District earns scrutiny

Shawn Vestal’s article “Hint of Truth …” (March 10) highlights a necessary civil duty. Laws about elections exist to provide a legal basis for fair elections. The Public Disclosure Commission can only investigate possible violations when a citizen makes a complaint. Filing with this commission is not an anti-school act; it is the right and duty of any citizen who has possible evidence of illegality.

Misuse of school district resources to promote a particular candidate, as one teacher has admitted, or to pass a certain levy is not merely a misstep. It is illegal. Laurie Rogers’ filing with the PDC is the appropriate course of action.

Labeling critics of the Spokane School District as “unhinged,” “conspiracy-minded,” or “out to get the district” does not excuse the school district breaking the law.

The need for the school district to search for all pertinent documents should be blamed on the school district personnel who violated the law, not the person who filed the complaint with the PDC.

What else has the school district done that we don’t know about but should know about?

Burma Williams

Spokane

No urgent care available

In response to the March 17 article regarding “working people whose only choice is an emergency room”: There is another emergency room gap that should be addressed, and it affects every person in Spokane. There is no after-hours urgent care for minor medical attention except at the hospital emergency rooms. Citizens of Spokane are held hostage and forced to go to an emergency room if care is required.

I recently had a fall late on a Sunday afternoon that required three stitches to the bridge of my nose and a tetanus shot. There were no urgent care centers open, and I was forced to go to the emergency room at Holy Family Hospital. The bill for the hospital came to $1,300 and the bill from the doctor came to $750, so $2,000 total.

I am on unemployment with no medical insurance, but I am responsible and do have some income and savings. Therefore, I do not qualify for assistance in paying the bill. I am quite willing to pay reasonable charges for the service rendered. I phoned an urgent care center in my neighborhood and asked what they would charge for the same service I received at the emergency room.

They quoted $260.

Karol Glindeman

Spokane

Protect special places

Idaho’s Bitterroot and Clearwater mountains – among my favorite areas for riding my motorcycle, camping, hiking and fishing – are unique because of the relatively low-elevation productive forests, countless ridges, unspoiled mountain lakes, streams, and rivers teeming with trout, salmon and steelhead. These are important habitats to mountain goats, elk, unique plants, fisher, wolverine and other rare species. These rich areas are not fully protected. Idaho is growing quickly. These wild places remain threatened by development.

There’s hope! The Clearwater Basin Collaborative and some of our congressional delegation are working across party lines to find common ground to protect these special places and to promote economic development in the basin.

Wilderness designation will ensure that our lands remain as intact and natural as possible; where man is only a visitor, where one can find a mental retreat. It’s important that we act now, preserving some of the only lands left that remain unspoiled. Our ecosystems are all interconnected; leaving a small part of our lands protected in natural conditions helps to strike the important balance we must maintain between taking from the land and giving back. This protects critical wildlife habitats, but our children’s air and water as well!

Thomas Keenan

Coeur d’Alene