Letters To The Editor
SPOKANE MATTERS
City getting things backward
In the city of Spokane the Code Enforcement Department relies a great deal on neighbor complaints to determine which code violations will be investigated and enforced. Recently the City Council or certain members of it have bandied about the idea of what amounts to door to door investigations to enforce every violation of every code from animal codes to junk vehicle codes.
This is the same City Council that has refused to live up to the obligation to pay owed money on the downtown parking garage possibly costing the people of Spokane millions of dollars in the future.
This same City Council claims to need $95 million to fix the city streets. They have cut the budget for the library, necessitating closure of the main library on Saturday, possibly cutting hours during the week and these same budget cuts may eventually effect the branch libraries as well.
When are these people going to focus their attention on living up to the city’s financial obligations, including better streets, schools, parks, crime prevention and other services to the public, and stay out of our backyards and personal lives?
Our city government is not supposed to be a system based on the ownership of all property by the community as a whole. Larry G. Johnson Spokane
Downtowns die - that’s progress
Spokane has become a city of finger pointing. (Remember, when you point your finger at someone else you are pointing three fingers at yourself.) I’m referring to this entire flap over the parking garage and River Park Square.
The whole bunch of you need to wake up to the times.
The era of the whole family piling into the wagon and going to town once a week or month has long passed. People living in the Spokane area are no longer living out in the country, far away from the big city. We have the Valley and North Side malls. We also have a multitude of neighborhood strip malls. Why would anyone drive all the way downtown to purchase an item when they can purchase it at these local establishments? They can get what they want and park free.
Gasoline is $1.62 per gallon. I have better things to do with my time than stare at an exhaust pipe for an extra hour while driving downtown to buy what I can get close to where I live.
Thousands of towns and cities across the United States have gone through this transition. They have tried many different revitalization projects and after spending a lot of taxpayers’ money, and a lot of finger pointing, they came to realize times have changed. The way of life is no longer the good old days.
Face it. The malls have killed downtown. Wake up and die right. Wilson Conaway Liberty Lake
Best and brightest? No, immature
I was quite moved by the Aug. 12 headline regarding Councilman Steve Eugster resigning from the Finance Committee and suing the city of Spokane. And I should note that there are other fine examples of people in the public eye, and not-so-public eye, who put on such displays.
If we truly wish the ills of society to be cured and the alarming rate of delinquency among our up-and coming youth, we would do well to look inward a bit and perhaps through small but timely changes to ourselves start to curb the trend.
As adults we need to resemble more the people we keep wishing others were and stop acting as children who don’t get their way, upset the game board and threaten to take their toys and leave the playground. We need to actually take responsibility for our actions and stop trying to get even with people through litigation.
Fortunately, there are many in society who yet demonstrate mature and commendable characteristics. It is just unfortunate that it doesn’t seem too easy to find such examples in public office. More often, they’re part of the silent majority who more and more have to work harder to maintain the integrity of our society in spite of its elected and appointed officials and those we pay to protect and defend us. Elmer C. Jorgensen Cheney
We cannot go on this way
It’s payback time! Forget your responsibility to the taxpayer-ratepayers of Spokane. City Councilman Steve Corker announces he is going to play “hardball.”
I suppose by that he means instead of trying to resolve the controversy with the River Park Square parking garage he is going to support Councilman Steve Eugster’s vindictive resolution to dissolve the Public Development Authority.
The PDA is an authority established by the city that has contractual obligations. Dissolving it would result in a tremendous amount of litigation and cause irreparable harm to the city.
Eugster and his puppets (Corker, Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers and Mayor John Talbott) have already got the city involved in three lawsuits and our credit rating downgraded, costing us millions of dollars. Please, citizens of Spokane, we can no longer sit idly by and watch this happen. The council majority of Eugster, Corker, Rodgers and Talbott is quickly ruining a great city. Jack Saad Spokane
LAW AND JUSTICE
Prostitution should be legal
Thank you for the Aug. 14 article on the oldest profession. Sex is one of the strongest drives in man and all organisms. Yet there are millions of people who are never able to enjoy the pleasure of sex. There are many who are shy, homely, have no mates or for hundreds of other reasons are not able to have sex.
There should be regulated houses of prostitution to serve both men and women. Prostitution is legal in Nevada and that state doesn’t have any problems because of it.
Why should it be any business of the government, preachers or anyone else whether money changes hands to pay for sex? Most of us pay for sex one way or another anyway. Aubrey B. Pilgrim Coeur d’Alene
IDAHO VIEWPOINTS
A thin-crust explanation, please
According to D.F. Oliveria’s column of Aug. 14, Kootenai County Commissioner Ron “Dundeel” Rankin has again succumbed to temptation and displayed his tendency to verbally attack anyone who disagrees with him.
If the commissioners in general, and Rankin in particular, have a morally defensible position regarding the sales tax and jail, it would be refreshing to hear them expound on that once in a while.
After reading Ordinance 293 several times, I was impressed with the thoroughness with which the commissioners have established a bureaucracy for improperly taking the taxpayers’ hard-earned money. Given Rankin’s reported comments about the courtroom spectators’ variety of costume, I guess I must have completely missed the part about the dress code. Or perhaps that will be the subject of another ordinance. I’m sure his assessment of their behavior also will be covered in a future ordinance. After all, we certainly cannot tolerate surly behavior in our courtrooms, can we?
But I must admire Dundeel’s imagination. It is quite a leap to go from Judge Hosack’s courtroom to the bar scene in “Star Wars.” On the other hand, while it may be a bit difficult to decide who among the spectators would be selected for any given part in the movie scene, I congratulate Rankin for his excellent and very convincing portrayal of Pizza the Hut. Thomas R. Macy Post Falls
Road name change news to us
Our first and only indication that there was any “hassle” over a road name change in our Bayview neighborhood came after reading the Aug. 6 Spokesman-Review. We were embarrassed by the absurd allegation that we were somehow the only party opposed to changing the name of our road.
We knew nothing about any problems concerning any name changes to any road. We have harmed no one. In the future, check your sources before printing such drivel. Bob Jones Wallace