Letters To The Editor

Fri., Jan. 28, 2000

SPOKANE MATTERS

Take part in `cutting-edge’ democracy’

Last fall, with the help of thousands of voters who signed an initiative and thousands more at the November ballot, the people of Spokane were able to make their voices heard by passing a proposition that mandates electing City Council members by district. It’s a historical change in government in Spokane.

It’s also an opportunity for the people of Spokane to be even more a part of history in the making. The new districts that give us a representative city government are to be created by the individuals who live here - not government officials, not political parties, chambers of commerce or some board. Even the volunteers on the districting committee can’t submit a plan of their own but must choose three proposals from Spokane citizens to submit to the City Council by Feb. 17. Proposals from citizens must be submitted to the districting committee by Feb. 4, so time is of the essence.

This process of public participation is unusual and may be a first in Washington state. How empowering, that the people being governed are solely responsible for creating the demographic boundaries of their own districts and elected representatives! This is cutting-edge democracy in action.

I urge everyone who embraces a new and better Spokane to attend the public meetings and design a plan of their own. Be a part of Spokane’s future. David Bray author of Proposition 1, Spokane

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves

It is very interesting to see the new City Council eager to adapt the strong mayor mandate but it is equally important to understand the City Charter. The search /hiring of a city manager is the only action that the new council can do at this time. All suggested changes must go to the city manager.

The role of policy makers and management is very clear but it appears that some council members need a review. The huffing and puffing by some is only good for newsprint.

The people of Spokane, not the council, must change the charter.

In one of the latest huffs, four names have been mentioned for city manager. I only hope that this council and many residents stop labeling individuals as outsiders. This is the United States of America, a country without borders within. Edward Thomas, Jr. Spokane

I-695 excuses won’t do

Maybe it is our imagination, but Spokane County roads department seems to be doing a good job of pushing this Initiative 695 issue in our faces.

We live on North Vista Grande (one road in, one road out, straight uphill). If you have ever traveled it in snow, you know that without plowing, and/or sanding, it can be very dangerous. We haven’t seen the sander but once or twice this winter. What’s up?

Last week, we had four separate fender benders in a span of a couple of hours. Besides that, it is a school bus route and needs snow removal/sanding on a regular basis.

We are prepared to call the county road department every time it is necessary, but it is too bad the county feels that it can take a safety issue such as this and try to make some type of point to us.

Guys, we are all taxpayers up here. Please remember that and provide us a safe road to travel. Debbie Nedrow Otis Orchards

APPRECIATION

Thanks to car seat project helpers

In response to the Jan. 22 and 23 car seat checkup event at Dishman Dodge, we thank all of the volunteers who gave up their priceless weekend to help parents properly install their car seats. Over the weekend, volunteers checked more than 149 seats.

We hope that parents and care givers have an increased awareness about the importance of properly restraining their child, because no one wants to see the dramatic effects of what can happen when a child is improperly restrained.

Most importantly, we thank Dishman Dodge, Q6 and their Success By Six partners for their overwhelming support of our program. Jennifer Polello and Alaina Cunningham Spokane Regional Health District

Thanks for preventing problems

As we are well into 2000 and there has been no interruption in the systems we have come to rely on, my thanks go to those visionaries who a few years ago recognized that computers worldwide might have a disastrous problem and set about to correct the systems. My thanks, too, to all those who followed their example and helped bring about a smooth transition to this century.

Also to those individuals whose schedules were changed during this time and who worked through the weekend to assure a peaceful, safe beginning to this new century, my gratitude to you. Helen Williams Spokane

TRANSPORTATION

WSU students pay for bus rides

I read with pleasure the well-written and informative article about the Pullman Transit system (“Pullman buses full; purse empty,” Jan. 19). I am, however, concerned that some may draw an incorrect conclusion from the article.

The article mentions that students ride for free. On the surface, this appears to be true as there is no per-ride fare for students. The bus isn’t actually free for students, however. Washington State University students, faculty and staff have a prepaid agreement with Pullman Transit. Students do not pay a fare when they board a bus because they already have paid for the service. WSU contributes more than $350,000 to Pullman Transit. About two-thirds of this amount comes directly from student fees. The remainder comes from parking passes purchased primarily by students as well as faculty and staff. Steve Kuehn, president Graduate and Professional Student Association, WSU, Pullman

Rail travel worth a look

There has been quite a bit of conversation about dangerous highways lately. Has anyone else made the connection between rail travel being the obvious solution to the dangerous road problem and the need to commute?

There is much discussion about the cost of road improvements and the increasing costs of emergency services but nothing about considering alternatives.

Perhaps we should review the costs of installing train service to connect these places with the expenses of building ever-wider and faster roads that accommodate only drivers.

