Letters To The Editor

TAXING SITUATION

Won’t stick around for more abuse

In response to Spokane County Assessor Charlene Cooney’s letter of May 31: In the spring of 1994 we received a notice of reassessment that said the county thought the value of our home had risen 97 percent. The deadline to apply to the board of equalization was nine days in the future. Not having days to spend contesting the well planned and scheduled reassessment, I called the assessor’s office, alarmed that our taxes could double.

I was told by the assessor’s office that our taxes would not rise more than 11 percent under any circumstances. I feel I was intentionally lied to.

The deadline passed. My taxes doubled. We will now sell our home and leave the state for this reason.

Was mine the only family this happened to? I don’t think so.

This year, it was raised another 10 percent. I called the assessor’s office in a rage and our assessed values was dropped by 15 percent over the phone. Is this right?

Let someone buy our home who can afford the almost $200 a month in extortion.

Whose hand was in whose pocket to drop the value of the big businesses?

I guess I’ve just forgotten how to stand up for myself in the face of such organized chicanery. Mary Ellen Goldberg Deer Park

System, not assessor, at fault

It is not Spokane County Assessor Charlene Cooney’s fault. The problem lies with the market value assessment.

Any time you are involved with the so-called vapor dollars, it is not an absolute science. It is time to change the laws.

Proof of the pudding is in the eating. Laws should be changed so that all tax levies are based on real dollars - the purchase price or audited construction price. The value should stay the same until the property is resold.

The levy rate is the one that has to be adjusted. Increases in the levy rate could be tied to the local consumer price index or subject to public hearing and approval by an elected regulatory body.

A statewide initiative is called for. Mallur R. Nandagopal Spokane< SPOKANE MATTERS

Chamber efforts impressive

I compliment a recent letter about the Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce’s value to the community. I fully acknowledge that the chamber has done some splendid work in terms of saving Fairchild Air Force Base and government jobs elsewhere in our area, but this is only the tip of the iceberg.

I’ve lived in many U.S. cities and have never seen a chamber so aggressively looking out for the community’s well being. Given Spokane’s relatively narrow economic base, it is critical that our chamber be as strong, active and visible as possible.

Many chambers of commerce are mainly brokers for relocation packages and brochures for local points of interest. Recently, I was given an information packet about the Spokane chamber. I was thoroughly impressed by the breadth and depth of its activities. The Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce is involved in a incredible spectrum of efforts focusing not only on the economic aspects of Spokane, but also on culture, the environment, education and aesthetics.

The chamber currently has 18 active committees. Some are familiar to most. Others include a committee designed to ensure continued development of the arts in Spokane; the Natural Resources Institute that studies the development and ensures the orderly use of the basin’s water and land resources; a Public Policy Council that monitors and assesses the availability and cost of energy resources, and also monitors the effect of environmental regulations on the business community; and a committee that promotes quality health care at reasonable rates.

The chamber deserves not only our thanks but our full support. Richard B. Grabowski Colbert

Roskelley more than climber

Lee E. Leffler’s letter promoting Dale McLeod for appointment as a Spokane County commissioner infers that John Roskelley has no other qualifications than his mountain climbing experiences for the position and that he is “well connected to the local power structure and brokers.”

Leffler didn’t mention Roskelley by name, but he is the only person running for Spokane County commissioner who is known as a mountain climber.

His inferences require an answer.

Roskelley has been involved in community projects for several years and seeks office to do what’s best for Spokane County residents.

Roskelley, a graduate of Shadle Park High School and Washington State University, is the author of three acclaimed books on mountain climbing and is currently writing two more books. He has operated his own business for 22 years, has given motivational talks to executives of top national corporations and frequently presents slide shows at Spokane area schools.

He’s a Spokane County Planning Commission board member, a volunteer fireman for Fire District 9, a foundation board member of the Spokane Guilds’ School, member of the Spokane County Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee and a member of the Friends of the Centennial Trail board of directors.

His background and his activities indicate that he is eminently qualified to serve as a county commissioner. Dan Ford Spokane< GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS< Craig a de facto corporate hireling

On May 29, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, wrote in The Spokesman-Review, “Citizens who act outside the law should be caught and punished. If they don’t like the laws, they should work within the system to get those laws changed. Period. No exceptions.”

Craig’s comments contain two fatal flaws.

First, the government only punishes those who work against the government/big business alliance. Has Warren Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide, been arrested for the murder of 10,000 Indians? Of course not.

When was the last time you saw an FBI agent arrested for murder? Never. Are Forest Service bureaucrats and the CEOs of big timber corporations who routinely violate the National Forest Management Act, the National Environmental Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and so on, caught and punished? Of course not. When Forest Service employee John Mumma attempted to follow the law, Sen. Craig helped force his resignation!

Second, everyone knows the only groups that can work within the system to get laws changed are the ones that hand Sen. Craig PAC (political action committee) money.

Americans favor stronger environmental protection regulations, yet Craig guts the laws. Why? Because he represents only the big business interests that run “our” government. When I ask my students at Eastern Washington University if our government cares more for human beings than large corporations, they don’t bother to answer. They laugh.

That, Larry Craig, is precisely why this government by and for the rich won’t last another generation. Derrick Jensen Spokane

Economic justice fading fast

For a few decades. I thought America was directed toward being a humane country, a decent and just country. I thought a working man could work his life away, creating wealth for the nation, and if his economic masters did not pay him a decent, living wage, he at least would have his government behind him to help him survive in his old age. I imagined the working poor had some political power. I actually thought that the rich could be forced at some time in their lives to distribute some of the nation’s wealth to the working poor off whose sweaty brows and out of whose thin purses they had been taking their wealth. I actually thought that. I felt safe.

