Letters To The Editor

Fri., May 12, 2000

SPOKANE MATTERS

Tell city to bargain, not litigate

What can be done with this parking garage mess? The current City Council has no direction except to drift into a lawsuit. I agree we must be careful with the parking meter revenue, however I am puzzled over the lack of common sense in settling this.

The River Park Square retail businesses are doing better than projected, so obviously the garage has big problems that need to be addressed. Our elected officials should work for the benefit of our city. Instead, the city hires a lawyer from Seattle to go to court. Why?

City Councilman Steve Eugster sees a problem and his solution is, Let’s go to court! This will hit all of us taxpayers in the pocketbook. Do we want our city dollars to go to lawyers?

Spokane will end up with a bad name as a sue-happy city with poor bond ratings. I want my tax dollars spent on street repairs or police, not in lawyers’ pockets.

Do your job, City Council. Negotiate a solution to the parking garage.

We citizens must tell our City Council how we feel. It’s time to call City Hall (625-6255) or email: jtalbott@spokanecity.org. They told us they would listen. We have to speak up. Lorie J. Taylor Spokane

Keep expectations realistic

Obviously, many of our new City Council members are not business owners. Anyone who has owned a business knows that when one starts a new business venture you will be running that business in the red, not the black, for years. Yes, City Manager Henry Miggins, you are probably right -2003 sounds more like it.

Should we expect a parking garage as a business entity to be operating in the black after just nine months in operation, particularly when it is attached to a half-completed project? I think not.

Should the parking meter funds be used to keep it in operations? Yes. There are no parking meters in the Valley, North Side, Browne’s Addition, the West Plains or South Side. The parking meters are downtown, so that money should be used downtown.

Let’s review our new City Council members’ performance after nine months and see what they have done that is constructive for us. I have a feeling it would be less than the parking garage. Joseph B. Larson Spokane

Look at the whole picture

I can’t understand the problem four members of our City Council are having with the River Park Square garage.

By this year’s end, revenues from construction fees, project sales taxes, retail sales taxes and project property taxes will exceed $4 million. That’s $4 million the city would not have had if the project were not in existence.

Also, according to the Keyser Marston report’s worst-case scenario, the project is estimated to generate a net gain of $20 million by the year 2019 and even more ongoing after the bondholders are paid off and the city owns the garage.

Please, let’s look at the whole picture. Any business person looking at the entirety of the project would consider it to be a very rewarding enterprise indeed. The city is the big winner - no investment, rich rewards. Jack D. Saad Spokane

Government has no place in business

The River Park Square parking garage and related business enterprises have been publicly discussed ad nauseam. The discussions often relate to whether or not the taxpayers should pay to bail out private business interests.

Having no wish to prolong that pointless debate - a debate which should never be - I’ve only one thing to say. Any taxpayer entity should never be involved in any semblance of a commercial business-for-profit effort.

My hope is that at some point soon those who sit in the seats of government will come to realize that. Wil Mohney Davenport

Name’s the thing

Our local media have really let the community down in covering the parking garage fiasco. Asleep at the switch and derelict in their duties.

Where is the catchy name? What is missing from the parking garage debate is a good name. If you are going dominate the front page and lead off the evening news with a story, you’ve got to have a name! Watergate, Ice Storm, Firestorm, Monicagate, etc.

I’m willing to get the ball rolling with a few suggestions: Garagegate, Garage Fiasco 2000, Betsygate, White Elephantwater, Fire Staff 2000 (oops, that’s a different story), but I’m counting on one of our news professionals to come up with the defining descriptor. Larry A. Medin Spokane

Make Spokane Club a garage

Regarding the future of the the Fox Theater: There is a far less inspiring edifice in Spokane which would be the perfect site for a parking garage: the Spokane Club. C.E. Kurhani Spokane

Parks department needs overhaul

The April 17 article by Steven Jones and Steven McNutt from the Spokane Parks and Recreation Department, “There’s no sense in overhauling a Park Board that works,” demands a rebuttal.

They say “Currently, there is no accountability crisis, nor has there been any serious accountability problems in the long history of the board in its present form.”

The Park Board sold 30 acres of designated park property at Northpointe to Wal-Mart. This property couldn’t be sold without the majority vote from the citizens of Spokane. On Dec. 7, 1998, the parks department submitted a voter information sheet. Listed first under public benefits of the sale was, “There will be no cost to taxpayers.”

Based on the voter information sheet, the citizens of Spokane voted yes.

Portions of the sale agreement between the parks department and Wal-Mart, approved by the City Council, states that the city is financially responsible for approximately $85,000 pertaining to this transaction. The city has committed to finance the infrastructure upgrading that fronts Wal-Mart’s site. This is hard money taxpayers will have to pay for the privilege of having 30 acres of designated park property paved over. The hidden costs can be much more, ranging from increasing traffic congestion and air pollution to a burden on public-funded services.

The City Council has no authority over the parks department’s decisions but it is certainly liable for them. The independent structure of the park department should be overhauled and include the City Council as an additional tool for checks and balances. Kevin Galik Spokane

Christians got a raw deal

I agree with John Gutierrez that there are special interest-serving persons on the Human Rights Commission who have been and remain opinionated in ways that are adverse toward Christians.

