Letters

Breastfeeding flap is silly

While I realize the military says the issue with the women from Fairchild Air Force Base who are breastfeeding is not breastfeeding itself but doing it while in uniform, it seems to me we have our priorities askew.

Much of society thinks it’s fine to kill your baby (abortion) but it’s not OK to breastfeed in public, a natural God-given ability for the nutrition of the child. Does anyone else see how crazy this world has become?

Nothing is said about Victoria’s Secret models displaying their pushed-up breasts for all to see, but showing a little breast while breastfeeding is supposed to be offensive. I’m in full support of these ladies doing so, in uniform or not.

Arlene Stromberger

Davenport, Wash.

Stop delaying justice

Officer Karl Thompson Jr. was convicted of using excessive force and lying in the Otto Zehm case, yet today he is still free. How can this be? If he were not an officer, he would have already spent the last six months in prison. What kind of justice is this for the Zehm family? The lawsuit has been settled; finish this for Otto’s family and for Spokane, put this mess behind Spokane and start fresh.

It is hard to understand this kind of justice if you aren’t wearing the blue. Officer Brad Thoma, an alcoholic, is still being paid, and the story goes on. Maybe we need new judges or a new prosecuting attorney – ones who can say “guilty” and get on with cleaning up the mess we have. It is time to send Thompson to prison, Thoma to the unemployment line, and start fresh here. Also, the officers who lied for Thompson should be tried and judged.

Darlene Le Claire

Spokane

Privatizing may cost more

I have been reading that Spokane is talking about privatizing some of its public services. The Spokane City Council needs to be very careful. Kennewick went through this exercise in the 1980s. They found that private contract employees cost approximately 60 percent more than equivalent staff employees. Government employee costs do not include extra charges for profits, business development, income taxes, large executive salaries and bonuses, and political campaign donations.

By state law, when private contractors are hired for government work, tens of thousands of dollars are spent in preparing bid documents and negotiating final contracts. Not all winning low-bid contractors are honest, forthright businessmen. Sometimes, the quality of the work is inferior and invoices contain bogus charges.

The government needs to plan on spending more for staff to do work inspection and to audit financial documents. Finally, when a private contractor furnishes materials and supplies, the government pays retail costs instead of normal wholesale costs.

Most attempts to privatize government work cost the taxpayers more money, not less. To illustrate this point, look at the new cost of liquor in Washington.

George Thomas Clark

Deer Park

Reality is sobering

Well, I have discovered a little more about Initiative 1183 that the voters might not have been aware of. The state collects a tax/fee for every bottle sold from the following: distributor, 10 percent wholesale tax; retailer, 17 percent retailer fee; customer, 20.5 percent retail sales tax; and a $3.77 per liter charge.

Neither the distributor nor the retailer is going to absorb those taxes/fees, so they get passed on to the customer. Assuming a 1.75-liter bottle was originally purchased from the manufacturer for $5, and assuming a 50 percent markup by the wholesaler and the retailer, that breaks down to the wholesaler making $2.50, the retailer makes $4.50 and the state collects from everybody $12.42.

So that $5 bottle ends up costing the customer $24.05. Now that is taxation Washington-state style.

Rick Lewis

Spokane