Vote for Tim Flock Tim Flock is, without a doubt, your next District 3 fire commissioner. He has served our country for 28 years in the Air Force and Air National Guard. That skilled training and dedication will help him fulfill the obligations presented as your next District 3 fire commissioner. Flock has been a volunteer firefighter for an impressive 32 years. He reached the rank of battalion chief after 12 years with Fire District 3. Flock is a people person and when we were evacuated from our home during a forest fire, Tim directed us to his own home where we safely waited out the evacuation order. That’s the caring person you need as your next District 3 fire commissioner. Flock will rise to the needs presented by the position. Staffing, funding and maintaining relationships within the position are already steadfast goals of Flock. Want to be on the winning side? Vote for Tim Flock, the next District 3 fire commissioner. Trudy L. Zaborski Spokane Re-elect Judge Mary Logan Spokane Municipal Court Judge Mary Logan deserves to retain her position. Judge Logan has worked tirelessly during her judicial career to serve the residents of Spokane. Her unwavering dedication to providing justice while always being mindful of being fair and reasonable is a rare trait. Judge Logan is a recognized and honored jurist locally, across our state and nationally. Her leadership related to therapeutic courts is unprecedented and the impact from those courts are profound. Consider just a few of the Community Court statistics through Aug. 31: • 1, 856 participants appeared in court. • 301 hours of community service were completed (representing over $4,800 in wage savings at minimum wage). • 43 participants engaged in in-patient treatment. • 152 new connections to Consistent Care. These are not just numbers. They represent real people who live in our community and are now receiving the services they need to keep them healthy, whole, and productive. As a seasoned fellow judge, I can assure you Judge Logan’s experience simply cannot be replaced. Her vision, commitment and enthusiasm have created tangible improvements to our city. In addition, Judge Logan was instrumental in launching the Municipal Court’s Veterans’ Court. Veterans who are involved in our criminal justice system often have unique needs and require a different approach to resolving their issues. Judge Logan’s work with those who have selflessly served our country is commendable. Hundreds of veterans have found a path to wholeness because of her commitment. Join me in voting for Judge Mary Logan. Jeffrey R. Smith Colbert City Council must address homelessness before parks and schools I find everything that is to be done if the vote passes a wonderful goal and wish list. However, I can’t vote for it. Until the city deals with the homeless situation (which our feckless mayor and the left-leaning members of the City Council fail to seriously address . can you say Proposition 1 . that passed overwhelmingly by a huge bipartisan margin and the will of the people was brushed aside) . and not just by doing another “study.” And when the city has a $13 million budget deficit plus long-term debt of $472 million and our streets are horrible, my thinking is we are currently not in a position to approve this vote! The flyer that just came does not even show the cost should this pass, but it does say it is “financially responsible.” Really? I have voted for schools repeatedly and my property taxes have doubled over the last few years. I think lots of tax money is coming in, but has it been spent wisely? $13 million budget deficit and they are advertising that parks and schools are financially responsible? Greg Schuster Spokane Vote ‘yes’ for parks, and yes for schools Back in 2008, while the rest of the country panicked and began to slash budgets left and right, Spokane voters approved a park bond and a school levy because this community believes in the future. Those votes were actually a driving force behind why my husband and I chose to move to Spokane. We wanted a place that believed in a brighter future a city filled with people who turned towards each other in tough times, rather than away from each other. Together, Spokane has done some really amazing things there is a reason that we’re still the smallest city to ever host a world’s fair. There is a reason that we have a park downtown now instead of a decrepit railroad yard. There is a reason that our schools are the envy of so many others and that is because we aren’t afraid to take on the tasks that keep us moving toward a stronger future. This November, vote “yes” for our future. Vote “yes” for parks and “yes” for schools. Heather Beebe-Stevens Spokane Palouse loses PBS Thanks to Michael Baumgartner’s vote on the Big Bankrupt Bill last summer, we’ve lost yet another PBS station. This one is on the WSU campus and serves mostly the Palouse region. When I wrote asking him to please not defund public