Focusing on downtown negatives

Downtown crime is out of control? (“Mayor candidates argue about homelessness,” June 26). The only thing that is out of control is the politicians’ mouths, exploiting the negative rather than sharing a vision for our future. As 22-year residents, property and business owners in downtown Spokane, my wife and I resent the blathering of the candidates who trip over each other to tell us how bad it is downtown — and the only time they come downtown, or to our downtown library, for that matter, is to tell us how bad it is. I am a regular user of our wonderful downtown library: I don’t go there just for political convenience.

Downtown Spokane is a great place and we wouldn’t live anywhere else. It is also a big city, and every big city, in which it is desirable to live, has a homeless problem. And throwing people in jail or having a uniformed police officer – the police state — in the library will not solve that. We need creative thinking, a lot of common sense, and a unified community to solve that problem. Using Trumpian illogic and bombast and turning people against each other does not and will not work. Nor do we want that sort of posturing to soil our city.

Jim Kolva

Spokane