Government Needs Shelter From Greed

Business conservatives often preach that the state should run its affairs like a business. But they appreciate sleazy politics when their selfish interests are at stake. Consider, for instance, the attempt by business predators to sabotage plans for a state office building in Spokane.

State agencies rent office space here, at scattered locations. The state believes it would save money by moving some of those agencies into a single, state-owned building.

That is a reasonable belief. Ownership’s an investment; rent throws money away. Also, in a consolidated building common areas such as meeting rooms could be shared, reducing costly space requirements.

Accordingly, the state invited developers to bid for its building proposal. Some did. Spokane’s Metropolitan Mortgage won, with a proposal offering fringe benefits for the community as well as longterm cost benefits for the state.

The fringe benefits include anchoring a major redevelopment of the north river bank; enlarging the population of downtown office workers, who support downtown merchants; adding state government to a campus-like, riverbank office cluster where citizens could find one-stop shopping with government.

The key issue, however, is whether this would be a good deal for the taxpayers of Washington. By definition, it should be. The state contends ownership costs, at first, would be slightly lower than current rental costs. After the construction loan is repaid, ownership becomes far cheaper than endless rental.

So what’s the problem? The biggest problem is that state government is vulnerable to political second-guessing. Rather than awarding a bid and sticking to it as the private sector does, the state then sends it through a political gantlet. Landlords who don’t want to lose state-agency tenants, plus an unsuccessful bidder for the building project, are lobbying the Legislature to discredit Metropolitan’s plan.

They’ve prepared pages of statistics suggesting it’s a bad deal. The statistics rest on a shaky foundation. For example, the landlords’ calculations understate the rate of increase in rental costs. In a chart obtained from the state they omit crucial data that contradicts their point. They assume, wrongly, that the state building would owe property taxes.

Certainly, legislators should satisfy themselves this would be a good long-term deal for the taxpayers. But they also must remember where the criticism is coming from, and keep their eye on the interests of state as a whole.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board