broadcasting, he said he too watched PBS but thought the government shouldn’t be investing in it. He didn’t however answer why he voted for the government to be heavily investing in extending the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and gutting health care for the poorest among us. Stephen P. Cross Walla Walla Telis brings the same failed policies When I talk to people on the South Hill and I bring up the topic of downtown, inevitably the first thing people say is, “Oh, I don’t go downtown anymore. I don’t feel safe.” So, if you have not been downtown lately before you vote, please make a trip and drive around because you might be surprised how much worse it has gotten in just a few months. Drive around the Ridpath and witness the open drug use. Drive around the mess Catholic Charity has created. I walked up State Street between Second Avenue and Pacific last week, and it was like a scene from a third world country. Drive by Riverfront Park and view people passed out on the grass right across from City Hall. Drive by Rosauers in Browne’s Addition and view the RVs camped on the street. Kate Telis lives in an affluent South Hill neighborhood and doesn’t have to worry about people parked camping on her street. Nor should she. When I reported five public illegal camping sites several weeks ago to 311, only one case was resolved. That one was on the South Hill. The other sites in poor neighborhoods remain unresolved. Kate refused to participate in the Spokane Business Association’s candidate forum and also refused to attend a dinner where the previous Democratic mayor of Boise spoke on how they have dealt with homelessness issues. I don’t want more of the same failed policies. Vote for Alejandro Barrientos. Jan Jecha Spokane Judge Logan saves veterans Veterans facing criminal charges in our community face complex challenges including homelessness, addiction and mental health issues. As the Veterans’ Court Judge for Spokane Municipal Court, Judge Mary Logan balances accountability and compassion. Her commitment to employing evidence based therapeutic practices helps veterans to get back on track. Many of her Veterans’ Court graduates claim that without Judge Logan and Veterans Court, they may have taken their own lives. Sixty-seven graduates of the city and county veterans’ courts credit their successful participation with saving their lives. Our justice-involved veterans who graduate from the Veterans’ Court program return to being productive members of our community and have a lower recidivism rate than those who do not participate in Judge Logan’s program. Many of the veterans return to serve as mentors in the program. Our community is fortunate to have Judge Logan as a judge, and she has earned my support in her re-election efforts. Patrick Johnson Spokane We can vote to support Spokane Look at all the things we can do to make life better in Spokane: support our children’s education and progress in school, improve our wonderful parks and bring our neighborhood communities closer together! Our schools and parks have come together in new ways to build for a bright future for our children. We want to live in a place that supports us all, and this is an easy way to make it possible. Please add your vote to mine to spend the money on the Together Spokane bond and levy. Lee Dominey Spokane Support Rick Klingler for City Council in Liberty Lake Rick emphasizes listening to every voice, balancing economic growth with environmental protection, and maintaining the small-town charm Liberty Lake residents value. His key values integrity, accountability, collaboration, empathy, commitment and vision are the kinds of things we often hear but seldom see in practice. What sets Rick apart is that he doesn’t just promise change for its own sake. He stresses smart growth: planning for our city’s future with more housing, enhanced public services and infrastructure that will keep up with the pace of growth whilst preserving what drew many of us here in the first place. For a city facing the twin pressures of development and preserving quality of life, that kind of balanced perspective matters. I appreciate Rick’s commitment to transparency and honesty in decision-making. He acknowledges that trust in local government is earned. Given how often municipalities stumble in that area, his recognition of that fact is a positive sign. As someone who lives here, I believe Liberty Lake could use a council member who is forward-looking but grounded, who knows the value of community while also being practical about growth and change. Rick fits that description. In a city election like this one, voters have the opportunity to choose someone who can bring energy, voice, and thoughtful direction to the council. I urge my fellow residents of Liberty Lake to cast their vote for Rick Klingler. Shawna Deane Liberty Lake Proposition 1 overlooks root causes of homeless Sunday’s paper had a full-page ad showing which