But now we have a rich man’s Congress of rich men, and the working poor not only have no economic power, no control over they wages being paid them (which they never had), they no longer have the political power to force the channeling of wealth - which workers create - toward the security of their old age.

Under wealthy Republican governance, the U.S. is fast becoming a Third World country, a nation without a financial middle class, a nation divided between two financial classes: a handful of the very rich and the teeming mass of the poor or those sinking into poverty.

A fair distribution of the wealth which we workers created is not “redistribution,” as Republican millionaires want us to believe. It is simply justice. George Thomas Spokane

Keep U.S. out of Bosnia

The United States has no business sending troops to Bosnia. It’s not worth one drop of American blood to go over there and pull the United Nations’ chestnuts out of the fire.

The U.N. went into Bosnia knowing the situation. It went in anyway. Now the U.N. is in a bind and expects the United States to send our boys over there to pull them out of a bad situation which they got themselves into. I don’t think so.

And President Clinton is ready to risk U.S. lives in Bosnia? Where was that draft dodger during Vietnam? He’s willing to risk other people’s lives, but he was too much of a coward to go himself. Clinton will be directly responsible for any American life that is lost over there.

The hell with the United Nations and NATO. Stay home, America.

William Hall Spokane Support Initiative 650 I am a volunteer worker for Initiative 650.

I have lived on an acre of ground, surrounded by farm land, for 24 years. Our assessed valuation was increased 275 percent. The only way for me to fight back is Initiative 650, which would roll back assessments to 1993 levels.

I urge all registered voters to sign up and get it on the ballot for the fall election. Jay O’Connor< Spokane

Noise ordinance not suitable

The proposed Stevens County noise ordinance seeks to further restrict us by limiting the use of firearms and chainsaws. It would limit the times we can work on our homes and when we can harvest trees.

Worse, it states the unknown: “Any sound occurring frequently, repetitively or continuously which annoys or disturbs the peace, comfort or repose of a reasonable person of normal sensitivity.”

This is too much power.

In the Basic Policy Plan of Stevens County, emphasis was placed on a responsive rather than directive action which was initiated by the county residents.

How many rural county residents have asked for this ordinance to apply to rural areas? The ordinance does state “residential areas,” but there is no definition of residential. Therefore, it can be interpreted to apply to every Stevens County resident.

In the same Basic Policy Plan, the goal is to provide “a safe, healthful, productive and culturally enriched environment that provides a maximum of diversity and individual choice,” but this ordinance will undermine this goal.

The plan states, “Stevens County is essentially rural with a relatively small, dispersed population.” Why do we need this far-reaching ordinance, then?

We don’t want to see our way of life degraded further by limiting our diversity. Sometimes my dogs bark at midnight. Sometimes my neighbors cut trees at 5 a.m. It’s a trade-off. Neighbors work with neighbors. Cows mooing, dogs barking, target shooting, harvesters running, firewood gathering - these are the sounds of Stevens County and our way of life. We are content to live with them. Carole Thomas< Colville, Wash.

THE ENVIRONMENT< Defender of travesty bends truth

Gary M. Garrison (Letters) claims that “rhetoric regarding the Endangered Species Act and the fire salvage bill is biased and inaccurate …” He fails to mention that Boise Cascade directly benefits from timber salvage suggested to be the cure-all for unhealthy forests.

What Sen. Slade Gorton proposes for our public forests, Garrison does for free speech. He says, “let’s make a pact and not let another thing be said that in any way bends or breaks the truth.”

Does this include the Boise Cascade spin doctors who use advertising to convince us that our forests are sick because the company hasn’t logged them yet?

Gorton has used his position to insert language into the so-called rescissions bill that exempts all salvage sales on federal public forests from the Clean Water Act, and all other environmental laws, including citizens’ right to appeal. By definition, salvage means any dead trees or ones likely to die. Since all trees at some point die, all trees can be designated “salvage” under the bill’s loose wording.

Sen. Gorton and others claim that humans should be considered in the endangered species equation. But, let’s not forget who wrote the act: the people. And, of course, we the people get to push whatever species we want to the brink of extinction before we have to do anything about it.

As for clean water compliance, I think the figures are backwards. Most city drinking water tastes like it came from a swimming pool. The way to protect water quality is to protect forested watersheds. T.J. Coleman Republic, Wash.

Gorton opts for short-term greed

“Scientists call for tougher species act” (May 25) was good news for anyone concerned for the environment.

A National Research Council report states that “to sustain a viable future for our descendants, we must find ways to preserve both species and ecosystems.”

It’s ironic that Republican leaders in Congress are pushing for legislation that would cripple the Endangered Species Act. Future generations won’t thank legislators like Sen. Slade Gorton, whose bill S.768 would destroy the act. The value to the American people of protecting wildlife and their ecosystems has been proven time and time again.

Nearly half of all prescription drugs are derived from natural sources, i.e. Taxol, which comes from the Pacific Yew and is used to fight breast and ovarian cancer. However, only 5 percent of the world’s plants have been studied for lifesaving remedies.

Declining species warn of damage to the ecosystem on which we depend. Bald eagles dying from DDT alerted scientists to the importance of keeping this chemical out of the food chain, thereby protecting humans as well as eagles.

The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen says Gorton’s bill would mean the end of the Pacific Coast salmon fishing industry. Sen. Gorton admits this bill was drafted by lobbyists for the logging, mining and utility interests who want the ESA repealed.

It’s ironic that the law that helped save the bald eagle, the gray whale and the alligator is now faced with extinction. Such extremism does not serve future generations. We must insist that ignorance and greed not dictate public policy. Jo Austin Post Falls