As to the proposed adoption of Character First program guidelines and promoting of sexual orientation protections in our Human Rights Ordinance, well-articulated concerns of Christians were unheeded and devalued. Rather than to do more listening, to understand the extent to which Christians were aggrieved by Human Rights Commission plans, a procedure was followed that would truncate further Christian input so as to hasten the advance of an agenda injurious to them. Bruce C. Wakeman Spokane

Talbott should rethink feedback

Re: “Talbott tires of health board criticism” (April 28). As a voter, I am appalled by Mayor John Talbott’s comments. He’s quoted as saying he is being flooded with comments on public health nurses and fluoridation, and he has plenty of things to do besides answer e-mail.

Now help me out here. If I am correct, the mayor is an elected official. And isn’t it the job of those elected by the people to be aware of what the public wants for their community? How is the mayor to know what the voters want if they are not allowed to tell him?

Was Talbott speaking for the whole health board when he made his comments? I hope not. I am not about to vote into office someone I cannot access and voice my opinion to.

If the public isn’t getting all the facts on these issues, why isn’t a public meeting held where citizens can hear what both sides have to say? Don’t the mayor and health board think we would like to be as informed as they are? Mark E. Johnson Spokane

WAR ON DRUGS

Face up to fact it’s a failure

I couldn’t agree more with Fred Glienna’s critique of “America’s failing drug policy.”

Over the years, I’ve evicted four drug houses from my rentals. Yesterday we started drug eviction No. 5. I also served in Vietnam during the worst of the Army’s problem with drugs. Believe me, I understand the horrors and destructiveness of drugs.

I also know that alcohol is as bad as most illegal drugs. It’s probably more destructive than marijuana. Yet I’ve never known of an “alcohol house.” I’ve yet to see cars burglarized by customers of a nearby alcohol supplier, looking for money to make a buy. I’ve never known an alcohol dealer to guard his place with a gun. These types of things happen around drug houses all the time. They’re the natural result of prohibition and probably inflict more damage on society than the drugs themselves do.

Why do we continue this fantasy that outlawing a substance or a vice will make it go away? If total prohibition is the answer, why has it never worked with gambling, alcohol, teenage smoking or prostitution? The reason is that these are voluntary activities that reflect personal and cultural values. Addictions can also be a medical problem. You don’t change values or solve medical problems by throwing people into jail. More often than not, doing so makes the problem worse.

It’s time to admit that our current drug policies are a massive failure and to realize that more of the same will simply bring more failure. L. Jim Shamp Cheney

Employers should test for drugs

Re: “Assault on rights should be flushed,” (May 5). I disagree with D.F. Oliveria’s editorial regarding drug testing in the workplace. Employers, whether in the private sector or in government, have the right to expect full service from their employees. Further, since the use of drugs is illegal and since employers are subject to being sued because of their employees’ actions, they should be able to keep their place of business drug-free.

A personal note to Oliveria. Young man, you are a big boy now. The word is “urinate.” Eleanor T. Howes Hayden

Testing just one of several tools

Editorial writers Rebecca Nappi and D.F. Oliveria both missed the mark concerning workplace drug testing (Opinion, May 5).

Oliveria’s argument that workers should be free to abuse drugs on their own time is tired and old. Many, if not most, drug abusers eventually allow their problem to spill into the workplace, affecting the safety and well-being of others. For many people who experiment with drugs the choice to use or not is lost to them. That’s what is meant by addiction.

Nappi’s description of drug users as people who “have not made a healthy choice” would be laughable if it weren’t appearing in our region’s leading newspaper. Addiction is a long-recognized disease with proven genetic pre-disposition. Imagine a physician saying to a patient, “Gee, if you hadn’t made some unhealthy choices you wouldn’t have diabetes.” Like many other diseases, the cause of addiction isn’t known.

Because addiction is a disease of denial, drug testing can be useful for early identification. The workplace is especially well suited for early treatment of addiction and alcoholism. Workers who won’t seek treatment upon the urging of a spouse or friend will often do so when their job is on the line.

Drug testing is neither an evil tool for management to abuse nor a godsend for improved productivity. It’s just one tool in a toolkit that must include effective policies, education, treatment and follow-up. Used wisely, it can continue to help us make progress in our community’s struggle to reduce the impact of substance abuse in our homes, schools and workplaces. Ronald D. Springel, M.D., M.R.O. certified substance abuse program administrator, Spokane

Policy wrongly shifts presumption

Our civil liberties are under unprecedented assault from moral bigots in corporate America. Editorial writer Rebecca Nappi (Opinion, May 5) is a supporter and apologist for this misguided and shameful policy a policy that tramples upon our cherished principles of freedom, liberty and due process.

It is regrettably legal for a corporation to fire you if you decide not to submit to a drug test, even if you don’t use illegal drugs. In other words, you’re guilty until proven innocent. Isn’t that backwards?

The right to be free of coercion and intimidation in the workplace has been dealt a near-fatal blow in recent years. As freedom-loving Americans, we should be outraged by this state of affairs.

According to Nappi, if you don’t like submitting to a drug test you should go find another job. I have a better idea. We should ban drug tests all together. She states quite correctly that marijuana is not good for you, but is it any more dangerous than alcohol and nicotine? If you’re uncertain about that point, why don’t you ask the survivors of the 300,000 people who will die from the use of tobacco products this year.

It’s time to ban mandatory drug testing and legalize marijuana. Terry M. Cox Spokane

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