candidates are opposed to the implementing Spokane Business Association’s blueprint to curb camping, open drug use and restore public safety. Clearly there must be an error. Who wouldn’t be in favor of this? There are good reasons why Kate Telis, Sarah Dixit and Zack Zappone are standing for a different position. A deeper look goes back to Proposition 1 that 75% of the voters did pass, which would have put these enforcements into place. So, what happened? Proposition 1 was not a solution; it was a symptom of frustration. Reinstating its provisions, which ban encampments near schools and parks, may sound reasonable on paper, but in practice it pushes vulnerable people further into the margins without offering meaningful alternatives. The blueprint’s emphasis on enforcement over empathy ignores the reality that Spokane’s shelter system is already strained, and many individuals experiencing homelessness face barriers that can’t be solved by relocation or policing. While it claims to reflect the will of the voters, it dangerously oversimplifies a complex issue and risks criminalizing poverty rather than addressing its root causes. By refusing to commit to SBA’s Blueprint, Kate Telis, Sarah Dixit and Zack Zappone offer leadership that prioritizes housing, mental health services, and long-term support, not punitive measures that sweep the problem out of sight. Spokane deserves compassionate, evidence-based policy, not political theater disguised as public safety. Larry Stone paid huge bucks to defeat Telis. Why? Eileen Martin Spokane Baumgartner is clueless Rep. Michael Baumgartner was quoted in The Spokesman-Review (“Baumgartner says Democrats need to open government to continue talks,” Oct. 13) singing the party line that reopening of the government is totally up to Democrats, and there is no value in negotiations. He calls the shutdown “silliness.” Laid off government employees, military members missing paychecks, and everyday citizens missing out on government services probably think otherwise. But the most astonishing of his quotes is “we will spend something roughly on the order of $7 trillion this year from the federal government, while bringing in $5 trillion in revenue.” In early September, however, Trump said tariffs have already brought in $8 trillion in new revenue, a number that logically will continue to grow. So, who is being truthful here, Trump or Baumgartner? As a member of Congress, Baumgartner is responsible for government spending, but he clearly has no clue of what’s happening, or maybe he has just given up on his constitutional duty. By threatening health care for millions of Americans, he is squarely on the side of Republican death panels. No money for health care, but unlimited money for masked federal police and troops in the streets. In the end, according to Trump, we should be awash in money. There are hundreds of thousands fewer federal employees. Tariff dollars are rolling in. If Baumgartner was doing his job he would know where the money is going, but he does not. The fact that he thinks it is “silliness” that Americans have access to affordable health care is disqualifying. He needs to resign. Roger Haick Loon Lake Restore Spokane Spokane is on the wrong path. Persistent, rampant crime and homelessness, burgeoning deficits and leadership that prefers to lecture on national issues over solving local problems has to stop. We need to change course from failed policies that made Seattle a city to avoid and already cause businesses to say “anywhere but downtown” when considering locations in the Spokane area. Our city needs new, moderate leaders who embrace policies that produce results, not merely those passing ideological purity tests. Alejandro Barrientos and Chris Savage are two such candidates. Both bring common sense and pragmatism sorely lacking in their opponents. Alejandro’s business background will bring fiscal sensibility absent in the council’s progressive majority. By contrast, Kate Telis willingly agreed to headline “A Leftist Town Hall,” backing out from direct attendance only because she recognized the blowback it was creating. Communism and Socialism have destroyed every economy where implemented and are responsible for more death and misery than any other ideology in human history. Her willingness to cozy up to its proponents should disqualify her. Chris’ push to restore accountability and bring back law and order is long overdue. Zack Zappone’s first term focus was gerrymandering city council districts to protect his seat. He is now turning to Seattle-based progressive activists to bus in campaign supporters and resuscitate his political aspirations. Zack has failed Spokane and needs to go. This November, take a step towards restoring sanity and reclaiming our community. Vote Alejandro Barrientos and Chris Savage for City Council. Alan Nolan Colbert.
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2025/oct/21/letters-for-tuesday-october-21/