Letters

Shoreline politics

Group is anything but progressive

In their disingenuous, anti-free speech, and self-righteous letter to The Enterprise (April 28, 2006), the co-chairs of Progress Shoreline, Paul Grace and Scott Jepsen, wrote that their organization is not part of the lawsuit or the recall against council members.

Time for some facts.

Perhaps Progress Shoreline (PS) itself has not formally taken a position on these baseless attacks upon incumbent Council members, but it most certainly is not true of individual supporters of that organization.

Among the names of PS supporters listed on their Web site are the following: Kevin Grossman and Connie King, two of the three plaintiffs in the lawsuit; Michael J. Rasch, attorney for the plaintiffs; Ron Greeley, Mary Fox, Dennis and Mary Jo Heller and Cheryl Lee, five of the six who filed the recall petition.

These numbers tell us that at least 4/5 of those officially involved in these actions are PS supporters.

When hundreds of millions of dollars of real estate development are on the table, we need a Council and a city manager that are independent of those interests. That’s what we have now, and what we definitely did not have before. The citizens of Shoreline knew there was a better way, and they voted for it at the last election.

The only sense in which PS is nonpartisan is in not being Republican or Democratic. Other than that, PS supports candidates, has a political agenda, and their supporters are trying to undo the decision of the voters by means of the frivolous lawsuit and recall.

Several candidates they supported favored the same unbalanced anti-environment, anti-neighborhood, unrestrained pro-developer policies advanced by Jepsen and the then-majority he belonged to. It seems to me that a more appropriate name for these disgruntled losers would be “Retrogressive Shoreline.”

ELAINE PHELPS

Shoreline

Fodor Homes

State to blame for district money woes

A large part of the Shoreline School District budget short fall of $4 million can be attributed to DSHS and Fodor Homes (cottage-style Institution).

DSHS allowed Fodor’s Homes to expand with no input or oversight from the city of Lake Forest Park or the Shoreline School District. The result was a million dollar a year short fall in out-of-pocket expenses to the Shoreline School District. These are expenses that the state doesn’t reimburse the school district for, but mandates it performs. Shoreline Schools and Lake Forest Park requested DSHS to limit its size and growth of the cottage style institution to no avail.

Fodor Homes receives about $6,000 to $10,000 for each of the 29 residents each month and doesn’t share any of the funding with Shoreline Public Schools. It’s a sad commentary when a state agency (DSHS) can drive a class “A” school district into bankruptcy.

RON OTTELE

Lake Forest Park

National

History offers price-gouging solution

As World War II was moving in on us some thought was given to what we might have to do other than fight: what might be the other evils that would go along with the war?

Some of us held out the hope we might be able to stay out of it.

One thing was viewed as being certain. There would be profiteering. There would be price gouging. Some firms and/or individuals would make a lot of money.

To control profiteering which was seen as sure to come, Congress set up an Office of Price Management. Top prices were set for many items. Some prices were rolled back to reasonable limits. Price ceilings were set. Rent ceilings were set. Some products were rationed if a shortage existed, especially gas and tires.

Today, with the conflict in Iraq, we can see the effects of profiteering and price gouging, especially in the petroleum trade. Great fortunes are being made.

We know what to do. Why do we not do it?

DICK LEMMON

Shoreline

Nothing wrong with a freedom crusade

I read John Santana’s “Liberals must stay on topic” (Enterprise, May 19). While I think John brought up some good points, I was curious what problem he had with freeing Tibet from a fascist, oppressive dictatorship that has been responsible for the deaths of many and greatly damaging the entire society? His implicit criticism of people who are working for freedom in Tibet at the end of his editorial was certainly puzzling.

GREG LOGAN

Shoreline