One City Hall proposal catches architect's eye

I have been attending meetings and following the Whitefish City Hall and Parking Garage project for the past few years as the issue has been at the forefront of council business.  

This project will be important for the business and character of downtown Whitefish and deserves the attention it has received. As we all know, it is the focal point of the community. As an architect, I am familiar with this corner and have been fortunate to have worked on the renovation for the Old Credit Union into the city offices and the renovation of the old library into the council and court chambers so I understand the dynamics of this site.

The architectural proposals for this site are excellent and offer many good ideas. I thank these firms for their efforts and appreciate the designs. However, one design stands away from the others. The concept that allows the City Hall to stand alone as a civic icon is exceptional. This proposal places parking underground and at street level and only at the cost of 50 parking spaces and saves $3 million (architect’s estimate) from the proposed budget.  

This design allows sunlight to penetrate along the alleyway and adjacent shops. The City Hall will have views to the mountains and light penetrating into the building, something we can appreciate during the dark days of winter. This City Hall design recognizes the beauty of this place and the importance of the city center, not overwhelmed by a massive parking structure that will cast shadows over the walkways and dominate the City Hall. Also, there is room for expansion for the City Hall if needed in the future.   

This concept will allow landscaped walkways that buffer the cars parked at street level. The surface parking is more likely to be used by local citizens. It would also allow some of the savings derived from this concept to be used for solar photovoltaics on the roof for the garage lighting and to supplement the operation of City Hall. The city could also use some of this savings to purchase satellite landscaped parking lots, thereby distributing parking around the downtown business district for adjacent shops, restaurants and offices. —Douglas Rhodes, Whitefish

State can’t give ceded rights back to tribes

 In trying to review the status of those who believe they should have a seat at the table in the current Water Rights grab in Western Montana, I am drawn back to a couple of legal, historical documents: the Treaty of Hellgate of 1855 and the Montana Constitution of 1972.

Article I of the Hellgate treaty reads: “The said confederated tribes of Indians hereby cede, relinquish, and convey to the United States all their right, title, and interest in and to the country occupied or claimed by them, bounded and described as follows, to wit:”

Article I of the Montana Constitution reads: “All provisions of the enabling act of Congress, as amended and of Ordinance No. 1, appended to the Constitution of the state of Montana and approved February 22, 1889, including the agreement and declaration that all lands owned or held by any Indian or Indian tribes shall remain under the absolute jusridiction and control of the congress of the United States, continue in full force and effect until revoked by the consent of the United States and the people of Montana.”

Every inch of land that the affected Indians had once possessed was given to the federal government and most of it, eventually to the individual states as they became states. The “trust land” within the reservations is federal land, under the “absolute jurisdiction and complete control of congress.”

By our state Constitution, even non-trust land, owned by any Indian, is considered to be under control of the Congress. Interesting, wouldn’t you say? —Michael Gale, Ronan

Non-religious will prevail in America

As a new subscriber to the Daily Inter Lake, it was good to know that Editor Frank Miele and I have at least one thing in common: Neither of us watches “Duck Dynasty.” (“Editor’s 2 Cents” column, Dec. 22) Then again, I don’t have to watch “Duck Dynasty” when I can watch Frank Miele.

“Homosexuality is either moral or immoral; it can’t be both,” writes Miele. Except for the underlying bigotry, that’s  as insipid as saying, “Prefering Coca-Cola to Pepsi is either moral or immoral; it can’t be both.” As a secular humanist, I don’t understand why anyone would care that much about other people’s sexual practices.

This demonstrates the religious right’s obsession with sex. Consider the original sin itself: having sex. Then there’s the “virgin birth” (apparently using one’s God-given reproductive system to make babies is sinful), sodomy, premarital sex, extramarital sex...

Later, Miele claims that every stable society “has had a set of shared rules and mores... so that every new member of society is indoctrinated to believe without question the truth of that society’s values, morals and customs.” The “truth” they are taught is that others’ values and religious beliefs are untrue.

To non-Christians, this is really scary. Connect the dots between this and the later twisted statement about “those who want to outlaw Christianity” (right-wing code for not wanting Christianity to be enacted into law) and you arrive at a theocracy.

What Miele should know is that even though Christians reproduce at a higher rate than atheists and secular humanists, public-opinion poll after public-opinion poll shows that the number of non-religious in America is on the rise.

We’re out here, and we will not allow the United States to be turned into a Christian theocracy. —Richard E. Wackrow, Whitefish

Reader offended     by anti-Christmas           ‘ideologues’

Political correctness tried to flex its muscles two weeks ago when an official from the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute stopped a briefing of Camp Shelby, Miss., soldiers, saying they had to call their annual Christmas football tournament the “holiday tournament.”

 The Equal Opportunity officer said that according to Army rules, using the forbidden word is OK for individuals, but not for the Army, or organizations within it, because not everyone celebrates Christmas. Responding to that allegation, Camp Shelby Public Affairs Chief Amanda Glenn replied that no such policy exists.

The small, secularist minority has succeeded in outlawing public displays of Christian icons, public prayer, and even application of biblical values in child-rearing in many places, citing concern that such excesses might offend someone.

Well, I, and millions like me, get offended when a few ideologues succeed in alienating our “unalienable” Constitutional rights, for which our forefathers and hundreds of thousands of other patriots suffered and died. I pray that restoring those rights will not require another bloody, American Revolution.

Thompson is a resident of Kalispell