The next day (why not that night) The deputy could not come in and explain because he already had planned a vacation.   He did not want to miss it.   The sheriff had approved the vacation ahead of time (ahead of death of the pastor — green-houseman?).  The sheriff did not press the point.

The whole town wants to know what happened. 

Now, the whole town also wants to know why a vacation has more meaning than the need to deal with the tragedy.  That the vacation has taken  precedence over the need to deal with, understand, respect and revere, the tragedy of the event, is more than the human mind can bear.  That the vacation is more important than the need to immediately explain why a beloved soul lost his life is beyond comprehension.  It is more than the human mind can understand.

No doubt there is a tragedy here.  But, now there is the freightening notion that police officials take their jobs so objectively, so clinically, that a vacation is more important than the need for the community to understand and come to terms with the reality of what has happened.

One senses there is a dark movement taking place these days in the evolution of our community.  I wish it were that I that I am wrong.  But, I think not.

Who would take a vacation when he had just been involved in the death of another human being?  When the bullet(s) from his gun had caused the death of an innocent soul!  My Lord, what are we coming to!

How did all of this come about?  I fear many of the claims are illegitimate.  I also fear the people deciding whether a claim is valid or not valid are not able to decide and are inclined to decide in favor of the claimant.  I doubt they really have the ability to know, and are making decisions which are . . . .  (. . . politically correct? — I do not know, but I worry).

What we do know is this:  Kenneth Putman made a claim in the bankruptcy and gained hundreds of thousands.  When he presented a claim (the same claim?) in the Morning Star Boys Ranch case this past spring, the jury decided he did not have a case.  To anyone observing the trial, it was obvious Mr. Putnam did not have a case.  In fact, one shuddered at the shear audacity of the claim.

We hate the notion that priests took advantage of young boys and men.  It is disgusting!  But, are plaintiffs and their lawyers trying to take advantage of the faithful?

Another Morning Star case is coming up for trial.  I think it is set for the 13th of September in Judge Kathleen O’ Connor’s court.  It will be well for us to observe.  Maybe we will gain more knowledge about the current run on the assets of the faithful in Spokane.

One wonders why so many Catholics in our community are so silent.  And, one wonders who so many lawyers, trained at Gonzaga Law School, are so reticent to say something, anything.  What gives?

More government spending will not solve our problem.  In fact, the spending is going to make our problem worse, more intractable.  Why?  Because we cannot afford the debt service on the new spending and because we there is not money enough coming in to pay off the debt.

Our government thinks spending on its credit cards will be just fine.  But without a sure source for repayment we will have instability.  We are planting the seeds of our destruction.  We “want peace in our time” — we want immediate satisfaction.  It will not happen because a new future has to be made.  Our past cannot be recreated.  We have to pass through real economic change, a revolution of change.  Instead of this revolution of our economy, the people of the government party, want the government to take over more and more segments of our society, of our economy.  The government party seeks a “national socialism.”  The only way this brave new world will be able to sustain itself will be for government to expand into ever greater taxes on the fewer and fewer people who have real incomes.

The best approach would be to start paying the price of the creation of a real economy.  An economy where goods and services have real value.  An economy based in large part on the power of workers and investors to create real things.  An economy which is not based on illusion.

The tax is an excise tax. I have never heard of an excise tax on income before. The notion is that if you make a certain amount of money, or beyond a certain amount of money in the case of No. 1077 you are going to pay a tax, an excise. Why is that not simply an income tax?

Who is going to pay the tax? People who are rich in income. The income amount starts at $200,000 for an individual and $400,000 for a couple. More on this at this Seattle Times article.

The initiative is betting on the success of a shear politics. The people who are going to pay the tax will not sign it or vote for it if it gets on the ballot. They are sorely outnumbered by other people who will sign it and who will vote for it. These people are predominantly the group the proponents of the initiative would like to give benefits to – property owners whose property taxes will go down and small business owners and their supporters who will become exempt from business and occupation taxes.

It looks a lot like the hope of the legislation is that the have nots will pass laws so as to get benefits at the expense of the others who have money but less political clout.

This reminds me of a book called the Theory of Social Evolution written in 1913 by Brooks Adams, the great-grand son of our second President, John Adams. The essence of The Theory of Social Evolution can be found in the introduction to the work at Librivox:

He believed that commercial civilizations rise and fall in predictable cycles. First, masses of people draw together in large population centers and engage in commercial activities. As their desire for wealth grows, they discard spiritual and creative values. Their greed leads to distrust and dishonesty, and eventually the society crumbles.

With regard to the initiative – the forces of greed certainly play a role. On the one hand there are those who have money, who have gained the best of the economy, and on the other,  those who do not have money but have superior political strength, those who desire more wealth for themselves by taking it from others.  The initiative, I think, is a form of legitimized theft.

It will be interesting to see how this initiative plays itself out.

What we witness here is the misuse, the illegal use, of tax revenues for an impermissible purpose.  The city and the county are merely raiding the Conservation Futures Tax account to pay off a loan the city of Spokane has incurred and which it does not want to pay.

It is time to replace Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney Steve Tucker and his Chief Civil Deputy, James Emacio. Mr. Tucker is in charge of the entire office of prosecuting attorney but he defers completely to Mr. Emacio regarding the civil side of the office. We now know there are grave problems in the Office of the Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney. Here is a listing of a few of these problems:

Morning Star Boys Ranch – Fraudulent Claims? Mr. Tucker has been asked to seek a special inquiry judge to look into whether there is not a conspiracy to defraud Morning Star Boys Ranch with false sex abuse claims. See this letter to Mr. Tucker.

