Homelessness: ‘Take a holistic approach’
Re: “Pallet CEO fears Seattle’s homelessness response going ‘backward’ ” (Oct. 2, Project Homeless):
The article about the demise of affordable housing company Pallet should open the eyes of county public housing and social service officials.
Former Gov. Christine Gregoire has criticized Washington’s high taxes.
Real, robust and cost-effective solutions to social problems must take a holistic approach — housing, long term drug treatment and job training.
If you teach a person to fish, they can care for themselves for their whole life — rather than bouncing in and out of social service programs.
Pallet founder and CEO Amy King made excellent, insightful points. I hope The Seattle Times follows her into her next endeavor.
Therese Howe, Richland
Barred owls: ‘Mother Nature knows best’
Re: “Killing of barred owls ready to begin in Oregon” (Oct. 3, Northwest):
I protest. Having recently returned from tiny Houston, Minn., location of the International Owl Center, I am more incensed than ever over man’s incessant meddling with nature.
My husband and I, and my in-laws, made the trek to Houston specifically for the opportunity to see live owls up close. During a presentation given by educator Jo Severson, the audience was asked which of the five owls we wanted Jo to walk around the room. By popular demand, “Pierce,” a barred owl, was chosen. As my brother-in-law later expressed, “It was the most magical part of the day” we spent at the IOC.
I adhere to the adage “Mother Nature knows best.” Let the owls themselves work it out, come what may.
Katy Koivastik, Kent
Sound Transit CEO: Demotion
Re: “Sound Transit CEO Constantine’s contract, bonus show disconnect” (Oct. 5, Opinion):
Far from deserving a raise and bonus, Sound Transit CEO Dow Constantine and his team should be demoted for the unreliable service Link light rail provides. Service interruptions and delays happen nearly daily. It’s far too risky to catch a flight or keep an appointment.
This is hardly the system we voted and paid a lot for.
Jim Russell, Seattle
Traffic safety: ‘Cameras make all of us drive more carefully’
Re: “SPD’s use of traffic cameras under scrutiny” (Sept. 30, A1):
Over 60 years of driving, I’ve been stopped for speeding several times and ticketed about half of those times. I have never contested a ticket.
Here’s why. One night in the 1970s, in the emergency department at Burien General Hospital, a young man hit by a careless driver died while I worked to save him. I couldn’t. I have never forgotten him.
Traffic cameras make all of us drive more carefully, because we know we will be caught.
Roughly 160 people die on King County roads each year. If paying another speeding ticket helps keep a few of them alive, I’m certainly not the only person who will take the deal.
Douwe Rienstra, M.D., Port Townsend
Political ads: Repay taxpayers
Re: “Trump doesn’t commit to repaying federal funds already spent on controversial ads” (Oct. 6, Nation):
Thank you, Mr. President, for your belated understanding of the laws surrounding campaign financing. It is laudable that from now on, you will obey these laws and instruct your MAGA PAC to pay for any future ads. But more needs to be done.
Please immediately reimburse the U.S. Treasury for the estimated $1.5 million in taxpayer funds that already have been used for this campaign. It could be more, so please also provide invoices and accounting records showing the extent of these charges as well as proof that you have indeed repaid the taxpayers in full.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Marcia Stedman, Bothell
Natural gas: Winter is coming
Re: “The geographic divide in WA natural gas usage” (Oct. 4, Data):
This is the situation as I see it. As the winter months approach, we can expect power outages to occur and as a gas customer, I will continue to enjoy heat and hot water in my home. If I depended on electric power I would have neither.
Until the power lines from my house to the power source are all under ground, I will never convert to electric heat.
Gary Weimann, Sammamish
Taxes: ‘Enough is enough’
Re: “King County approves new sales tax intended for shelter, rent assistance” (Oct. 7, Northwest):
So much for no taxation without representation. Yet another example of our unconstitutionally fearless leaders at all levels of government at work.
At all levels, the government already gets about 47% of my income from some tax, fee, license, etc. I was astonished when I did the calculations. They won’t stop until they have most of it, and I’m a retired guy on a pension, just struggling to keep my head above water.
I realize it costs something to live in this country, state, county and city, but enough is enough. I have to live on a budget, why don’t they? My wallet does not belong to them, although they think it does.
Mike Archer, Lake Forest Park
Delivery drones: A bad idea
Re: “Walmart drone deliveries coming to Seattle. Is Amazon next?” (Oct. 6, Business):
I enjoy the sound of birds in my garden and in my walks through the neighborhood. I don’t need to hear or see drones buzzing the skies delivering consumer goods. Drones take jobs away from drivers, disrupt wildlife, and are a major irritation to those of us who enjoy the outdoors.
Seattle should ban drones for package delivery. As we’re seeing with AI, just because a new technology is possible doesn’t mean we have to adopt it.
Brian Giddens, Seattle
AI: The wisdom of Asimov
Re: “Cantwell unveils AI safety framework as Congress stalls ahead of election” (Oct. 7, A1):
Here is an idea that may help with the general fear that artificial intelligence will eliminate us all. Writer and professor Isaac Asimov created these rules way back in 1942. The Laws of Robotics:
First Law: Robots cannot harm humans or allow them to come to harm through inaction.
Second Law: Robots must obey human orders, unless doing so conflicts with the First Law.
Third Law: Robots must protect themselves, provided this does not conflict with the higher laws.
The Zeroth Law (later added by Asimov which supersedes the other laws): A robot may not harm humanity or allow humanity to come to harm through inaction.
The laws are hierarchical. Now, substitute the name of the AI program for the word “robots” and you have the guardrails against AI taking over the world from humans or even eliminating humans altogether. Any AI program not using or adhering to these rules must be destroyed. Simple.
