Letters for May 21

Put end to unpaved streets in Spokane

I wonder how many of us know that there are nearly 50 miles, yes miles, of unpaved streets in Spokane. This is 2025, folks, not 1825!

I’ve become more aware of this because there are a couple of blocks of gravel close to my house. If you look at the map of unpaved streets in Spokane, you will see that this mileage consists of very small lengths all over the city. Please, people, if you live or work on one of these gravel streets, make some noise. I think it’s somewhat shameful that a beautiful city like Spokane still has unpaved streets. Perhaps a little encouragement from us to the city will help solve this.

Wagons ho!

Jenny Payne

Spokane

Don’t delay with winter plans for homeless

As a doctor whose patients are all unhoused, I would like to take a moment to reflect on homelessness in Spokane. I do not speak for my employer.

Progress is being made. There is still much to do, but we must recognize where we are now and where we came from in order to move forward.

The scattered site shelters put in place by Mayor Brown are providing for better care and support of people that are unhoused. More capacity is needed, but this is a great improvement from the prior administration that literally warehoused people without running water to wash their hands or bathrooms at the cost of millions of dollars.

The TRAC shelter was a failure and a waste of resources. We have now made it through the winter, and while many groups worked heroically to prevent the literal loss of life and limbs, we are not ready for next winter. We need a comprehensive plan that recognizes that winter is a struggle to survive every year for people on the streets. Midwest communities have plans to deal with tornadoes because they are predictable risks. Winter is our predictable risk, so where is our plan?

Crocodile tears shed for people on the street while walking past them during media stunts will not help anyone. There is an important role that business, government, faith and health care leaders can play in preparing for next winter. I look forward to working with anyone willing to make a good-faith effort.

Luis Manriquez

Deer Park

Baumgartner is hostile to constituents

He claims to be a “state’s rights guy,” as Republicans used to be until most congressional Republicans now cowardly won’t stand up against President Donald Trump’s wannabe all-powerful dictatorship. Accordingly, Rep. Michael Baumgartner fell in line with House Republican colleagues by recently joining a letter from the House Judicial Committee to Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown (Spokesman-Review, March 31). The letter, in effect, claims that Trump’s extremely cruel, vindictive and racist executive orders regarding deportation should take precedence over Washington state’s Keep Washington Working Act. That state law, passed in 2019 during the first Trump administration, aims to protect Washington residents from Trump’s extreme deportation overreach.

So, it simply boils down to which of the following two opposing edicts should be followed: Washington state law or a single autocrat’s cruel, impulsive and untested (unconstitutional?) executive orders. On this, alarmingly, Baumgartner’s loyalty sides with Trump against generally all Washingtonians.

Has Baumgartner no heart, just like most congressional Republicans? Is loyalty to the cult of the 34-count convicted felon Trump more important to Baumgartner than anything else?

What’s happened to the soul of the Republican party? Previously, it’s included such moral giants as, historically, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Ulysses S. Grant, Martin Luther King Sr. (Republican until John F. Kennedy’s presidency), former Washington Gov. Dan Evans, and, most recently, former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney. Spineless Baumgartner joins most congressional Republicans, Elon Musk and Trump’s cabinet as “card-carrying” members of the Trump Cruelty Cult.

Norm Luther

Spokane