Seattle Press on Line - Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor

Jul 18, 2002 -- Kohl-Welles Needs a Reality Check

To the editor:

In Response to Senator Jean Kohl-Welles' editorial from your June 20 issue ("Educating Inmates Worth the Investment").

Senator Jean Kohl-Welles should get her head out from behind cell bars and visit the real world.

Her editorial really angered me. After informing readers about the 1995 law that eliminated all state funding for post secondary education, the senator further states that because of this law, prisoners have been forced to pay their own tuition. THE POOR SOULS!

In addition, she comments, "Given that most prisoners have little or no discretionary income, this has meant that few prisoners are realizing the dream of a college education."

Excuse me, but we currently have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Unfortunately in the state of Washington, if you're a hardworking tax paying citizen and suddenly fall victim to unemployment due to a poor economy, your dream of a college education disappears with your paycheck.

One of the stipulations to receiving unemployment is that you are not and will not go to school. Although worksource (unemployment) allows some people who are labeled as "dislocated workers" to receive training for a new job, it does not permit individuals to return to school to complete their degree.

The company I worked for closed down. Prior to the company closing, many of the people I worked with were not only attending college, they were also putting in up to thirty hours of work per week. However, when they lost their jobs they also lost their seat in the classroom. If Senator Kohl-Welles feels such a driving force to help her community, she should stop in the nearest worksource office and insist that the unemployed be permitted to complete or begin their college education while searching for work, particularly when even mediocre jobs are asking for people with BA's.

Linda Gray

Appointed vs. Elected Monorail Board

To the Editor:

In just a few months, the people of Seattle will (I hope) agree to build a real monorail mass transit system. Just getting to this point has been a triumph of vision over conventional thinking of which the city can be proud. Although I no longer live within the city, the monorail projects have always had my support and I look forward to being a frequent customer of the new system.

It would be unfortunate if the attitude espoused by Tara Peattie about governance of the monorail Development Authority ("Monorail Democracy Now," July 4 issue) were to undercut support for the ETC proposal. Ms. Peattie suggests that only an organization headed by an elected board can be "popular," and that a board appointed by the Mayor and/or City Council would be insufficiently "democratic" as it resolved the specifics of the system's technology, route and operating policies. Neither assertion is particularly valid.

After all, it was the popularly elected Mayor and City Council who actively worked to nullify the original Monorail initiative, and may yet have to be dragged kicking and screaming to put the ETC proposal on the ballot. It is the popularly elected Seattle Port Commission that has encountered fierce resistance in the community for may of its projects. On the other hand, it has been the appointed ETC council that has stuck by the popular vision for monorail.

More importantly, though, the people of Seattle must remember that this is a long-term commitment. You need the best minds available to oversee this great project, to make sure that what you end up with is as effective and efficient as it can be. Such people may or may not be interested in running a campaign for office costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, placing themselves at risk of being beholden to special interests if elected.

Public passions may run high as the final details are developed about where stations will be or how the system will be run. In the long run, what matters is that the vision of highly sustainable superior mass transit be sustained. It may be tempting to think that a victory for this community council or that union will necessarily make the system better, but the reality is that some interests are not in the public's interest, and you need people willing to focus on that equation. Remember that the Monorail Plan you adopt defines the goal and sets the course; the Development Authority's responsibility is one of execution, not something which you ordinarily elect people to do.

Finally, Seattle should be guided by the experience of other cities. Only four other transit systems have directly elected controlling boards, and the record is not good. Electing people does not make them immune to graft, corruption or confusion--it only makes them harder to remove when that happens.

I wish you all good luck, and will be watching with keen interest.

Tyler Page
Kent

Seattle Press Goose Coverage

To the Editor:

Kudos to Laurel Holliday ("Seattle's Doomed Geese," July 4 issue) for taking a less biased and more positive approach to reporting the abhorrent, preemptive gassing of viable Canada geese. The news media, especially the Associated Press, has done a grave disservice to readers who depend on them for the facts. Instead, they choose to report as gospel, the rhetoric and scare tactics of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; an agency whose wildlife management policies are predicated on the hunting establishment and weapons industry to guarantee their own survival. Non-lethal goose control methods won't serve to garner revenue for their coffers, consequently an unprecedented number of round ups are being promoted in the name of resolving human/goose conflicts. This needless and avoidable extermination is far to high a price to pay for USFWS' inhumane, mismanagement of our country's Canada geese.

Sharon Pawlak
Coalition to Prevent the Destruction of Canada Geese
Medford, NJ

Addle Eggs, Don't Gas Geese

To the Editor:

Thank you for Laurel Holliday's excellent article on Seattle's doomed geese (July 4 issue). If the USDA had done efficient and thorough egg addling, we wouldn't be seeing so many goslings now, who are being gassed by the USDA. There is something appalling about the Seattle Parks Department threatening to close parks for "lack of funds" while they are spending such huge amounts on a useless and cruel campaign of slaughter. The Give Geese a Chance people offered to do this work (for free) in a humane and efficient way. Taxpayers are being forced to fund a barbaric, unapproved method, when an alternate civilized solution is free for the taking.

Nancy Pennington

Private Use of Public Transit

To the Editor:

With all of the talk recently regarding transit; monorail, light rail, regional rail, roads, the issue of what we have now, namely, buses is seemingly lost in the shuffle. It will be years before we have a viable mass transit system and in the meantime we need to make the most of what we have.

This brings me to a troubling situation regarding what appears to be the use of Metro buses by students attending the private Lakeside and Evergreen Schools as well as Yeshiva High School and the Jewish Day School. Metro provides bus service on regular city coaches to all of these schools. Six routes serve the Lakeside and Evergreen Schools (986, 987, 988, 994, and 995) every weekday morning and evening. Similarly, two routes, the 983 and 984, transport students weekdays to and from the Yeshiva High School and the Jewish Day School. Meanwhile Seattle Public School students have the option to take privately run Laidlaw Transportation buses or make due with existing Metro routes.
Repeated inquiries to Metro regarding who pays for the private school routes and why public school students have to ride private transit while the private schools have public Metro transport have gone unanswered. Why does Metro provide this service to private institutions when the mainline Metro routes are so desperately lacking? Furthermore, what do these private entities pay for this service? The use of the Metro fleet for these uses (not to mention the special Seahawks and Mariners runs Metro makes) is troubling enough when you're packed like sardines on the #7 during rush hour, but when public school children have to use inferior private transit while private school kids ride in the comfort of Metro coaches it's enough to make a parent's blood boil.

Dhyan Choksi

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