Letters for July 6, 2023

Who is behind the curtain at WBCSD?

If you didn’t already know who was running the West Bonner County school board before the new conservatives were elected, who was consistently failing the children while digging ever deeper into their parents’ pockets for pay raises, who was backing CRT-derived curriculum choices for the district’s youngest, now you know.

Just like when Hailey Scott ran for school board last year, we should be asking ourselves why some folks never publicly admit who is really backing their activism “for the kids.” The answer is obvious. West Bonner County is the very conservative half of a very conservative county and some don’t want us to know that they don’t actually share conservative values. Some have calculated that it’s better to keep silent about who backs whom and claim that the true conservatives are the “outsiders.” If you are unsure who is behind these groups and others like “Good Government Watchdogs,” go the state sunshine report site and see who they support and who supports them. The jig is up.

Anita Aurit

Sandpoint

Violence not the reason for need of gun rights

I favor – to a limited degree – Mr. Curt Stone’s defense of gun ownership and “no” to tyranny in his June 28 S-R opinion letter.

It’s a shame he used “violence” as his justification. I could have lived with “equalizer” or even simply, “protection!” For his one weak finger-pointing toward the anti-gun activists, there are nine (not just four) pointing back at him.

Tell us, Mr. Stone, how violent were the schools where children and teachers have been mowed down (some literally mulched) like weeds? And what about the churches, synagogues, bible study groups, county fairs and civic parades where bullets from “law-abiding gun owners” were – and I quote you – “getting serious about violence?!” Ask the families of those killed if this is hysteria or statistics pulled from the sky.

Owning a gun is a huge responsibility toward your family and fellow country-folks. The Constitution intended gun ownership to match civility and citizenship. This beautiful land of the free and the brave should be one where we share, protect and defend one another not using the very tool of guns to kill and maim indiscriminately.

Phil Zammit

Spokane

Where are the stripes?

When will the traffic lines on Spokane streets be painted this summer? They are almost nonexistent after the winter and driving is a scary adventure. Winter’s been gone a long time and definitely took its toll on the street lines.

Claudia Craven

Spokane

The facts on fish

My thanks to Ellen Dennis from The Spokesman-Review for a well-written expose of the publicity stunt held in the lower Columbia Basin on Monday. Our representative in Congress gathered a bunch of her fellow Republicans and used projection when saying dam breaching advocates are “not being honest.” Cathy McMorris-Rodgers was not being honest. “We unleash the potential of these dams. To use the facts, not rhetoric. To lead with science. To hear from the experts.” Yet everything I read and understand about salmon recovery says the opposite. That dams cause the stagnant water to heat up and slow down the flushing action of running water, flowing, oxygenated water for the trip to the ocean.

The scientists agree and have for many years. The tribes worked hard for years to increase salmon runs, restore habitat and have seen success wherever the dams have been breached, such as the Condit Dam on the White Salmon River and the Glines Canyon and the Elwha Dam on the Olympic Peninsula. Hatcheries have been used as a replacement for sound science for native fish runs, with little to no success.

One expert has said BPA, “communized the costs and privatized the profits. Salmon will only survive when the lower Snake reverts back toward its natural condition.” The resistance to change comes from right wing and industry lobbying groups who in turn finance the re-election campaigns of our representatives. Salmon recovery has been a well-coordinated effort to save dams for cheap transportation rather than salmon.

Ernie Robeson

Spokane