Letters to the Editor for Thursday, Dec. 4

Stop taxing us

When is the mayor and council you voted in going to stop spending?

They take money from Peter to pay Paul and can’t figure out why the city still has a defect?

Now they want more tax money from our electricity, sewer, and garbage to try to fix the mess they got themselves into.

This mayor doesn’t care if we can’t afford to live a in our city anymore! She touts cleaning up downtown of the homeless. They are just moving to the neighborhoods.

Nothing is going to change till we vote them out. Only way to stop the tax and spend government without them having to show fiscal responsibility to we the people.

Bones Ballard

Spokane

New taxes again?

So, in The Spokesman-Review, it is reported the city approved the 12% tax on downtown parking lots, and 6% on parking garages. They really want to kill the downtown, don’t they? And rate increases on our utility bills. All to make up for the $13 million deficit. Maybe instead of raising rates and taxes, the city should enforce its codes, laws, ordinances?

A couple months ago, it was estimated there are 600,000 vehicles in Washington state with expired tabs/registrations, with 50,000 in Spokane County. Drive up Ruby, and I see at least 10% have expired tabs. That is a lot of lost revenue for the state, and city not issuing tickets. Add to that, there are thousands of junk cars sitting on the streets, never being driven. More lost revenue from not issuing tickets. And the city spending over $25 million on the homeless crisis, but downtown is still filled with homeless, panhandlers and drug users. This stretches all the way up Division to Northpoint with panhandlers at every intersection along the way. The city needs to get its own house in order, before making it more expensive to live here, and to make downtown less attractive to go to.

Richard Trerise

Spokane

The future of downtown

Downtown Spokane is suffering from a once vibrant destination to an increasingly decreasing first choice for shopping and dining. The vacancy rates have steadily increased among businesses. The vandalism has increased of cars and safety of pedestrians has become an issue. The movement of the City Council is to decrease parking lots in favor of more businesses. More businesses mean more pressure on parking of those in cars. The parking lots have steadily increased prices and more increases have been approved this past week. Not only is this a problem but the payment for parking has been replaced with a digital system which sometimes does not seem to work. We have gotten tickets for nonpayment as repeated attempts to pay were unsuccessful. It takes longer to process when it does work and it’s a challenge for those who have difficulty with the technology.

So, the simple answer for the City Council is just increase taxes which has a negative effect on the vibrancy and success of businesses. And the observation of my 70-plus years is that the appetite of government for taxes is like Audrey the Plant in the Little Shop of Horrors. The more you feed it the bigger it gets.

“Temporary taxes” always become permanent, and they always increase over time. Greatly increased bus service and police protection is needed to accommodate the bus service and increased shoppers.

Barry Bauchwitz

Spokane Valley