The Spokane Record

Ponder this. Certain county and city elected officials want to use $4.3 million of ConservationFutures Tax revenues for the purchase of the Downtown YMCA. The YMCA is to be torn down. It will cost $850,000 to tear it down. The YMCA and the demolition money will go away, into the ether.

Along the south bank of the Spokane River these officials are going to throw away the value of the building and the cost of demolition. The money for this will simply vanish. It will be the same as these officials going to the public’s bank and withdrawing $4.3 so that they can burn each dollar bill as a sort of celebration of Riverfront Park.

There something wrong with this, really wrong! Public officials cannot engage in a “gross waste of public funds.” And, that’s what this is a gross, very gross, waste of public funds.

And, it gets worse. The officials will be engaging in an act of malfeasance. They might even be personally liable.

The Spokane County assessor in 2009 assessed the YMCA property at $5,230,000. Of that $1,246,000 represented land, the remaining amount represented improvements of $3,984,000 — land was 24% of the value. Of the $5,300,000 YMCA purchase price, about 76% represents improvements or $4,028,000.

Our elected officials are going to tear down the improvements, demolish them. To do so, they will have to spend another $850,000. In the end, the building will be demolished and trucked away. In terms of dollars, $4,878,000 vanish. The value destroyed will not increase the value of the land The value of $1,246,000 will be a constant. So, in the end, our elected officials will have spent $6,150,000 to gain an asset worth $1,246,000.

There is something very wrong here.

It is wrong to use Conservation Futures Tax revenues for the purchase of this particular property. The laws simply do not allow it. But there is something worse, terribly worse, – certain of our elected officials are intent on simply throwing away some $4,878,000. Is it reasonable to think they can do this?

Does anyone think that the members of the Spokane City council could pass a law that said they could stand on the banks of the Spokane River and, one by one, burn 4,878,000 dollar bills obtained from the public treasury in celebration of a public display of affection for Riverfront Park?

As I watch the Spokane City Council meeting tonight the word “cant” comes to mind.  There seems to be a language used by our leaders.  One hears words like partnering, collaborative, public private partnership, moving forward and so on.  I bristle.  I suppose I am experiencing the insincerity of cant.

Some definitions of the word cant –  insincere, esp. conventional expressions of enthusiasm for high ideals, goodness, or piety; the phraseology peculiar to a particular class, party, profession, etc.: the cant of the fashion industry.

Several months ago the city Council called for a highest and best use study of the YMCA site. Well, now we have it, and here it is.

You remember the city and the county want to use conservation futures tax revenues for the purchase of the YMCA. Such taxes are to be used for only certain purposes such as the acquisition of open space so as to preserve the open space for future public park use. Regarding the YMCA the County and the city want to use the money, some $4.3 million to purchase the YMCA building which was a functioning YMCA not too long ago and which can be continued to be used for the purposes the YMCA was being used for and for other office purposes. The highest and best use study came to the conclusion that the YMCA property should be used as open space. That is that the YMCA should be torn down.

Think of it, the tax money is to be used to acquire open space but instead the tax money is going to be used to buy a building which is functioning and is going to cost some $5.3 million and then the city is going to spend an additional $830,000 to tear the building down to create open space.

If this goes through the city and County will have wasted about $6 million so as to acquire about three quarters of an acre of land in the city center. If the building is not worth $5.3 million then why would one spend so much money for. If the highest and best use is as open space then why would one not wait until such time as it would be sold as open space.

The only thing that makes sense is that elected officials are going to use public funds probably in violation of the law in order to generate money for the YMCA and in order to spend more money in order to get rid of what is they have purchased. How strange.

Often the Spokane City Council is beset with testimony from certain citizens who seem to have something to say about most issues which the council is addressing. These citizens do not seem to have a compass or a measuring rod with respect to the issues they take on or what they say about the issues. That is to say, their criticisms are not orderly, not relevant to anything, not tied to any long term point of view or goals. In essence most of their testimony is illegitimate. They have nothing to add to the debate, and in fact they usually hinder the debate. (They seem to have an easy time of baiting Joe Shogan, the Council President, or one or two of the council members.)

Debate is hindered when ad hominem attacks are made. An ad hominem attack or response in argument “consists of replying to an argument or a claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim.” Instead of responding to a position with a substantive statement, one relevant to the debate, the speaker simply claims that the other, “his antagonist” is a “bad person” of one kind or Another.

All too often, the persons who constantly give testimony fall into ad hominem attacks of the council or of “this or that” member of the council. The notion one gets is that the speaker has a need to see the council or a council member or two as a “bad persons.”

One wonders if the “bad person” label does not satisfy some inner need or desire in the psyche of the “constant speaker.” Perhaps a need to see the council as strong and at the same time mean and uncaring.

