Letters To The Editor

Child support

Lawmakers overstepped authority

The Legislature went too far in giving government officials the power to change child-support orders issued by judges in divorce cases. In a 6-1 decision issued last week, the court said a 1997 law providing that authority trespassed on judicial authority and violated the constitutional requirement for separation of power among the branches of government. The state child support enforcement division in the executive branch cannot have blanket ability to alter orders issued by the judicial branch, the justices said in upholding a lower court decision.

The ruling was a defeat for the administration, which had argued that it needed the authority to quickly modify child support orders to comply with federal law.

This decision took place in Montana in their state Supreme Court and should be challenged in every state until all of the child support divisions can no longer raise a man’s support payments whenever the ex-wife decides she wants more money. Justice Terry Trieweiler said the law was fatally flawed because it allowed the executive branch to change a court order without a mandatory review by the judge. Similar laws in Missouri and Iowa have been upheld but they contain a requirement that changes be approved by a judge before they take effect. Any divorced fathers in Idaho care to challenge this law? Clint Derr Coeur d’Alene

Fluoride

Get the facts about fluoride

Re: “Timothy Cunningham’s Sept. 16 letter on fluoride.

Some of us in the dental field are really wondering where you anti-fluoride people are getting your information.

The real reason why children and parents are cautioned against ingesting fluoride toothpaste is because it is not good to have too much at one time. If fluoride were put in the water it would be regulated - as are the pills and drops we parents give our children every night.

What I think people are failing to realize is that fluoride in the water could hurt the dentists’ business. A dentist who is pushing for fluoride is looking out for the best interest of his patients only. Fewer cavities means less business. But if you’ve ever spent time in a dental office, like I have , you’d surely realize what I have come to realize: Kids on fluoride don’t get cavities; kids with good home care get few, if they inherited good teeth from their parents; kids with poor home care and no fluoride are put through an experience that could have been completely avoided.

As a parent, I know the struggle we go through with our young children getting them to brush. I give tablets but sometimes I forget. However, I’m not worried about my kids. I’m worried about the uneducated parents and their children I see at my office. Also, those poor, elderly people with dry mouths and recurrent decay that could greatly benefit from the topical effects of fluoride.

Please, get the facts before you vote. Help our children, help yourselves Holly Robinson Spokane

Pro-fluoride people concealing facts

What is irritating me about the pro-fluoride camp is this insistence on calling the fluoridation agent “a byproduct not a hazardous waste product” (Randy Otterholt letter, Sept. 13).

The EPA requires pollution scrubbers on the phosphate fertilizer plants to limit and, when possible, eliminate fluoride emissions into the air. These fluoride emissions would be devastating to the landscape and to the people and animals for miles around. The water used in this pollution scrubbing process is hydrofluosilicic acid and it is sold as is to cities for fluoride without processing, cleansing, extraction or testing. The EPA classifies it as a Class I hazardous waste, not as an industry byproduct. As such, it cannot be placed in any waterways or released into the air, even if it is first diluted a million-to-one.

If fluoride is so important for health, why are our dentists not working on providing a healthy, pharmaceutical-grade, standardized, tested, EPA-approved form of it rather than trying to conceal the fact we are paying to drink industry’s costly liability.

I don’t trust this. I don’t trust any of it. Dan G. Thoreson Spokane

Initiative 745

I-745 will hurt all commuters

I am glad transit service in Spokane is important enough to warrant a front-page story about cutbacks of bus routes. The information about cuts in local bus services due to Initiative 695 is particularly timely because there is an initiative on this November’s ballot that will slash millions more from public transit funding.

If Initiative 745 passes, 90 percent of all transportation funds will have to be used for roads - even money people voted to collect locally to support Spokane transit. Of course, it will help out the asphalt pavers who spent over $500,000 to get the measure on the ballot. If I-745 passes, not only will late-night riders be inconvenienced, but all commuters will be - including youths, the elderly and the disabled.

Washington needs good roads but we need alternatives and local options, too. I-745 is far too extreme and it will have a negative impact on Spokane. Estar Holmes Spokane

I-745 disregards bus riders plight

Soon voters will have another opportunity to undermine our mass transit system.

If Initiative 745 passes, thousands of people who depend on the bus system for most of their transportation needs will be left with no alternative. Buying and maintaining a vehicle is not an option for many of us.

Do vehicle owners care about the transportation needs of people on the lower rung of society? Nearly empty mini-vans and luxury cars whiz past bus stops where elderly and disabled folks, welfare moms with kids in tow stand in the pouring rain. Petitioners say how wonderful their latest initiative is, but once again people without vehicles will be left out in the cold.

Equally appalling is the city’s newspaper babbling on about the parking garage from hell. No mention was made of the bus changes beginning Sept. 17 until the day before the changes. Little has been written about the impact I-745 will have on bus riders.

