Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Elder care home neighbors mean

Do you or anyone you know have elderly parents? I do. During the last year I spent a great deal of time looking for the right adult family home for them. Why an adult family home? Because I want them to have the professional, quality, personal, tender-loving care that they deserve. I finally found the one I was looking for. In the short time they have been there, my parents have blossomed in spite of their illnesses.

Except for the wheelchair ramp in front, it looks like any other home in the upper-scale south side neighborhood.

Last week, the neighbors decided the five elderly people and their care givers do not constitute a single family and therefore must go elsewhere. These elderly people and their care givers are family. I would never suggest otherwise to them or to anyone else.

This is not a crack house or a meth lab. There are no wild parties or disturbances. These people go to bed at 8 p.m. and never leave the house except for doctor appointments or recreational outings. Their visitors never park in front of the neighbors’ homes, only in the driveway or in front of the home.

I certainly hope when these neighbors get old and want professional health care in a family setting, their neighbors are more understanding. Linda M. Geraghty Spokane

Roskelley, McCaslin have right idea

For the first time in recent memory we have a crystal clear choice in the race for county commissioner positions.

On one hand, we have big real estate development money hoping we’d like to see Spokane County become overgrown with suburbs. Imagine the beauty of 4,500-square-foot executive homes and strip malls lining the shores of the Spokane River, cheek by jowl all the way to the state line. For a preview, drive to Sullivan Park on the corner of Sullivan Road and the Spokane River, and just take a look at the south shore.

Is this your vision of natural beauty? If so, vote for the real estate developers. They are guaranteed to give - no, make that sell - you more of the same.

On the other hand, if you remember why you prefer to live in Spokane as opposed to, say, Los Angeles, then Commissioners John Roskelley and Kate McCaslin are your choices. They have clearly demonstrated a sensible, responsible approach to ensuring that future generations of Spokanites will have the same ready access to the natural beauty of our hills, valleys and rivers that we have.

Vote for open air, not bricks and mortar. Tom I. Cameron Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Ignore credit-taking incumbents

I was dumbfounded by a recent letter writer’s comment that the reason we should all vote Democrat in the upcoming November fiasco is because of President Bill Clinton’s creation of new American prosperity, advancement and achievement. When exactly did Clinton or Vice President Al Gore contribute to economy like the average American worker or entrepreneur?

While men and women from Honolulu to New York were busy taking risks in business and investment, and innovating new technologies, Clinton, Gore and their partners in Washington were busy for eight years preparing wish lists of things they should obviously be doing to secure strongholds in the most powerful offices in the world.

Think about who brought on our new prosperity. It was small business owners risking their livelihoods to bring jobs to communities. It was strong-minded, upright teachers who found it imperative to prepare children for the future. It was people of faith who were not influenced by special interests and the media. It was all people who went to work every day, even to mundane and horrible work, securing funds for their families that created our prosperity. Is this a monarchy, that we believe in earthly, self-proclaimed messiahs? What now, an American aristocracy? If this is the case, let the beheadings begin!

My advice: Vote for the candidate who best shows qualities of legally and fervently leading the greatest nation on Earth. Vote for the whole candidate, not just for the best prepared sociopolitical wish list. Jeff Hunsaker Bonners Ferry, Idaho

Candidates show their true colors

I read with interest your story concerning the poll allegedly conducted by Fox on behalf of Tom Flynn. I don’t know if the entire story about that poll will ever come out but there seems to be no doubt that the integrity of the poll was severely compromised. It appears that Flynn has prostituted his principles in order to make himself look electable.

Both Flynn and Rep. George Nethercutt have attempted to deceive the voters in the 5th Congressional District for their own selfish ends. We are lucky that we have alternatives from both parties who we can support.

Tom Keefe for the Democrats and Richard Clear from the Republicans give us a choice and an opportunity to tell Flynn and Nethercutt the people in the 5th District will not tolerate their unethical behavior and their casual disregard for the truth. Eric P. Slind Colbert

Term Limits people still up to no good

U.S. Term Limits’ anti-Nethercutt campaign is not going to stop. By the time you read this, more attack ads will be airing. Unlike Nethercutt’s ads, U.S. Term Limits ads are paid for with tax deductible, nonreportable contributions. This is because U.S. Term Limits is supposedly a nonpolitical educational group.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the group’s earlier ads were gross distortions of the facts, charging that Nethercutt has no local contributors, that he voted to breach the Snake River Dams, etc.

Serious Republicans and conservatives know the Richard Clear campaign and the term limits effort are expensive, risky diversions from the important business of electing a Republican president and retaining a Republican Congress. They need to spread the word about the misleading Term Limits ads among their less politically involved friends.