6:26 pm – missed the beginning of the meeting.  Council members McLaughlin, Allen, Corker and then Apple talked about neighborhood meetings and gatherings they have gone to. 

What is happening here?  Are neighborhoods the new political force in the city?  Or, does it seem that way because the council members need a forum for their presences from one Monday to the next Monday. 

Spending time pouring over the budget is not something council members do, even though they should.  At least their budget observations would be interesting and perhaps useful.  But back to the reports, . . . .

6:30 pm A council candidate stopped by to talk with me about the council and President Shogan and some of Shogan’s antics.

Before I knew what had happened the usual cast of characters were making statements to the council during the Public Comment session at the end of the meeting.

7:00 pm or so and the meeting was over.   It is August.

Boring — I wonder what is happening on the budget front?  The money people in the city are working on the budget.  Is the mayor involved.  I find it doubtful.  She is probably relying on staff.

Where is Mayor Mary Verner these days?  She is keeping a low profile but she has done that since the day she was elected. 

She has come into public view now and then.  The most recent viewing was when she came to the City Council to talk about the so-called “sustainability” plan she and others have cooked up at considerable public expense.  She was quite animated about that.

(The sustainabilty dialogue is interesting.  On the campaign trail many of the candidates talk about sustainability in the context of changing from one light bulb to another.  The city did this in 2003 as I recall, when I was on the council.  The city got thousands of dollars from Avista to make the change.  Another interesting fact about the mayor’s sustainablity discussion is thare is nothing said about the methane burners at the land fills in the city, nothing said about the emissions of the city incinerator, nothing said about the subsidation of the water use with the funds from the city power facility at the Upriver Dam.)

You do not see her involved in the Envision Spokane Community Bill of Rights fiasco.  Perhaps she is for it?  One can only suppose because she should have taken the leadership to ensure that the City Council did the right thing under the law to prepare a proper ballot title and summary statement for placement of the initiative on the ballot in November.  She did not and the ballot title and summary statement are as Envision Spokane has prepared them.  Since they are misleading the initiative has a better chance of passing.

The City Council, having shirked its job regarding the ballot title and summary of measure, has now voted to place two Envision Spokane Community Bill of Rights advisory propositions on the ballot with the intiative.  Here are the proposisitons:

RES 09-63  Relates to the advisory vote proposition asking the voters whether the City should pursue additional funding sources in order to fund the implementation of the provisions of the Envision Spokane Community Bill of Rights if approved by voters.

RES 09-64 Relates to the advisory vote proposition asking the voters whether the City should reduce funding in existing General Fund programs to reallocate funding in order to fund the implementation of the provisions of the Envision Spokane Community Bill of Rights if approved by voters. 

Its all pretty tacky.  See my previous post.

Seems to me a “strong leader” of the community would weigh in on these matters.

7:00 PM — It is good to see that Council President Joe Shogan is opening up the city council meetings a bit.  People should be less threatened when they speak to the council.

8:00 PM –  But, watching the council meeting, Mr. Shogan now keeps telling everyone as they come up to speak that they only have three minutes.  My compliments were premature.

9:03  Council Member Corker is raising good questions.  The issue is financial.  The question is whether we are going finance certain things over other things.  But, the real issue is whether we advance the core responsibilities of government or whether we go off in other directions.  The fact is Corker is correct, it is a question of economics and we need to understand this.  But, again, the discussion should not even be taking place because the city is not supposed to be doing what the Envision Spokane people think it should do.  The city does not have the power or the right to do what the Envision people want the government to do.

Live blogging the city council meetings.  An interesting concept.  I wonder what it would be like if a city council member live blogged as the council meeting took place.  Interesting.

 8:25  The council and the witnesses are discussing whether there will be costs to the Envision Spokane Communty Bill of Rights Initiative if passed.  There will be costs but the debate seems to say there may not be.   The real issue is whether the legislation proposed is appropriate.  It is not in my opinion.

The argument is going to the substance of the Initiative.  That is not the issue.

In a sense the discussion is good because it does serve to bring out an understanding of the Initiative.

8:34  Now Shogan has gotten upset and has said that a witness impugned his integrity.  He is upset and has now chastized the person who upset him and has called his police to come down and escort the man out of the chambers of the council.  The police will ignore him, I am sure.  The police do not want to waste their time filling out an unnecessary police report.  Shogan really has to figure out how things work.  How strange his conduct is.

8:46 — another witness speaks.  His comments are clearly irrelevant.  He is enjoying another moment on the television.  He speaks on every issue he can speak on before the council.  He has no real purpose but to put himself on television.  Yet, every now and then he comes up with a thought which causes one to think, that is if he is listening. 

