Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Score one for youth, comity

Recently neighbors have been meeting with faculty and student body officers at Gonzaga Prep regarding traffic problems and other neighborhood concerns.

As a result, students plan to implement a community service program through which they will be available to help neighborhood residents when needed.

These people are to be commended for their efforts to work together in solving the neighborhood concerns. The students have been very receptive to the residents’ ideas and suggestions, and there has been nothing but mutual respect shown.

At a time when we hear so many negative things about our youth of today, it’s heartwarming to know there are young adults in our city who are doing good things.

If you are experiencing similar situations in your neighborhood, I urge you to contact schools, businesses or whoever you must to try and solve the problems. Working together we can make this a better place for all of us to live. Sandy Smith, member Nevada/Lidgerwood Steering Committee

New rules no bureaucratic offensive

Jim Lynch’s piece on “the ragged edge” (Dec. 4) says that “The City of Spokane is now considering new, more detailed, shoreline restrictions. The old rule book had 18 pages of regulations. It’s proposed replacement has 71 pages.

First, this implies that the city (i.e. bureaucrats) made the new regulations. In fact, a group of citizens, including me, worked for five and a half years to update the shorelines management guidelines, as mandated in the city charter. The update was created by us and not by anyone else.

Second, when you look at the fact that Brown’s Building Supply owns a huge dump along a half-mile of the city’s shoreline, you may feel a little better about tightening our rules regarding such use of the river.

Third, because the City Council is so weak these days and vacillates in every breeze, there is every likelihood that our five and a half years of work will be emasculated or even rejected by the council anyway. Robert Glatzer Spokane

‘the ragged edge’

Mistrust come by honestly

“the ragged edge” series brings out the way many people have feelings of mistrust toward the government. I find I agree with many of their views. However, you must work within the system to effect change. Voters decided to throw out George Bush, Tom Foley and others. Next to go will be elected officials who enlarge the scope and authority of bureaucratic offices such as the Environmental Protection Agency, health departments, growth management, etc.

Who writes for the rights of the restaurant owner who should decide if they want smoking/nonsmoking rules? Another non-elected decision reinforced by Commissioner Steve Hasson, who just lost his next election, not because of his views, but for mandating the government policy and enhancing bureaucracy. Who needed the state-mandated growth policies? Was the new policy policing power bureaucracy? That’s why consolidation went down. It would have enlarged a government that you couldn’t get rid of. Nate Narrance Spokane

Check where the edge lies

It’s a sad time for the United States of America when one criterion used to determine if someone is “anti-government” is if they support, promote and defend the Constitution. It seems to me The Spokesman-Review has again misjudged a number of people. Maybe the ragged edge is really mainstream. David Turner Medical Lake

Patriots have convenient scruples

It was very interesting to learn that “constitutional patriot” Eva Vail, who is opposed to the federal government and the national debt, owns three nursing homes and, therefore, makes her living off Medicare and Social Security, both federal programs and two of the prime contributors to that very debt.

In the same article there is Frank Reichert, who uses his federally funded military pension to publish an anti-government newsletter.

It’s good to see that hypocrisy is alive and well in Idaho. Daniel J. Schaffer Spokane

More than edge is ragged here

Good grief! Why did you think it was necessary to give such publicity as Dec. 3, beginning the series, “the ragged edge,” to those nuts and screwballs with guns who think they are above or beyond the law? That a civilized citizenry needs no standards of behavior or conduct to moderate the threatening extremism of such radical kooks at either end of the social spectrum: s-c-a-r-y.

Is The Spokesman out to lunch or what? Lord help us. Bill Thomas Lewiston

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Congress shortchanges veterans

I’ve been informed that the leadership in both houses of congress has abandoned promises made to military retirees to return their Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) to April in 1996 and to January in 1997 and 1998.

Military retirees were assured throughout the authorization process and in the Omnibus Budget Conference Report that the inequities caused by the 1993 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) would be corrected. However, in November 1995, this provision was suddenly dropped from the 1995 OBRA during reconciliation.

I’m a member of the Air Force Sergeants Association and am outraged that Congress is ready to abandon a promise in such a callous and sudden way, especially when it had portrayed itself as such an ardent supporter of military people. Frankly, I’m angry and disgusted at this recent congressional action.

I ask that all military members in this reading area contact their congressman and senators to ask that they remedy this broken promise. Your actions will send a clear message to their constituents, and will be remembered at election time.

I oppose this expression of disrespect and lack of gratitude for everyone who has served. If Congress doesn’t actively support a COLA fix, it would be viewed as a lack of appreciation for the military members who vowed to shed their own blood to protect our nation and its leaders. Current and former military members deserve more than this. Cameron E. Wylie Spokane

Politicians - our enemy within

Charity is a personal, voluntary sacrifice. Being charitable with anything that belongs to others is theft.

Using American sacrifices to benefit foreigners, selected Americans and criminals doesn’t conform to justice, common defense, general welfare, domestic tranquility or any other blessings of liberty required for our more perfect union.

Politicians follow the effective rule of theft - unearned gain occurs for some because unearned loss is forced upon others. The income tax system has been reversed so that working poor sacrifice most and the rich sacrifice least. Products and services, that might otherwise be affordable, are taxed increasingly beyond reach of the non-rich.

High-interest money is borrowed, then politicians give it, or re-loan it at no interest or low interest to foreigners and some Americans. They also balance the ledger of “fair share and fair trade” by placing foreigners under credit and Americans under debit.

Politicians use America’s military to benefit foreigners at the cost of American sacrifices. They build up enemies at American expense, cause Americans to fight wars and then they force Americans to pay reverse war reparations after winning.

Foreigners, selected Americans and criminals benefit because politicians continually force most Americans to perform their sacrifices for them.

The only purpose and limitation of government is to serve all American citizens in accordance with the principals in our Constitution, and all benefit of all political effort shall be confined “… to ourselves and our posterity and for the United States of America.” David L. King Coulee Dam

THE ENVIRONMENT

Slap at forest workers uncalled for

It always amazes me how Chris Miller (“Thank forest wreckers for floods,” Letters, Dec. 4) and others can somehow blame the timber worker for one disaster after another. Last year it was wildfires. This year it’s flooding. What will it be next year?

It seems to me that a person would do some research pertaining to Forest Service guidelines before they would use a word like “raping.”

My husband works in the woods and has stayed home many a day because of shutdowns the Forest Service has ordered. These guys aren’t even allowed in the woods when it rains, any amount at all, because of the very reason Chris Miller speaks of. There’s even federal money available to retrain timber workers who are out of jobs because of “protected forests.”

So, I don’t weep for the forest my friend. I weep for you and others whose minds are just small enough to place blame where it doesn’t exist. Becki Nichols-Crouch Kettle Falls, Wash.

Seems the heat is on

How ironic that the announcement of the United Nations report on climate change comes in the midst of the Northwest’s record-breaking floods.

Those floods, along with this past year’s hurricane season, seem to be positive evidence of one of global warming’s major symptoms: weather extremes. David Cooper Spokane