Not everyone has the time or inclination to study every claim and counterclaim they hear on radio and TV, particularly this year. Fortunately, the Internet is making that easier. Take a look at the following Web sites addressing the term limits issue. If you are not online, go to any library or ask an online friend for help.

Nethercutt `s campaign: http://www.nethercuttforcongress.com

Clear campaign: http://clear2000.com/c2

U.S. Term Limits http://www.ustermlimits.org

Eastern Washington Term Limits http://termlimits.webjump.com Robert L. Stokes Spokane

OVER THE LINE

Shuffling problems not a solution

Re: Fred Glienna’s Aug. 19 Street Level column.

I sympathize with Glienna’s throbbing headache. However, claiming selective hearing and selectively responding to others based on whether they offer intelligent or misinformed information or wishing for the problem to up and move because the Aryans are not welcome contains no true solution to the problem of racial hatred, here or anywhere.

The problem is not one of the ears, nose or address; it is one of the heart. Efforts to sway the hateful actions of the Aryan Nations based on meaningful deconstruction of Bible passages or scientific DNA findings hinge on threads of mindful intelligence. I am afraid they miss the mark.

If you would change their activities, work on changing their angry, hateful hearts, trying to fix the flaws intrinsically and permanently.

Our opportunity to bring about future successes of rightful tolerance sits on our plate as neighbors of these folk. It is far better to empower change to a person’s interior map of hatred than to relocate the hater to someplace else.

Let us lead our troublesome neighbors out of the hateful compounds in their hearts and into our greater community.

My support goes to those who tolerate and accept differences. My thanks go to those who attempt to love thy neighbor. Jennifer Compau Pettoello Spokane

IDAHO VIEWPOINTS

Out of the mouths of commissioners

In the Aug. 20 Idaho Roundtable, Fred Glienna asks, “How is it the Idaho Panhandle’s luck that so many gullible misfits have flocked here?” referring to the neo-Nazis.

Perhaps one clue could be heard on KVNI, when on Aug. 16 Kootenai County Commissioner Ron Rankin was asked by radio announcer Dick Haugen about the Aryans request for maps to county buildings.

Rankin stated he is just as concerned about “Jerry Rubins (sic) and the hater-haters” from California as he is with the “benign” local Aryans. He described the Aryans as just another group with the same rights as any citizens.

I suggest Rankin read page A8 of the Aug. 20 Spokesman-Review, where there is a list of crimes perpetrated since 1981 by Aryans and their associates. Those include shootings, murders, bombings and robberies.

To my knowledge, Irv Rubin and his associates have not been associated with any crimes.

That an elected leader like Rankin, who is a Republican, can fail to distinguish between hate groups that practice and preach violence and any other organization provides one clue as to why white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the like are encouraged to move to our area and give North Idaho a bad name. Gary A. Edwards Coeur d’Alene

Lax moral standards claim nonsense

Re: “A stitch in time, `’ (Opinion, Aug. 19).

Editorial writer D.F. Oliveria really should learn how to check facts prior to printing such rubbish. There are a few things to take into consideration. Today’s lax moral standards are only a consideration in Oliveria’s mind. Nudist resorts have existed in this country for many years and revitalized the economy in some communities.

Christian nudist resorts have sprung up across the country. Morality has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Restrictions placed on the Sun Meadow Resort were there a year ago. They are nothing new and many were done voluntarily.

The complaints about land are a ruse by neighbors who have used the property for hunting (strange that the casino does not fall into such a land destruction category). And, since when does who is going to use a piece of property have anything to do with zoning decisions?

I guess we should scrutinize any land Oliveria may want to develop because we don’t want right-wing newspaper writers living next to us. It would be the same thing. M. J. Taylor Post Falls

Give beach property owners a fence

Regarding the messy cleanup at Sanders Beach: I was born in this area and have lived here for my whole life. Never have I heard of such a group of people acting like little kids, whining that this is mine, go away.

The reason people have moved to this community is because of the community itself - the people, the beauty and the sharing that people in this community have always offered. Then, we have people like the ones who have started inhabiting Sanders Beach.

I can guarantee you the people who built this community and the people who sold them the property on Sanders Beach didn’t mean for it to turn out this way. They just didn’t realize who they were selling to and what those people really stand for.

It is state land up to the high-water mark - which I have seen up to the wall almost. So, who do they think they are, trying to take our community away piece by piece for their own private use.

State of Idaho, build them a fence three feet from the wall and don’t let them put any gates on the beach side. That will resolve the problem for good and give us back our beach, without having to deal with them. Bret A. Jones Coeur d’Alene