STA has a terrific group of drivers and employees who care about the riders and are justifiably concerned about their jobs. STA is lawfully prohibited from taking a public stand on I-745. Yet STA employees are putting in personal time to fight I-745. That’s the kind of behavior a big “small town” exhibits on behalf of its neediest people. Maybe one of them should have run for mayor. Desiree Effner Spokane

Other topics

Isolate sex offenders in wheat field

The sex offender issue seems to be getting greater and greater. Now it has even become a political issue. However, I believe some politicians are using it incorrectly.

Spokane is the second largest city in the state, I doubt very seriously we have an over proportioned number of sex offenders living here. I have read where the numbers in King and Pierce counties are astronomical. They have to live somewhere. Of course everyone, including me, says, “Not in my backyard.”

Now the state says it has to release some of the worst sex offenders it has been warehousing. It is going to locate eight halfway houses across the state. All but one are to be in Western Washington. This sounds fair, but where to put that one? Everyone is going to say, “not in my backyard.” Well, why in anyone’s back yard?

The state should build a house in the middle of a wheat field somewhere between here and Moses Lake. There are plenty of isolated locations in Western Washington as well.

Sex offenders should not be living next door to children, especially my grandchildren. Not in my back yard. Walt C. Bernet Spokane

Courts will settle salmon issue

The Republican response to dam breaching by Rep. George Nethercutt and Sen. Slade Gorton does nothing to prepare the current users for inevitable change. Resolution of the dam breaching issue will likely be achieved through court- ordered implementation of the Endangered Species Act and support of the promises to tribes, codified in the 1855 Stevens’ Treaties and relevant executive orders.

Judge George Boldt not only allocated the salmon resource, but also put the state and federal governments on notice they must preserve the treaty rights through habitat protection. Remember the response from Chairman Jay Minthorne of the Confederated tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation to the latest recovery strategies from the National Marine Fisheries Service? The federal government will lead this debate in the face of a state fish and wildlife commission that has failed its responsibility.

The timber industry recognized environmental policy changes by supporting agreements. Gorton continues to give agricultural and barging interests hope the dams will remain intact. What is missing in this debate is leadership and respect for the reserved treaty rights of tribal nations. Gorton’s record of failure in litigating tribal issues as Washington’s attorney general should cause his supporters concern.

Gorton’s and Nethercutt’s shortsighted ideology has discouraged objective review and development of meaningful alternatives to the dams. And, Nethercutt, stop blaming East Coast environmentalists. Listen to local constituents and supporters of the salmon and steelhead resources of the Snake River and do it for the future of agriculture in our region. Bruce R. Smith Spokane

Farmers need our support

Our farmers are under siege. Read the paper, watch TV, you’d think the wheat farmers were the enemy not our friends and neighbors. People in Spokane need to wake up and realize the farmers need our support. When Montana’s forests burned down no one wanted to misuse the Americans with Disabilities Act to sue the U.S. Forest Service, but when wheat farmers want to burn the thick stubble from record wheat crops all of the city dwellers are up in arms.

It’s time for us to support our farm families, not criticize or defame them. The farm family should be listed as an endangered species. We have made it almost impossible for them to succeed. The government has embargoes with over 60 countries. The price of wheat is so low the farmers can’t make any money and the government subsidies are gone. People want to breach our dams to save the salmon. If we can send a man to the moon, we can get the salmon up the river. At this rate, farm life will be gone in 10 to 20 years.

Farmers, their families and their communities are the backbone of Eastern Washington’s history and development We need to treat them with respect and thank them for feeding the world and keeping our economy moving. If we don’t change our attitudes and policies, the Palouse wild grasses will return and with it the summer grass fires that used to occur regularly prior to farming.

Hug a farmer! Dick Boysen Spokane

A peculiar attitude toward forests

Let’s realize a few truths about the nation’s forests. The reason there are roadless areas still left is because those tracts are not economical to harvest because of their location and the rugged topography. Indeed, almost all the timbered terrain that could be accessed with road building would require an even bigger subsidy than we already give the timber companies to take our trees out of the woods.

There are already more than 380,000 miles of roads in our national forests. It would take over a billion dollars to maintain them and keep them from being fire channels that threaten people’s homes and sediment dumps that harm the environment.

Less than 4 percent of the nation’s lumber supply comes from the national forests now but total domestic timber production has fallen only slightly in the 1990s. That’s because private land has produced slightly more. But in spite of the fact that there are wood fiber substitutes for plywood-type products and the recycling of paper, we continue to use more and more wood fiber. We even export lumber products and then turn around and import more than ever.

We have a peculiar attitude toward the use of our nation’s trees. Bart M. Haggin, chairman The Lands Council, Spokane