8:49 another witness speaks about the goodness of the Community Bill of Rights.  The issues she speaks of are worthy of consideration but not in the context of an illegal initiative.  So, I wonder how do people cause change to come about.  The lady wants revolutionary change.  It is not going to happen in the way she would like it to happen.  Maybe something will come of all this.

9:09 a young man by the name of Bass? speaks.  A smart young man.  He will go far. He raised good question.

9:10 now a man who has problems speaks but indeed he has something to say too but it takes compassion and understanding to see it.  As he talks you begin to see what he is saying, what his concern is.  It seems all jumbled but he has something to say and he will not commit himself to taking a side.  Interesting. 

9:13 maybe I should have gone down to speak in oppostion to the resolutions.  It will still be a bad idea for the council to pass the resolutions.  It looks like it is going to, though.

9:14  Brenda Corbett speaks — it is good to see her stepping out and making her positions known.  She has much to say and it is good to see her becoming involved in public discussion.

The speakers are coming to an end.

9:15 Fayer the speaker says he likes Envision Spokane — he said it sounded great but who is going to pay for it.  He comes to the podium against the Initiative.  He is trying to be clever.  The question seems to be whether the  Initiative will cost or not cost money.  (Of course it is going to cost money.)  What he is saying is true, we do not have enough money coming in.

9:20 Kathy Moitke speaks — she says the rights will not cost anything and that each of the rights comes from the goals of the Comprehensive Plan (I doubt it).

This is getting tedious — I quit.

Tonight, August 3, 2009, the Spokane City Council is going to consider two resolutions regarding the Envision Spokane Community Bill of Rights Initiative, Initiative 2009-2.   Here are the resolutions being proposed:

RES 09-63  Relates to the advisory vote proposition asking the voters whether the City should pursue additional funding sources in order to fund the implementation of the provisions of the Envision Spokane Community Bill of Rights if approved by voters.

RES 09-64 Relates to the advisory vote proposition asking the voters whether the City should reduce funding in existing General Fund programs to reallocate funding in order to fund the implementation of the provisions of the Envision Spokane Community Bill of Rights if approved by voters.

 These proposed resolutions are beneath the dignity of the Spokane City Council.  They are nothing less than a political effort to defeat the Initiative.  The council would use its power to muck up the ballot for purely political reasons.  The resolutions are not legislation, they are misuse of the power of government for purposes of partisan political debate.

If the council was worth its salt it would have challenged whether the Initiative complied with the initiative requirements of the Spokane City Charter.  It did not and in doing so turned the initiative process into a logrolling free for all of legislation for and of “good things.”  Some council members have even suggested that the way in which Envision Spokane is making use of the initiative process is ”democracy.”  (These council members should take a course in civics and perhaps logic.  Or, maybe just read the city charter.)

The council should know that the initiative is illegal to its core.  Not only does it violate the single subject rule, fail to present amendments to the laws being changed in the proper form, have a ballot title and summary of measure which were not approved by the council as required by law, it seeks to create laws and rights which the people of Spokane have no right under the law to create. 

Initiative 2009-2 is shear nonsense.  And so are the resolutions to be discussed tonight.  No court in Washington would conclude that the Initiative is legal.  (This case will more than likely go to the Washington Supreme Court, and not Division III of the Court of Appeals (which has judges unlawfully elected to it – see this page and the Article to be found there).)

And there is another point which must be made.  What the council seeks to consider is exactly the sort of thing the Government Party thinks government should do.  The notion of the Government Party and its adherents (whether they be Republicans, Democrats, Capitalists, Marxists or proponents of Keynesian Economics by local governments which do not have resources to adopt fiscal policy or a money printing press for a monetary policy) is that government is to be used for the parochial power desires of the “current trustees” of the Government Party.

Spokane would do well if it gradually elected people to the City Council who were not members of the Government Party and instead who saw themselves as trustees of the public trust of the true government of the people of City of Spokane.

City Council Members, Council Meeting July 27, 2009

Besides the requirements if the City Charter, the city has laws which apply to the city initiative process. SMC Ch. 2.02. Envision Spokane did not use the Optional Initiative Filing Procedure. SMC 2.02.030.

Because it did not, the ballot title and summary of measure have not been decided upon as required by law where the city is to participate in the process to ensure legality of at least that much of the initiative.

Under the initiative laws the council has a role to play in the preparation of the ballot title and summary of measure which will be presented to the voters. Tonight you are supposed to decide the ballot title and summary of measure.  SMC 2.02.100(C). You are required by city law to do so. SMC 2.02.040(C). Instead, you are going to shirk your responsibility and put the matter on the ballot as is - with Envision Spokane’s ballot title and summary of measure. Both of which are unlawful. In doing so you will be providing Envision Spokane with vital strong assistance in getting this unlawful initiative passed in violation of city charter and now city initiative laws.

Respectfully,

Steve Eugster