaining wild portion of the historic Lewis and Clark trail, where there are no roads in the Fish and Hungery Creek drainages. How do we want the rest of the world to see it - wild and natural or logged and eroded?
A massive logging project is inappropriate any time on the fragile soils of the Clearwater National Forest but it is especially embarrassing during the Lewis and Clark bicentennial. Larry O. McLaud Moscow