Parts of a draft of Spokane Valley's new comprehensive plan and development regulations will be presented at an open house at CenterPlace, Thursday evening from 6-8 p.m. The plan was presented at Tuesday's City Council meeting and may be adopted before Thanksgiving. 

It got very few comments from the dais Tuesday night, except praise for being written in "plain English" and for being a relatively small document at 160-some pages. 

The council also engaged in a brief conversation about the John Wayne Pioneer Trail. The trail is the largest rails-to-trials conversion in the nation and it runs about 300 miles from the Idaho border near Tekoa to Bend, Oregon. The city of Tekoa is seeking support for the trail which is popular with cyclists but has been controversial with some landowners.

The council expressed casual agreement that support was in order as long as it wouldn't get expensive. 

And finally the city council approved its legislative agenda: Spokane Valley supports legislation that will allow the conversion of irrigation rights to municipal water rights; it seeks state funding for the $36 million Barker Road Grade Separation (the city has raised $9.8 million of the total already); it seeks around $1.2 million in state funding to finish landscaping along the Appleway Trail and seeks to preserve the state revenues (like a share of the liquor sales tax) it already receives. And finally, Spokane Valley seeks to protect local businesses by easing the state regulatory burden, mainly the B & O tax and the L & I program. 

 

 

---

---