Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

‘Talbott should rethink his actions’

Tell Mayor John Talbott to get off his high horse! Doesn’t he know that what this town needs is a vital downtown? I have questions about the use of HUD money also. But it has been decided and the project has started. What does he think he will accomplish in Washington, D.C.? Make them pull the funds?

Stopping this project would destroy our downtown. Our people need this project. Take a look at what Vancouver, British Columbia, did. They re-did the downtown area and saved the local economy. Look at what Tacoma did several years back. To stop the drugs and crime in the downtown area, Tacomans overhauled their downtown.

Talbott should rethink his actions and take a good look at what is the best for everyone, not just a few non-progressive opponents.

My husband and I are small-business owners. This has been our home for more than 30 years. Our economy needs this boost to downtown. Maybe, being a retired colonel, or whatever, he doesn’t understand what the business factor in this town really needs. He obviously has never owned a business, especially in Spokane.

If he’s going to Washington, D.C., to represent our city, why did he not speak with the other council members about his intentions? We elected all of them to be our representatives, not just him and his opinion. Sheri L. Young Spokane

Talbott’s viewpoint should be city’s

I disagree with council members who think the mayor’s viewpoint shouldn’t be taken as an official position of the city of Spokane, not only because he is an elected official but because he was elected by a majority who repudiated the view that he was not representative of citizen concerns.

Secondly, if the subject project has the enthusiastic support of the citizens, it is from a mostly silent majority. With the exception of the parking garage, I would now like to see the project go forward, but only because it will be better than nothing, given that the previous structure has already been torn down. It’s not because I’m enthusiastic that it was the best revitalization that downtown Spokane could receive.

The mayor has a perfect right, even an obligation, to raise questions on behalf of his constituents. Otherwise, what is the point of having a mayor or even a democracy? Philip J. Mulligan Spokane

Fear of profiteers justified

Well, editor Chris Peck, I am heartened to know that you haven’t forgotten who signs your paycheck (“Fear shouldn’t shape future of Spokane,” Jan. 18). No one is surprised that you would fully support the River Park Square project.

Mayor John Talbott’s questioning of the financial arrangements, much of which are yet not clear to the majority of Spokane citizens, is wholly appropriate, given his responsibility to his constituents, who have tried, without success, to ask the very same questions. As for your allusion that our mayor is a civic terrorist, you should be ashamed. Wasn’t it the River Park Square developer who held this city hostage over HUD financing as the pivotal factor for the go-ahead for the River Park Square project? Speaking of terrorist tactics!

You spoke of fear. Would you care to know what I fear? I fear a community driven by a small group of self-serving, profiteering people who feel they can do as they please. People who see people like me as insignificant. People who don’t care that minimum-wage jobs are not the backbone of a local economy. This is about power. This is about an employer and developer so powerful that they can direct the affairs of our city government and tell the rest of us to fear those who would question them.

You said, “I think Spokane still can conduct a conversation about the kind of city it wants to be …” Does that conversation include Talbott? Does it include me? Wallace M. Clark-Keith Spokane

People don’t want progress sabotaged

Re: Mayor John Talbott’s stand on the redevelopment of River Park Square. As mayor of Spokane, he shows tunnel vision in trying to dissuade HUD from investing in our community. Can this mayor be so shortsighted as to deny Spokane positive, job-stimulating growth?

A vibrant downtown creates a base for economic and cultural growth. Housing, convention and tourist business, small retail shops, new and remodeled hotels all depend upon a strong downtown core.

Talbott would not be “protecting the taxpayers” by essentially eliminating a large part of that core. He would be sabotaging a plan initiated and supported by duly elected City Council members.

Spokane will lose millions of tax dollars if downtown redevelopment is not avidly pursued. It is hard to imagine what tax dollars the city will receive from a huge hole in the ground!

If this project is stopped, what incentives will be needed for other core development proposals?

Talbott spoke in his State of the City address about establishing trust in the city government. We urge him to begin pursuing this goal by trusting the work and conclusions of the rest of the City Council members.

We urge the silent majority in Spokane to support a much-maligned City Council that is trying to move us forward to becoming the dynamic community ours can be.

This must be a community that treasures the legacy of downtown and its glorious past, and builds on that past to create an exciting future. Jack and Jan Praxel, Ron and Marcia Yep Spokane

Talbott’s sin is crossing Cowleses

Opinion editor John Webster has a lot of gall writing the Jan. 18 editorial against Mayor John Talbott. To state that Dave Sabey is getting his money’s worth out of Talbott is defamation if I ever saw it.