River Park Square. River Park Square has been a critical point in the history of the city and county of Spokane. Mr. Tucker was asked to take action, to call for a special inquiry judge, to cause a grand jury to be empaneled, to explore whether the state RICO act had been violated, was implicated. He failed to take action. He failed to even really consider taking action. See this Brief Summary of River Park Square dated May 14, 2007.

The Yates Case – for years we had a serial killer of young women in our midst. Mr. Tucker avoided the serious issue of the death penalty in the matter, passing it on to others.

The Death of Jo Ellen Savage. Without a doubt there were strong indications that a crime had been committed regarding the tragic death of Jo Ellen Savage at the River Park Square Parking Garage. The facts were clear that the spandrels did not act as safety barriers, that they were defective, that they had failed in the past, that the owners knew of the failures, that the owners had been advised by engineers that the spandrels were a danger, and it was apparent that the spandrel which failed was improperly designed or manufactured. Mr. Tucker was asked to take action. He did not. Now he is being asked again. He will not act. See materials under the heading Jo Ellen Savage Death at River Park Square at this link.

Prosecution of Eileen Jensen, Yet No Prosecution of RPS Garage Owners. See this letter regarding the disconnect of prosecutorial morality. Letter to S. Tucker of February 9, 2009.

Mortgage Skimming and Fraud. Over the past several years there has been a good deal of mortgage fraud taking place in Spokane County. Mr. Tucker has turned a blind eye to the problem and has relied on the United States Attorney to take action.

Conservation Futures Taxes and the Downtown YMCA. The law of the state of Washington does not allow precious conservation futures tax revenues to be used for the purchase of developed property which is to be torn down. Yet, Mr. Tucker and Mr. Emacio think it does. When they should be enforcing the law and protecting tax resources and ensuring they are used for proper purposes, they wish to bend the law and help who?– a politically correct faction in Spokane which thinks tax revenue can be spent for any “Government Party” purpose? Just how much political correctness, political faddishness, can our community sustain? See the materials at this link. Mr. Emacio is at the heart of this Machiavellian power grab.

The Spokane Airways Case – a great deal of trouble is brewing regarding the Spokane Airport Board, a joint venture of the County of Spokane and the City of Spokane. Spokane Airways has filed a claim with the County for the ill treatment it has received and which it is enduring. At the center of the complaint is a host of attorney conflicts of interest which have cost the city and the county hundreds of thousands of dollars – Mr. Emacio is in the center of this dust-up. See the Claim Filed by Spokane Airways dated January 11, 2010.

The Orville Moe Raceway – this property never should have been purchased. It is an environmental hazard, the business the county seeks to be in with regard to it is simply not the sort of business a public entity should be involved in, it is a vanity project on the part of county commissioners drunk with the power to spend public money, and it is a project Mr. Tucker and Mr. Emacio have no business providing legal services for – it is way out of their league. Way out of their realm of expertise. You may ask, why is the county on the hook for debts the previous operator ran up? That’s bad legal work folks.

Land acquisitions in the West Plains Area. What is this all about? As best one can tell, the land acquisition and new railroad is a highly expensive open space which will be kept out of the hands of private capital. But, I forgot, it looks as though the railroad line is being used as a storage yard for various railroad cars which are not in use – many are tankers (one wonders whether they are filled with something?). Senseless, all unless of course one thinks that the legal leadership of the county should be actively involved in helping the county take more land out of the hands of private property owners. The public as entrepreneur? Heaven help us all! ]]> http://www.spokanerecord.com/?feed=rss2&p=582 http://www.spokanerecord.com/?p=578 http://www.spokanerecord.com/?p=578#comments Sun, 24 Jan 2010 14:42:10 +0000 Steve Eugster http://www.spokanerecord.com/?p=578 I drive south on Highway 195 most every day.  As I pass the its intersection at the Cheney-Spokane Road I notice that more and more tributes and remembrances are being placed at the intersection where a 16 year old girl was killed in an auto accident several months ago.  Every time I pass by I think how sad and how senseless her death was.  It probably would not have happened had government been more wise about controlling traffic at the intersection.  It probably would not have happened had government been more cautious.  It probably would not have happened if one or two people in government  stood up and said something, said what needed to be done to better to protect people driving vehicles at the intersection. 

The intersection controls, the way the intersection was managed, was a product of the thinking of people who act as members of groups within government.  Had one or more members of the groups expressed concern and had stood up for the concern expressed, the young lady would probably be alive today.

Yesterday, for the very first time in the years I have travelled through the intersection I saw a police officer checking the speed of the northbound traffic with a radar gun.  That’s something I thought.  But why is the speed limit 55 mph at the intersection?  Why does government require that speed when it would be more reasonable for all concerned to reduce it to protect all the people who use the intersection? Why? 

What motivates people who are making the decisions?  I suspect it is the notion of the group, the “we”, the collective mind, over the notion of the individual mind, over the notion of elemental good sense. It is as if the we has a right to be unreasonable.  It is the notion that the we has a right to act such that some affected by the decision are to unnecessarily suffer.  It is as if there is a sort of ongoing government condemnation, a taking, which operates within the force of the government which is controlled by a certain government party mindset.  And then I ask, who is this government party?  Is there something the people who are in the groups who control the government have in common with one another?  I suspect one common element is that these people do not speak for themselves very often and pretty much yield to the mindset of the group when they do – they are not courageous.

Quite unbeleivable.  And, terribly sad.  What are we becoming?