I was disappointed with Russ Zabel's article regarding the City Council's decision to study a rental housing inspection program in Seattle ["City Council okays study of rental-housing inspection program," Dec. 26].
Zabel quoted me as saying: "The only argument I've heard against it is privacy." This quotation is truncated and inaccurate. I said that this was the only argument I had heard against it, but that the concern was completely misplaced in light of the ruling by the Washington Supreme Court that a Pasco-style inspection program does not involve a government intrusion.
As it stands, Zabel's short quotation suggests that I acknowledged that privacy was a countervailing consideration to rental inspection, when, in fact, my point to the City Council was that the [privacy] argument is a complete red herring.
Zabel's paraphrase of my remarks regarding enforcement of existing housing regulations is similarly misleading. Again, he cites my synopsis of the Rental Housing Association of Puget Sound's [RHA] argument in the course of rebutting, without including the rebuttal itself - namely that the existing complaint-based system has already proved a failure at enforcing existing regulations, which is why an inspection program is needed.
Once again, Zabel's incomplete characterization of my remarks makes it appear as if I was just acknowledging the RHA's arguments rather than refuting them.
Ian B. Crosby
Seattle
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