Letters To The Editor

Drug scene puts damper on small-town life

I live eight miles from Spirit Lake, close to Athol. I shop for meat at Miller’s Market and have been a customer at the hardware store in Spirit Lake, and have been to the lake there. I enjoy its small-town atmosphere but don’t like the methamphetamine users who seem to dominate the local couture there, and in and around the Athol area.

Perhaps the meth heads should be made to pay for community improvements, as long as nobody wants to bust the drug scene. It’s no mystery who and where they are. Larry Monus Athol

Focus more on positives, not only negatives

I am not an official Spirit Lake resident, since I live just outside the city limits, but do participate in city activities, trade with many of the local businesses, and am an active member of the local Southern Baptist Church. As such, I am familiar with many in town.

Like Anytown, USA, there are troubles and problems. But instead of focusing on the negatives, why not look at the good that comes about in town? How about the families in need that have been helped, the food provided, the assistance given, neighbor to neighbor, the work done to restore family dwellings?

Can we focus on the fact that we have caring citizens, parents and kids, grandparents and the like who are reaching out to provide a healthy town atmosphere?

Hats off to those around to have provided the many social functions. Not to raise money, but to raise the morale of its citizens.

How about the parents who are reaching out to our youth, the improvements in the city park, the addition of skateboard ramps soon to come?

The old Post Office soon will be Main Street Depot, a home for kids and their parents to get off the street, come and sit and watch kids’ videos, and a place to get a cup of coffee.

Can we stop looking for problems, find some good in those who were voted in as leaders, and support our community by looking for another good deed to perform, another hand to shake, and show our caring, generous sides? David Whitaker Spirit Lake

Downtown library best for business, not citizens

Coeur d’Alene library trustee Scott Reed recently described in a Handle Extra column, the need for a new library. He identified a downtown location as being the only place to build a new library. Important considerations refute this judgment.

First, the downtown location was selected because the Walker-Macy study said the addition of a new library would provide a substantial boost to the downtown.

I am not refuting this study outcome, but given the purpose of the study and its sponsors, one can question whether this outcome was pre-ordained. More importantly, since when is the economic boost of the downtown the deciding factor in locating a community library?

In fact, Reed attempts to support the location of the library by stating that it is centrally located. Well, my city maps show the downtown location is south of all the city’s population except that lying south of Front Street. At the most, probably five percent of the city’s population is south of Front Street. An actual central-city location might be near Fourth Street and Appleway.

Equally important is access. It is my observation that most patrons arrive at the library by automobile. The downtown location would require that patrons negotiate tortuous routes beset by traffic congestion and numerous stop-lighted intersections. In addition, functions such as the recent Art On The Green would place impediments in accessing the library.

One should not interpret the Walker-Macy study as supporting the downtown location as the best location for a library. Their study objective was to propose what was best for the economy of downtown. To determine what was best for the citizens of Coeur d’Alene was not their assignment. Philip Waring Coeur d’Alene

Let Mother Nature take care of lead

Lead is in everything. The contamination comes from nature. I do not support the feds and their cleanup rhetoric. I believe that Mother Nature has a way of dealing with this problem. If the feds want to spend billions, how about upgrading our wastewater treatment systems and our water treatment systems?

I worked for years on wastewater systems and I would bet that if the majority of people knew what is being pumped by the millions of gallons into our waterways every day they would forget about this supposed lead problem and go after enhancing our wastewater and water treatment plants.

How about diverting some of this cleanup money to Highway 95? Now that is a real health threat. Or to our education system? Nothing should be more important to any government than the education of its people and the betterment of its infrastrure.

Mother Nature has proven she is able to take care of herself once the man-made pollution is halted, which it more or less has been by federal and state laws. Plus, money could be diverted from moving this so-called contaminated soil from one part of the valley to another or covering it up with uncontaminated soil, which is what is being done now. I work for a company that inspects what is being done and most of the effort is an absolute waste of money and time.

Yes, it creates jobs and brings money into affected communities but the problem will just keep reocurring, and nature will keep taking care of it in her own way. David Taylor Coeur d’Alene