Local Politics Wades Deeper Into The Mire

What’s the biggest problem threatening Spokane’s future?

Fractured, feuding, flawed local government.

That’s the answer given again and again to a consultant hired by the Spokane Area Economic Development Council.

Steve Jenkins, senior vice president of the Pace Group, was stunned by what he heard over the last few days.

Jenkins interviewed dozens of community leaders in Spokane as part of his company’s effort to help Spokane develop a business retention and expansion strategy for the next decade.

The good news is that people here have long, varied lists of what the metropolitan area has going for it: a first-rate quality of life, willing work force, great neighborhoods to live, work, and raise a family.

The bad news is that the antics of local government officials and their critics are in danger of mucking it up.

The increasingly secretive, power-grabbing politics of the Spokane County commissioners, and the bizarre pronouncements from one member of the Spokane City Council who seems to be allied with the unyielding and unreasonable protests of a handful of anti-government gadflies made consultant Jenkins take notice.

“There hasn’t been one of my interviews who has given the public sector good marks,” Jenkins said. “This is a major community problem.”

Sometimes an outsider can pick up signals that have numbed local antennae.

The regular circus acts performed by local government, which seems evermore intent on blasting people out of cannons and then missing the net, too often hit with a thud and without much impact.

We need to look back into the center ring.

Consider what has happened in just the last few days: Spokane County Commissioners gutted the county planning department.

Just as the city and county are about to enter a crucial phase of planning for the next decade under the state-mandated Growth Management Act, the commissioners fired John Mercer, the one county employee who knows the most about planning, zoning and growth patterns.

Spokane City Councilman Chris Anderson tried to torpedo the council’s well-conceived effort to engage citizens in a discussion over budget priorities.

As the rest of the City Council was meeting with 29 citizen leaders for the Community Partners project designed to decide how the city should be spending its $300 million budget, Anderson was cavorting outside with protesters upset about the $10-a-plate breakfast the city put on for the event.

The circus has become the main show and we’re not taking notice.

It’s time to snap out of this stupor.

As economic consultant Jenkins notes, business and economic development can be harmed when local government is lurching and stumbling rather than working with efficiency and purpose.

More than that, some really dumb things can result when the public is distracted, disgusted or disinterested in what is happening down at the courthouse and City Hall.

This isn’t the time for really dumb things in government.

Over the next few months, the pressures to be efficient will only grow more intense.

Spokane city and county government budget officers already project they will be operating on the same budgets, or less money next year.

Though the pie won’t be growing, many city and county employees will try to negotiate a larger slice of it as part of new salary contracts that will be negotiated next year.

And, just as important, the need for government services will also continue to grow.

Remember what is happening in Washington, D.C., right now. Every analysis of the the short-term effects of the budget cuts now approved by Congress points to greater pressure on local governments to provide services.

“No bozos in local government” should be our battle cry.

Unfortunately, there appears to be much bozo-like activity out there.

The meat ax is flying in the county courthouse as commissioners indiscriminately set upon themselves and hack away at needed functions of county government.

Over at City Hall, despite the best efforts of the mayor and most of the city council, paralysis continues to creep from project to project as a few agitators and Councilman Anderson make every good idea feel as painful as a 1950s root canal.

Remember, it’s only four months until the vote on a combined citycounty charter, a plan that would bring new leadership and efficiency to local government.

In other words, we don’t have to do it this way forever.

, DataTimes MEMO: Chris Peck is the Editor of The Spokesman-Review. His column appears each Sunday on the Perspective page.