Sustainability plan troubling

City of Spokane residents should carefully study the proposed mayor’s Sustainability Task Force Action Plan the council may adopt Monday ( www.greenspokane.org). Fancy rhetoric here, but ask yourself these questions:

Is adding another huge, costly regulatory layer of bureaucracy – the “Department of Sustainability” – what is really needed?

Are there sufficient department heads and lawyers now to do the job of making sure our water and air is clean enough? Do we want the state Department of Ecology overseeing more functions of city and county government? Why did Avista so actively participate in this plan to hugely overhaul the structure of city government? Is their 23 percent rise in profits enough for them?

Will businesses and property owners pay higher taxes because of this plan? Will jobs and businesses go elsewhere once this regulatory scheme is in place?

Read the report; hit the Internet, look up terms ICLEI, Local Agenda 21, Sustainability. Google “What is unsustainable?” Read “Forcing International Agendas Through Local Mayors” by Tom DeWeese – American Policy Center. Boot up “Deeper in the Red by Going Green,” Investor’s Business Daily. Then write council members.

Cindy Zapotocky

Spokane