Letters for Sunday, May 5, 2024
District should wait on bond
With the recent bond defeat suffered by Spokane Public Schools, there have been debates on whether the district should put the bond back on ballots later this year or 2027. The district should wait until 2027, and here is why.
With this issue, voters can be categorized into two groups: the people with and without children enrolled in SPS. Right now, there are problems in our city and district that must be fixed before the district asks for more money.
For the people with children in SPS, many parents have lost faith in the system. According to statistics from the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, “50.7% of students met ELA standards,” only “39.1% passed” for math, and a mere “42.9%” for science. The district must take measures to win trust back before putting the bond back on. An updated curriculum and more one on one support for students are steps the district can take.
People without children in schools have no reason to say yes to a bond right now. According to city Councilman Jonathan Bingle, “families in Spokane are feeling a strain right now.” In the current economic climate, our district must listen to its struggling community instead of attempting to further raise taxes.
Because of this, putting the bond back on ballots later this year will make relations between the district and voters worse, resulting in getting it approved more difficult. Conversely, by waiting until 2027, the bond has a greater chance of success.
Ben Haasch
Spokane
Public safety over pet projects
In a March 13 guest opinion column, Mayor Lisa Brown complained of a “structural deficit” left by the last administration of $50 million (“Spokane’s structural budget deficit requires swift action”). Her solution was, “We will reduce or eliminate nonessentials and optimize what we have.” The April 29 S-R showed that the city is still going ahead with spending $973,000 on “street art.” Is street art an essential city service? Ask the many homeless people downtown if they benefit from it.
A month later she unveiled a property tax levy to possibly be voted on in August. Raising property taxes will increase house payments and rents across the city. The city needs to prioritize public safety and get rid of their pet projects.
Rich Zywiak
Spokane
For our economy and our homes
When we see fellow Americans priced out of their own towns, this often, this gets called “gentrification.” Indeed, gussying up properties can raise property value, but this is far from the only cause. What about labor?
We’ve been in a labor shortage in construction for some time. But in 2022, SB 5600 made things worse by mandating apprenticeship programs for new workers in the field. These programs create bottlenecks for accreditation, while raising costs for construction companies. This increases the cost of labor generally. Not just inflated house pricing, but the higher costs for basic maintenance – of fixing a toilet; or changing a breaker – are in part a result of this.
Mandated trade programs like this won’t singlehandedly turn Spokane into Detroit. But they’re one more point of stress on an already-stressed infrastructure. They are rent seekers who provide no essential value to anybody but have inserted themselves into the process of construction itself at the level of labor. This costs everybody else – even the apprentices, whom they appear to help with inflated wages (but which often simply results in more serious layoffs–I, as an apprentice, was personally laid off for six months this past winter).
Apprenticeship programs aren’t inherently bad but mandating them has proven to be a bureaucratic mess and failure. It raises costs on all construction, making housing (and fixing housing) less affordable through reducing an already low labor supply. For our economy and our homes, we should repeal SB 5600.
Chris Robertson
Cheney
More forthright conversation
Karen Dorn Steele’s April 21 letter; “Send a Democrat to Congress for restoration,” is a classic example of fear-mongering propaganda demonstrating many emotive techniques employed by leftists. These rhetorical slights of hand include fuzziness, mischaracterization, loaded language, omission and lying. Ms. Steele chooses abortion to bludgeon Republicans “intent on policing the bedroom.” A cliche used to gull the naïve.
Regarding fuzziness, she describes the 1990 Referendum “she worked to pass” as “permitting abortion in the early months of pregnancy.” Actually, Referendum 20 allowed termination through four months, or almost 18 weeks (of 40) into a pregnancy. It’s easy to verify the degree of development a fetus has undergone at 16 weeks. Just Goggle it.
“Far right, sycophants, catastrophic, eradicated, seize power, national abortion ban and serial womanizer” all exemplify loaded language.
That a “major constitutional right” has been withdrawn is not true, and therefore a lie. The pretzel logic imposed by Roe was found to be unconstitutional because it was, and still is. Dobbs correctly sent the issue back to the states for consideration. Abortion can only become “constitutional” by amending the Constitution, as has been done 27 times.
No state has “banned” abortion, so to write, “25 million women” face this situation mischaracterizes reality.
Finally, omitting any exploration of logic trajectories and moral balances connected with this issue cannot blunt the harshness surrounding the termination of a would-be life and only serves to chill the euphemism-free, forthright conversation we the people so sorely need.
William Baxley
Spokane
Take care of citizens first
With hundreds of Washington’s legal citizens living on the streets of Seattle, the state Legislature approved 28.4 million dollars to help provide health care for “undocumented immigrants.” It is illegal for states to use federal dollars on undocumented people so the Washington State Legislature steps in.
How about taking care of our own citizens first? Maybe we just need a new legislature.
Mike Ryan
Nine Mile Falls