Re: “Bridge suicide fence planned” (TNT, 12-19).
I believe in welfare for those who truly cannot find a job, afford health care or find a place to live. It is human nature to want to help others less fortunate. However, people intent on suicide are not less fortunate; they are mentally disturbed.
Spending $1.4 million to erect an 8-foot-high suicide-prevention fence on Seattle’s Aurora Bridge, as our governor proposes, is an absolute waste of taxpayer dollars.
The city has already wasted money by installing emergency phones and signs on the bridge to deter suicides. How many phone calls were made over the past year? And signs to deter suicide? Come on!
It appears that the owners of the trendy offices and shops below the bridge are influential enough to bend some ears in Olympia to do something about jumpers falling on or near their establishments. Jumpers are bad for business.
What happened to common sense in government? People intent on suicide will just go elsewhere to end their lives or just step out into traffic on the bridge. You can’t save all the people all the time.
