Bill should be canceled

Having read several recent letters that referred to the revised Community Bill of Rights, I decided to check them out. It appears to be a “light” version of last year’s proposal, which was thankfully defeated by a huge margin.

There are only four “rights” in this year’s version, but any one of them on their own would certainly violate or conflict with one or more existing statutes. Passing these convoluted measures would invite a myriad of lawsuits that would cost the city many millions of dollars to defend, and it would make Spokane the poster child for anti-growth among medium-size cities.

It would be far more beneficial to spend our time encouraging development and job recruitment and controlling our spending problems, than on laws that give rights to rivers, restrict existing laws regarding corporations, enlarge union protections and allow neighborhoods to veto developments that a property owner has a legal right to develop.

It is my fervent hope that voters will trounce this misguided idiocy so soundly that the backers will finally realize they are beating their heads against brick and give it up.

Hal R. Dixon

Spokane