Letters for Jan. 4, 2023
Poor reporting of city sustainability manager
I take exception to your slanted piece on gas furnace contractor Larry Andrews and his unfounded ethics complaint against former City Council Sustainability Initiatives manager Kara Odegard (City Council’s sustainability lead resigns amid ethics review, calls complaint ‘harassment,’ ” Dec. 21).
As a volunteer, I led the Sustainability Action Subcommittee’s Buildings and Energy Workgroup before Odegard did. At that time, Andrews leveled the same sort of baseless charges against me, saying that I was ethically compromised due to “my solar energy business” (work I’d left more than a year before). Meanwhile, Andrews owns a gas furnace business, yet he’s complaining about conflicts?
When Odegard took over the workgroup, Andrews simply redirected his ire to her, claiming that she was compromised by outside interests that included environmental consulting, which we knew about and which she never promoted on city time. Andrews’ complaint is simply false.
I found Odegard to be flawlessly nonpartisan, extremely competent, amazingly effective and much beloved by the hardworking citizen volunteers in the Buildings and Energy Workgroup and the rest of the Sustainability Action Subcommittee. She told me months ago that she was headed back to consulting, but I was sad to see her go, very sad to see Andrews smear her on her way out the door, even sadder to see the Spokesman report the story so poorly.
Spokane city government was very lucky to have Kara Odegard. She is an inspiring leader and was a committed civil servant. We should all ask ourselves why we let her get away.
David Camp
Spokane
Lies upon lies
A letter to the editor in The S-R on Dec. 23 by Bob Strong (“What did Trump mean?”) shows how screwed up the right wing supporters of Trump continue in regard to election fraud. Mr. Strong stated the Trump’s intention was to “save the Constitution” in his public statement calling for suspension of the Constitution on Dec. 4. Once again, Trump has used Truth Social platform to continue the Big Lie and Mr. Strong has trolled a new MAGA lie to buttress the debunked Trump claim of election fraud!
Jerry Jantz
Spokane
Ignoring the obvious
Many thanks to Bob Strong for clarifying the Former Guy’s words and actions and deciphering them as something noble and enlightening. In this case, the FG’s call to suspend the Constitution. Bob’s inability to grasp the obvious is astounding.
Ted Wert
Sagle, Idaho
Willful ignorance
I will not attempt to defend Mr. Vestal’s statistics and I suspect Hal Dixon (“This is not the way to eliminate homelessness,” Dec. 13) has not made any attempt to fact check them to see there are indeed 14,000 homeless in Spokane County. I also suspect he has not spent time with homeless folks. He may be the blessed who have a warm place to come home to and the gifts it takes to carry this off.
Too often I hear these remarks. I wonder how people have chosen to be so naïve. One illness can put someone on the street. The raising of rent or utilities can put someone out of their home. Mr. Dixon is very fortunate to have apparently never experienced this. In this “Christian nation” of ours, we have no problem raising rent, utilities, or even medical care prices beyond what many can afford and then begrudge people when help comes to them from Catholic Charities, Union Gospel Mission, Salvation Army or others. Please take this opportunity and reflect on what you are saying, after all this is the holy time of Christmas and we know what we really should be doing.
Martha Nerpel
Spokane