I notice that many of the deaths on highways are the elderly and children. Would an alternative option better serve a larger population for the money necessary? In these days of conservative fiscal budgets, it makes sense to consider alternatives. C.J. Tyler-Watson Cheney

5TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

U.S. Term Limits ad misleading

Re: “Nethercutt, term limits, trade punches” (Jan. 14).

Ads about Rep. George Nethercutt’s term limits promise are going to continue until election day. None impress me, but the current one on contributions is dishonest. It suggests Nethercutt’s few individual contributions means his support has vanished.

Get this! The ad uses a June 30 report, over six months old, and only two weeks after Nethercutt announced. Now, his campaign reports 1,000 in-district, individual contributions. That’s good, compared with his prior campaigns.

It takes well over two weeks (get-go to bank) to solicit money from individuals. And individuals don’t give unless asked. But PACs do regularly, when it suits their purposes.

Most of Nethercutt’s early PAC contributors donated on June 29 or June 30, just in time to say they were first to help. After raising $20 million itself, U.S. Term Limits knew this. But the group hoped the public would miss these details, even though it made the ad a gross distortion.

The 5th District race determines our representation during critical years for Snake River dams, hydropower marketing and other regional interests. It could tip the thin House majority either way.

We need to think and talk carefully before voting. To me, Nethercutt used equally good judgment in supporting term limits, when it had a chance, and then abandoning it, after the U.S. Supreme Court killed the idea in 1995.

Of course U.S. Term Limits should present the other view. But please, more honesty than there was in the radio ad about contributions. Robert L. Stokes Spokane

Nethercutt knows all about deceit

Re: “Nethercutt, Term Limits trade punches” (Jan. 14).

With each passing month, Rep. George Nethercutt sinks lower into the political water he fouled on the day he broke his pledge to the people. In response to a television ad run against him by his former friends at U.S. Term Limits, he says, “I am not going to let them terrorize our constituents with their tactics of deceit … I have broad support.”

Deceit? Read my lips. Nethercutt built his entire general election campaign six years ago on term limits and trashed Tom Foley for being in office too long. In his primary battle with two hard-core Republicans, Nethercutt won a plurality of the GOP vote as a pro-choice, pro term-limits, moderate Republican. Where does he stand on anything now and how can we trust him?

Broad support? That is up to the people who vote. If they choose a man who has gone from affable citizen legislator to testy political hack, so be it. It is also possible the people of Eastern Washington are a lot smarter than the deceitful man who represents us from the home he loves in suburban Washington, D.C. Larry J. Armstrong Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Government not a friend of the family

The political campaign is revealing an emerging commonality between Democrats and Republicans: both parties are subjecting the formerly sovereign family to their respective political views. Democratic candidates are promoting health insurance and free breakfasts for children (forget the parents). There is a growing movement to promote complete democratic rights for children inside the family - including choice of lifestyle and right to choose whether to leave the family. Some are now advocating laws against parents exercising corporal punishment on their children, including spanking.

Instead of seeing the case of the little Cuban boy, Elian Gonzalez, as a domestic matter, Republican candidates (ostensibly, the anti-big-government party) say that the government should override the rights of the father and both sets of grandparents, and decide that he is better off with our political system and his more-distant relatives.

Welfare and development programs in the United States and Third World countries, promoted by both parties, target children or women and circumvent the family. These further alienate fathers and lessen the felt need for parental responsibility.

Yes, irresponsible parents are part of the problem. But the solution can only be found in learning to work together in families. The government should support familial solutions, not circumvent them.

Where the government targets resources at children it will sooner or later presume the role of parent, a role it will certainly fail at for the same reasons Republicans think Elian should stay in the United States - government is not a good parent. Douglas L. Vermillion Spokane

Capitalism will be superseded, too

I have enjoyed the recent exchange about the merits and failures of capitalism. The beginning of the new millennium puts the question in an interesting light.

A thousand years ago, feudalism was coming into its own as an economic and social system. But history changed. Feudalism turned out to be rigid, shortsighted and temporary. It could not adjust to the growth of trade, the resurgence of city populations and the rise of nations led by powerful monarchs.

As we embark on the next thousand years, we should recognize that the days of capitalism, at least in its American form, are also numbered. That is the way history works.

I do not see how this materialistic system - based on individualism, total self-interest, the ever-increasing consumption of nonrenewable resources can lead humanity past the huge problems already on the horizon.

How can a nation that devours 40 percent of the world’s resources invite other nations to learn how to feed with the same gusto at the same trough?

There simply is not enough to go around. The oil will run out. The fish are already disappearing. The forests are mostly cut. The globe is warming. Pollution controls are under great attack. The middle class grows smaller. The world’s population grows larger. Its waste and consumption grow even faster.

If capitalism does survive, it will be in the guise we see in the pseudodemocracies of Latin America, where a tiny handful of haves live lives of luxury in guarded enclaves surrounded by a sea of have-nots. Robert Taylor St. Maries

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