Government access scaled back

Spokane County commissioners will now hold just one evening hearing a month instead of two.

They dismantled a volunteer development task force and are revamping county boards and commissions. In Spokane, residents who live just outside city limits were booted from the city’s neighborhood councils, while other neighborhoods have had trouble presenting their views to the Spokane Valley City Council.

It’s getting more difficult for neighborhood groups to take part in the government decisions that are impacting them.

“Since this last election the perception is there’s a concerted effort to limit the amount of public participation on voluntary boards, and to discourage longtime volunteers from continuing to participate,” said Martena Peterson, vice president of Northwood Neighbors.

Although local politicians insist they remain open to working with citizen groups, Peterson and others contend a series of government actions over the past two months suggest otherwise. Peterson fears that with less citizen participation on land-use decisions, the Spokane area’s livability could suffer.

The concern is spreading.

“I think it’s something that should raise some questions for sure,” said Blaine Garvin, a Gonzaga University political science professor. “My suspicion is that a pro-development board of commissioners is less interested in avenues for the public to raise complaints, because those complaints usually get in the way of development.”

Government leaders suggest people are reading too much into their recent decisions.

County Commissioners Todd Mielke and Mark Richard, for example, say they welcome public input.

“If I cut off access, then I ought to be unelected,” said Richard.

Mielke added that he just met with Peterson and members of the Northwood Neighborhood to discuss their concerns about a development planned for their area, and few people take advantage of the 15-minute public comment period during the commissioners’ evening hearings.

“If there were people making comments at every meeting, I could understand why they would be upset, and I wouldn’t have supported the change,” Richard said of the decision to go from 5 p.m. commission meetings every other week to one meeting a month.

As for the disbanding of the development task force, Mielke said it had accomplished the tasks it was created to perform.

“If we really value time, why have meetings simply for the sake of having meetings?” he said, adding that commissioners have reserved the right to call the panel back when issues warrant its input.

Proponents of keeping the task force in place said it was one of the few avenues for county staff, developers and neighborhoods to all sit down together on a regular basis.

Commissioners have delayed making a decision on whether to reduce the size of the Planning Commission. They say staff recommended the reduction from seven to five members because there is less work for the group to do.

Members of the panel, however, say they remain busy. Some critics of the proposal have accused the commissioners of using the remodel as a way to get rid of members who disagree with developers.

Changes also are afoot at the city of Spokane.

Earlier this month, the Spokane City Council voted 4-3 to remove noncity residents from five neighborhood councils. The chief proponent, Councilman Al French, said he wanted to concentrate city resources on city neighborhoods only, rather than allowing county residents in those neighborhoods the opportunity to push their own agendas. He said neighborhood council membership could become an incentive for county residents to annex their unincorporated areas into the city.

The proposal ran into strong opposition from leaders in four of the affected neighborhoods.

“This is a bad ordinance that smacks of segregation,” Kathy Miotke, chair of the Five Mile Prairie Association, told council members prior to the vote on March 7.

Last week, she said the association will continue to meet as a city-county organization since it has common concerns about traffic, growth, schools, parks and community facilities. However, city residents who are members of the association now must also form a separate neighborhood council to comply with the new ordinance.

“We feel like we are being penalized and we are not sure why,” she said, adding that it appeared the council was trying to weaken the voice of the larger neighborhood.

In Spokane Valley, a North Greenacres neighborhood leader recently was abruptly taken off the City Council’s meeting agenda.

Mary Pollard had planned a 10-minute presentation to keep the council abreast of the neighborhood plan her area was developing and had been told two weeks prior to the meeting that she was on the agenda.

The morning of the meeting, Mayor Diana Wilhite called her to say the council meeting wasn’t the appropriate venue for the topic. Instead, the report should go first to the planning commission.

Allowing one neighborhood the presentation time, “would then mean that everyone that had a neighborhood plan or a concern about it should be allowed to do that,” Wilhite told The Spokesman-Review.

Occasionally, at other council meetings, citizen input has been curtailed due to what seems like confusion over council policies.

At regular meetings, the public is given time to comment on any subject not already on the agenda. Action items also have an allotted time for citizen input.

There are some topics, though, that are on a portion of the agenda that don’t have comment time built in, and, at times, citizens walk away from the meeting frustrated because their voice wasn’t heard.

Local League of Women Voters President Alice Stolz said she encourages citizens to get involved in the governmental process.

“I have found elected officials for the most part to be approachable, so I have no reason to think the county commissioners would be otherwise,” Stolz said.

Both Richard and Mielke said they have had few complaints about the changes, suggesting that the Neighborhood Alliance and Mager have been behind the controversy.

“I’ve not had one phone call or e-mail of concern,” Richard said.

Mager said that pointing fingers at her is just a way to marginalize the issue.

“We’re going to continue monitoring the county commissioners,” she said, “and we will be attending public meetings and looking for opportunities to work with them on issues for the betterment of the community.”