I’ve known Talbott for 50 years, and I can tell you that he is in nobody’s pocket. To infer that he is is reprehensible. Talbott is owed an apology and retraction in your bird cage liner.

Editor Chris Peck’s column is no better. Both of these writers are of course employees of the Cowles family, which sees Talbott as a threat to its pet project of getting the members’ pockets lined with Spokane citizens’ money. Webster and Peck are using their positions and the power of the pen in an attempt to discredit Talbott.

Talbott is doing what he sees as the proper thing in the light that the Cowles family is trying to cram the River Park Square project down our throats without a vote of the people.

A lot of questions still need answering. The HUD money and the city’s participation in the Cowles parking garage will tie up any funds to be used on more-needed projects, such as fixing streets, well into the next century.

If the Cowles family is so intent on helping Spokane’s economy, why doesn’t it finance its own project completely, without asking for public funds, then donate parking garage receipts to the city for street repairs? That would give these people a lot more credibility in Spokane. F. Richard Bruya Spokane

Paper, not Talbott, on shaky ground

This paper uses advertisements this time of year on humanity toward other humans. Yet, with the blink of an eye, it spews out more hatred than those it pretends to despise.

The darts are aimed at Mayor John J. Talbott, simply because he asked the questions that should have been asked by the City Council, city staff or so-called investigative journalists long ago.

If ever fairness was intended, the mayor’s letter should have been published in its entirety for public review. When we talk about public-private partnership, that includes both parties. An outside accounting firm and three Gonzaga University professors cover the private part of the partnership, but where is the public part?

Are there guarantees of jobs for the 3rd District? Does the lease contain a pull-out clause for the major tenant if sales are weak?

Talbott merely stated, “I want full disclosure to the citizens of Spokane of the risks they are going to be exposed to on a worst-case basis …”

When we read that a council member was quoted as saying, “But I think he (Talbott) was out of line” or read that “Strings in Talbott’s back reach to Seattle …” climaxed with calling the mayor “one civic terrorist,” this delivers a crippling blow to the credibility of The Spokesman-Review. Edward Thomas Jr. Spokane

City assistance narrowly focused

Well, I see our “five stooges” on the City Council are already backstabbing our new mayor, John Talbott.

The mayor is now doing what should have been done at the start of the River Park Square fiasco in trying to clarify, to taxpayers, the potential loss to the city if the HUD loan should default (which basically the city is underwriting).

All council members should give him their full support and assistance in protecting taxpayers from liability for millions should the project default on the loan.

Ron Wells has done a beautiful job of restoring old buildings downtown, yet I don’t recall the city undersigning a loan to him. And how about the gorgeous hotel restored from old buildings at Sprague and Post? Did the city underwrite a loan to this gentleman? Cherie Rodgers is the only council member with the intelligence to realize she was elected to represent the whole city, not just one square block downtown.

I find it hard to rationalize the city basically underwriting a loan to just one business. E.A. Malone Spokane

So much for desire to get along

I personally don’t know if Mayor John Talbott’s strings reach clear to Seattle, but his interest surely isn’t in the health and vitality of the downtown he was elected to serve. Doesn’t he realize how expensive it would be to resurrect a vacant downtown compared to improving the modestly successful one we have? He apparently doesn’t, just as he doesn’t understand either his job or his word.

By his own word, he said he would like to improve communication between council and mayor. But by his deeds, mayor pro-tem selection and letter to HUD, he is doing quite the opposite.

The letter to HUD also indicates that he doesn’t even understand that under our form of local government, he is not a policy maker, only the official greeter. If a tie vote needs to be broken, then and only then does he enter into the decision making of our City Council. A good check and balance, considering who is mayor today.

Take a civics lesson, Talbott, and follow your own words about communications and getting along. Michael L. Senske, former freeholder

Talbott should seek full accounting

Since the financial agreements that will commit taxpayers to the River Park Square development are not public, is it proper for Mayor John Talbott to ask for information from the government officials that may provide the key loan? Are City Council members knowledgeable on the financial arrangements?

Is it true that private sector contributions to the $100 million project will be $1.15 million in cash and between $6 million and $7 million worth of real estate? That leaves more than 90 percent on the taxpayers’ tab. Who is stuck with repaying the HUD loan and to-be-issued bonds if this project fails financially? What are the total financial contributions and risks of the private and public sectors?

If Mayor Talbott did not ask questions, he would not be doing his job. K. Julian Powers Spokane