Seattle Press on Line - Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor

Sep 27, 2001 -- Welcome back, Seattle Press!

To the Editor,

Your maiden September 13 issue is a sight for sore eyes. Welcome back! Stay forever!

Skip Knox
We Didn't Ask, They Didn't Tell

To the Editor,

I am appalled that the issues most vital to the non-white citizens of our city were not asked of our mayoral candidates. Those issues are police brutality and racial profiling. Small wonder that Omari Tahir-Garrett did not respond to your survey. He already knew he was doomed. This is a very sad statement on institutional racism. I am embarrassed to be a white citizen of Seattle.

Ruth A. Fox
"Service" With a Smile

To the Editor,

Thanks for the very good news by Tara Peattie regarding the Monorail.

And for including Jim Hightower on our "service economy." As the farm boy said, "When I was a kid my daddy had a bull and he serviced the neighbors' cows. So now whenever I hear that word I know someone's getting screwed."

Incidentally I called a telephone company today and got through on first try! To a real live person! The secret is: Do not pay your bill! After a month or two they will call you, and when they do they will leave a real live number for you to call. Then you can discuss with them what's wrong with your bill and make adjustments and pay it. Otherwise you'll have to be on hold and hold and ... be serviced. Again. ...

Jeff Douthwaite
Floating Homes Not So Nice for Everyone Else

To the Editor,

There is an extraordinary contradiction in the article by Roger Faris, "Living Lightly on the Water" (Sept. 12). He writes, "Like most people, I love to be close to lake, rivers, and oceans, just standing on the shore or walking on a deck are satisfying and soothing activities." I agree with the truth of this. Human beings have an innate passion to be beside, 9in or on the water.

Why, the, does he proceed to praise the overwater forms of residence which prevent us from the merest visual or physical approach to the water? These are houseboats (floating homes), house barges, live-aboard boats and their parked cars and big old vans (i.e. storage sheds) immediately upland on shore as further obstruction.

These structures violate the Public Trust Doctrine, the federal and state Navigation Servitude, the State Supreme Court decision in case of Orion v. Washington (1987), the Shoreline Management Act of the state, and common law. The people of Seattle have less privilege to see and use the shores than did the populace of the Roman Empire in 500 A.D. by the Code of the Emperor Justinian.

Mr. Faris notes that the live-aboard boats are essentially permanently anchored, "often making it impractical for the owners to actually cast off." Further, he states that "none of them pay a cent in rent." Who then pays the taxes for their share and use of our roads, libraries, police and fire departments, public utilities, etc.? They do insist on having the presence of fireboats to control fires aboard these residences.

These overwater residences reduce the opportunity of others for boat moorage, hence the purchase of boats. They damage the economics of the boating industry, of those whose incomes are made by building, selling, and maintaining boats.

Past and present Seattle governments tolerate and even promote this situation, basing its violation of common and judicial law as being a tradition and tourist attraction.

The shores of Lake Union and Portage Bay should be attractive to those of us now excluded from the pleasures of seeing and using these waters.

Benella Caminiti
International Court is a Dangerous Idea

Dear Editor,

The most dangerous thing in the world is not lethal weapons, nor poisonous gas, but poisonous ideas. The terrorists who demolished the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were fanatics in whose minds poisonous ideas had been implanted. Their minds were too muddled to know how intrinsically evil it was. They actually believed they were being heroic--giving their lives for a noble cause--killing Americans.

The only thing that can stop men with minds impervious to reason is force and fear of retaliation. Their trial and punishment must be swift, fair, certain and severe--and in the United States under an American court.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan demands that such terrorists should be tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC) under the UN. What a dangerous precedent that sets. The ICC is an intrinsically anti-American kangaroo court that has NONE of the constitutional safeguards that our court system affords, the ICC will not be a court of justice but an instrument for international injustice, oppression and human rights violations from which no one on earth will be safe.

An empowered International Criminal Court will eventually be far more dangerous to us than crazy terrorists are.

Robert Wassman
via e-mail
Airplanes' Absence Welcomed on Beacon Hill

Dear Decision Makers,

The tragic attacks on the east coast have truly served to highlight the constant sonic attack on the residents of our neighborhood, North Beacon Hill.

Although we live 20 miles [away from] SeaTac and on a hill to boot, the past few days of jet and aircraft silence have truly proved how crassly and callously the residents of this area are treated.

Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, from 50 to 100 percent of SeaTac arrivals and departures fly directly overhead. What brilliant person decided they should fly along a hill instead of over a valley or body of water, thus bringing these shrieking behemoths a cozy 200 to 300 feet closer to our homes? This shows the genius of our Port of Seattle decision makers.

We are also subjected to all the assorted roars, buzzings and smells of the burgeoning King County airport. While civic leaders thump their chests with pride at their busy airports, we, a large group of taxpaying citizens, get nothing but steadily increasing property taxes, noise, and fumes. All for totally arbitrary reasons. To top it off, we do not live anywhere near SeaTac, making us ineligible for noise abatement programs.

I know the smug answers to our complaints because I have heard them on the phone and at community meetings. The refrains are: "Just move," "What jet noise?" "You don't know what jet fuel smells like," "They are stage 3 quiet aircraft," "They don't fly over your house." To us and our neighbors, it is unacceptable to be talked to like this. Especially considering our taxes pay these peoples' salaries and subsidize the airport!

So we entreat you, our City Councilmembers, to investigate [the] current flight path. The path should not fly over Beacon Hill when geography suggests many more intelligent options. This has been perpetrated on this neighborhood because it is low income and traditionally immigrant. But, as the noise and taxes have escalated some solutions must be found before a significant section of Seattle goes crazy. While "our" officials busily try to find a way to cram the air over our houses [not theirs] with more and more profit to those not shouldering the burden. This is inhumane. Well, as I write this I hear the roar of returning commerce, whoopee. It is probably our port officials flying to Europe to bring on the jets...

Jeff McGrath
Saya Moriyasu
Beacon Hill residents

Reader Comments

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Tedford R. Buffums	Jan 14, 2002	Beaking Hill	old fart
I believe that every community in God's Country--America--should be proud of the noise and air pollution that jet traffic represents. Why--if it weren¥t for all that traffic and commerce, we would be socialists like those Germans, Italians and French. Bring on the jets! I love the noise! It arouses me. Tedford R. Buffums