Letters for Oct. 27, 2023
Spokane needs leaders willing to do the work
I love Spokane, warts and all. The warts are obvious and easy to identify: homelessness, crime, drug abuse. The problems are glaring and serious, but also, not exclusive to our city. Spokane is not defined by its deficiencies; we are more than that.
To me, what defines Spokane are its qualities, its livability. The mundane, like walkable neighborhoods and access to parks; and the exceptional, like Bloomsday or Hoopfest. There is so much that sets Spokane apart, what makes it great. Though a great city doesn’t just appear, it is borne from leadership, planning and hard work.
That is why you should elect Kitty Klitzke to Spokane City Council, District 3. She knows what makes our city special. She has been working to make it safer, cleaner, and more livable for decades. Kitty understands the struggles our city faces and is not afraid to put in the work to make a change.
Read the candidate interviews in the Sept. 17 Spokesman-Review and the Oct. 5 Inlander. Only one candidate did their homework, has a thorough grasp of the issues, and demonstrated commitment to addressing them. That candidate is Kitty Klitzke.
Spokane is amazing, not perfect, but it is so much more than its problems. We need leaders who understand what makes it great and have the brains and determination to tackle the hard problems. Leaders with foresight and the work ethic to create an even better Spokane. We need Kitty Klitzke on the Spokane City Council.
Kevin Hendrickson
Spokane
Spokane needs experience, not ‘yes’ women
After recent coverage of the candidates in Spokane’s District 3 City Council position, I’m shocked by the disruptive fear mongering used to paint Kitty Klitzke in a false light, while attempting to mask the fact that Earl Moore’s inexperience and unwillingness to take positions on issues make her an uninformed candidate.
Kitty is a lifelong Spokane resident committed to thoughtful growth in Spokane, as shown in her collaborative work on projects like the central city bus line. Earl Moore’s deceptive nonpartisan title is not something she can hide behind when she evades answers to policy questions, as she did when asked directly about two current local issues in an interview, north side development and a moratorium in Latah Valley.
The recent negative mailer by outside money focused on misrepresentations of Klitzke’s stance on law enforcement clearly ignores her military service history and goal to address lack of traffic enforcement and vacant police positions. The Spokane Firefighters Union, known for having bipartisan members, has endorsed Kitty based on her experience and statements on bipartisan policy solutions.
We need an elected official in District 3 who takes a strong stance after listening and learning what’s necessary to take a position, as any appropriate candidate should. A representative like Earl Moore will simply take direction from our current mayor and police chief without staying informed of the consequences of the issues impacting District 3. Uninformed uniformity in voting is not in Spokane’s best interest, that’s why I’m voting for Kitty Klitzke.
Margaret Starry
Spokane
Homeless problem requires money
The Oct. 1 Spokesman-Review articles on “criminalizing homelessness” show why Mayor Woodard did nothing substantive, nor will Mayor Brown.
The homeless consist of three categories: (a) The mentally ill who should have never been deinstitutionalized; (b) those still striving for conformity who just need some short-term financial assistance; and (c) those who have not only lost the ability to conform, but who have become completely disorganized in their behavior.
It takes money, lots of money, to address these three problems: (a) Reagan deinstitutionalized to save money. Reinstitutionalizing will take money; (b) Helping those who are actually still willing and able to conform will take money; (c) Finally, addressing the majority of the “homeless” means recognizing that they need “sobering camps” (an updated version of the Victorian “poorhouse”) in which they must follow norms, maintain hygiene, restore self-discipline and relearn how to work.
There is a path through which the “homeless” chose to be useless. Next, they are committed to uselessness as an “oppositional culture.” Finally, without any norms imposed upon them, they disorganize into what we see – lost persons who are a threat to themselves and others.
The “homeless” of public concern do not “just need housing,” contrary to sociological excuse-making. (Note: Sociology can also be the study of maintaining social order.)
The oppositional and disorganized homeless need to be reintegrated into norms sufficiently well-enforced to restore their functionality to themselves as well as to our society.
No politics will change this reality.
Craig Mason
Spokane
Moms for Liberty rejects liberty
Here we go again with self-righteous, religious, nationalistic church attendees. Moms for Liberty is such an organization. If you don’t want your children to read certain books, fine, don’t let them read them. But other parents have a choice to allow their children to read the books that you have banned.
My guess is that the Moms for Liberty has never read the preamble of the Constitution of the United States. “We the people of the United States in order to form a perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Or the second paragraph of the first article in the Declaration of Independence which contains the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” So when did the organization become the self-ordained destroyer of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence?
Such religious dogma will destroy our freedom of choice. Book banning is so like the book burning in Nazi Germany in 1933, when they destroyed freedom of thought and the culture of their land. The group should change the name of its organization. Moms for Liberty forgot one other book to ban. It’s full of sex, adultery, murder, violence, views women as property, idolatry, rape, genocide and slavery. Its the Bible!
As a veteran, I solemnly swore that I would defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.
John Wodynski
Cheney