This is our city

This is in response to Ike Bailey, who fears that Spokane is becoming Seattle.

Ike closed his letter with: “They will try to change it (Spokane) to how they want it not what we want.” Who is this “we”? What do they want? I have lived most of my life in Spokane and raised two people here who are now successful (in Seattle), all of us own property, pay our taxes and give our family and our community loving care. We are not among this “we.”

Others, totally down on their luck, have come here because they see hope for a better life but are still homeless. The “… feel-good laws which won’t work” (as you say) are for them. I suspect that these are not part of this “we.”

At Spokane’s beginning there was businessman James Glover, who rode to this place by the falls and set up camp mostly, at first, to serve Native Americans. This was their home, then. To Native Americans, surely this man looked more like an immigrant from Seattle who would change the place than this “we.”

Who is this “we”? What do they want?

Allan deLaubenfels

Spokane Valley