Dave Keizur, Auburn
Education: Support Ninth Grade Success Initiative
Re: “What does Washington get for its education spending?” (Sept. 29, Education Lab):
Tucked into this recent piece was the sentence, “Nearly 72% of ninth graders passed all their classes in 2025, a sign that they were on track to graduate in four years.” That means that more than 1 in 4 ninth graders (more than 23,000 students each year) are not on track to graduate. Worse, this masks significant disparities: Only half of our state’s Native American students are on track in ninth grade, and only 59% of Latino students. Across the state, there are entire schools where only a third of ninth graders are on track.
There is a research-backed approach that is addressing these disparities. The Ninth Grade Success Initiative helps educators identify struggling students quickly and coordinate supports before they fail classes.
The initiative has increased ninth grade on-track rates by 13 percentage points in six years while serving roughly 19,000 students statewide, at a cost of less than $175 per student. In schools employing this approach, 71% of Native American students and 67% of Latino students are on track.
The state would do well to expand efforts like the Ninth Grade Success Initiative that are delivering powerful results for students and schools statewide.
Liz Trautman, executive director, Stand for Children Washington, Seattle
Gun violence: ‘Show up’
Re: “After debacle that followed Bite of Seattle mass shooting, city must set a new course” (Sept. 29, Opinion):
I was at the Bite of Seattle when a community gathering became a tragedy. The editorial asks what our city must change now. I wonder what we could have changed before.
As a UW Medicine pediatric resident, I enter rooms where change feels impossible, constrained by funding, institutional demands and decisions whose consequences reach beyond their walls.
I enter emergency rooms where teenagers laugh through pain after being shot. I wonder where the gun came from, and how many rooms failed him before he reached ours.
Children rarely enter the rooms where food assistance funding disappears, public safety policies are written or immigration enforcement priorities shift. They still live with their consequences.
After a student’s death from gang violence devastated Toppenish in 2008, its Community Safety Network helped catalyze years of action to reduce violence. It worked because, regardless of budget, CSN continued showing up.
We cannot change every policy tomorrow, but we can show up sooner than the next tragedy.
The Seattle Freeze may be a myth, but as winter approaches and sends us behind our own doors, learn someone’s name. Ask their story. Remember it.
Then, when you enter a room where change is possible, say their name.
Jonathan Guihurt, Seattle
Immigration: ‘Selective memory’
Re: “When the crime is the search for a better life” (Oct. 1, Opinion):
Llewellyn King’s piece raises legitimate humanitarian concerns but conflates empathy with legal analysis. Deportation is not punishment. The Supreme Court established in Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893) that removal is a civil, regulatory act, not a criminal sentence. Enforcing existing law does not constitute a due process violation, however uncomfortable that enforcement may feel.
The “American Dream” narrative King invokes deserves honest historical scrutiny. That dream was never universally extended. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, celebrated liberal icon, refused entry to 937 Jewish passengers aboard the MS St. Louis, forcing them to sail back to Nazi Europe rather than admit them above existing quotas. Congress simultaneously killed the Wagner-Rogers Bill, which would have saved 20,000 Jewish children from persecution. Irish famine survivors were routinely subjected to strict quarantines at American ports on communicable disease grounds, while nativist movements campaigned openly against their admission.
Selective memory makes for moving rhetoric, but poor policy.
Deportation enforces the law; it does not manufacture cruelty. If current immigration policy produces unjust outcomes, the appropriate remedy is legislative reform, not selective nonenforcement dressed as compassion. Humanitarian concern deserves serious, honest debate. However, sentiment is not policy, and discomfort is not punishment.
Mark Flanery, Auburn
State’s tax code: ‘Skewed toward the wealthy’
Re: “Brokering a detente between business and Democrats in Olympia” (Sept. 27, Opinion):
Josh Farley’s column suggests that the progressive wing of Washington’s Democratic Party is implementing a “skewed” tax code that incenses businesses and supports a wasteful budget, but his commentary misses the mark.
Revenue raised from the millionaires’ tax will go back to families and small business, and will offset the cost of the healthcare, education and social services we desperately need while wealth inequality is higher than we have ever seen it. That’s a big win.
Washington’s tax code is skewed, but it’s skewed toward the wealthy. We have one of the most regressive tax policies in our country because we don’t have an income tax. That’s why we have to do anything we can to make sure the people who employ us pay their fair share. The government bears the responsibility for protecting its most important resource — its people. We all benefit together.
Coulter Keeler, MPH, Seattle, member of Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility Economic Inequity and Health Task Force
Lawsuits against state: Correct underlying problem
Kudos to Seattle Times political reporter Jim Brunner for keeping his eye on the prize and spotlight on the problem (“WA pays record sums to pricey private lawyers amid lawsuit explosion,” Oct. 5, Local News).
I hope, against hope, the 14-member Tort Study Committee seriously asks: Why not actually try to correct the underlying problem itself?
The state paid a record $614 million in lawsuit payouts and legal costs last year, including $43.6 million to outside law firms. Rather than simply limiting the consequences through shorter statutes of limitation, damage caps or other reforms, why not identify and fix the state agencies and employee failures generating these claims in the first place?
Given what the state attorney general’s office spends on outside defense counsel, why wouldn’t the state negotiate substantially better rates or fee caps? If this were a private company spending $43.6 million on outside lawyers, wouldn’t management demand a better deal?
A million here, $614 million there … when does the state recognize we’re talking real money? When it’s our taxpayer dollars, is there less incentive to control costs?
No amount of lawyering or task forces will fix this unless the organizational and employee shortfalls contributing to negligence and recklessness are identified and corrected.
Michael Goldenkranz, Seattle
