Letters for Tuesday, March 31

Mental health in Spokane

Everyone talks about these mental health resources, so why are we still in a mental health crisis in Spokane? The answer is simple, mental health can’t be combated on its own.

“Wealth” comes from the community. If I didn’t have my community with me when I was fighting my own mental health battle, this piece wouldn’t be written by me.

Everyone has the right to free, accessible and active mental health resources. We’re starting in Spokane. We commit to mental health nourishment for all residents, not ending our mission with the tools alone but the guidance to use them is imperative to end the mental health crisis. We’ve had multiple mental health resources established for years. Yet, in 2022, around 20% of adults in Spokane reported 14-plus frequent bad mental health days monthly with no signs of it getting better. In 2025, it had increased to 24.4%, according to SRHD.org. Residents in Spokane reported, for them, it was the structural stigma of accessibility (cost, where to go, confidentiality).

Some may say that it’s not our job to make sure people are accessing care. True, but it is our job to make sure that everyone has the resources and that they perceive help as a tool and not a weapon. We are in a community together so together it is our responsibility to help the community thrive. The reality is simple, standardize mental health, normalize resources and, most importantly, talk.

Yzabella Jasso

Spokane

If we want town halls, we need to behave ourselves

I appreciate all Rep. Michael Baumgartner has done to keep us informed. He emails weekly newsletters, is accessible to the media, travels throughout the 5th Congressional District meeting with individuals and organizations to hear our concerns and suggestions to solve the many issues facing our communities.

His office has responded to hundreds of emails. Early last year he held seven town halls. A recent letter writer criticized him because there have been none since March 2025.

But if you recall, too many of the attendees at the last one were shouting out, booing and interrupting. Such behavior was not only disrespectful to him but to those who attended, wanted to ask questions and hear his responses.

The letter writer said, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Thankfully that is exactly what he has done. He apparently has decided to stay out of huge town halls. Instead, he chooses to communicate with us in more productive ways. I applaud him for this and for setting an example of refusing to be a punching bag for rude people.

Another criticism was that Rep. Baumgartner needs to stand up for his views in front of his constituents.” He certainly does that. He willingly shares what he believes, even when he knows the listeners do not agree. He is not a politician who changes his comments just to cater to others.

If we want our elected officials to meet with us in person, we need to behave.

Thea Pressley

Spokane

Baumgartner has led us into unprecedented danger

By his own accounts, Michael Baumgartner’s first term in Congress has been an enormous success. With every vote, public statement or response to the concerns of his constituents, he has faithfully advanced the MAGA agenda. And most importantly, he has avoided the ire of Donald Trump and the possibility of a primary challenge endorsed by the president.

His accomplishments for the MAGA cause are many, with a few glaring examples. As Baumgartner sat on the sidelines, Trump’s illegal tariffs have inflicted financial pain upon his constituents, punishing his supporters and nonsupporters alike. He voted for the SAVE America Act, a thinly veiled attempt at voter suppression which also turns over our sensitive data to a vindictive administration. Baumgartner also announced his staunch support for Trump’s “little excursion” against Iran, which is a colossal strategic blunder. We now must grieve the dead and wounded and bear the financial burden and emotional stress of a world that has plunged into chaos based on Trump’s lies.

Despite Baumgartner’s promise to protect Eastern Washington, his support for Donald Trump has led us into a period of uncertainty, rising prices and unprecedented danger. Yes, the “swamp has been drained” in Washington, D.C. It has laid bare a foul-smelling toxic sludge of moral decay and corruption, which Michael Baumgartner is all too eager to embrace.

If Baumgartner and his cronies continue to support this insanity, the 250th birthday of our country will be the last as a democracy.

Robert Shoeman

Liberty Lake

Slightly less lethal turbines are not ‘game changer’ for salmon

In a letter published March 27, the author (an employee of an electric utility, although the letter does not disclose this) points to upgraded turbines at Ice Harbor dam and says the 98% survival of young fish through these turbines is a “game changer.” Hardly. Even if all the Lower Snake River dams got this upgrade tomorrow, adult fish still have to get back up the river, and conditions created by the dams (such as overheated stagnant reservoirs enabling easy predation and toxic algae) are dooming most of those fish.

Looking just at the young fish (smolts): Assuming the 98% survival rate is true and that all eight dams in the Columbia basin get the upgrade, salmon migrating from Lewiston to the sea would still see a 15% survival reduction from the turbines. This is not “comparable to a free-flowing river.” In 2024, 78 total sockeye left, returning to the Stanley Basin (and only 25 are wild). We can’t afford losing 15% of these fish!

And 98% passage through the turbines is not the whole story. Smolts face additional dam-created threats: delayed mortality from injuries sustained in the turbines, increased predation in the tailraces and deaths from slowing smolt out-migration from about one week to about one month.

Upgrading turbines while ignoring the overall science about the dams is like spraying a pint of water at one end of a fire while allowing a gasoline tanker truck to dump its contents at the other end. Breach the dams!

Marjorie Millner

Vancouver, Washington