Spokane Valley taking the trash out of plan

A proposal to eventually require curbside garbage pickup in Spokane Valley – an idea that provoked a barrage of angry calls to City Hall and public officials in recent weeks – was included in the city’s Comprehensive Plan by mistake.

Unlike the city of Spokane, trash pickup is optional in Spokane Valley and provided by Waste Management, a private company. Many Spokane Valley residents haul their own trash to waste transfer stations to save money, and some were outraged by the proposed change. Supporters said requiring garbage service would help solve the problems of illegal dumping and trashy yards.

At Thursday’s Planning Commission meeting, realizing their mistake, the city planning department announced that the policy on garbage pickup included in the plan was an error.

“If it’s wrong, we need to get it corrected,” commission Chairman David Crosby said after the meeting.

In the course of their summer-long deliberations on the plan, commissioners had actually voted to take it out of the plan, but the change didn’t make it into the final document.

“It was an honest mistake,” said Marina Sukup, Spokane Valley community development director.

Employees in the Planning Department revisited recordings of the commission’s meetings after commissioner and Councilman-elect Bill Gothmann told them he thought the commission had deleted the requirement.

Gothmann had received several sharply worded calls and e-mails from people opposed to mandatory trash hauling after an Oct. 28 story in The Spokesman-Review.

Receptionists and others at City Hall also fielded about a dozen comments on the issue, including some that were threatening, council members said.

It turns out, though, that the planners’ inclusion of the goal in capital facilities chapter was simply an oversight.

The commission initially added the trash collection goal to the Comprehensive Plan, but took it out in later discussions, according to a tape of the Sept. 15 commission meeting.

The garbage-pickup language is the second error discovered in the plan’s text since the Planning Commission’s recommendations were sent to the City Council early last month. The first involved a commission goal to eventually eliminate billboards in the city that was accidentally omitted from a copy of the document given to council members.

“If we only made two (errors), we’d still be doing good,” Sukup said.

The plan could have used additional proofreading, she said, but the staff did its best to prepare two versions of the 300-page document on time in the face of various printing and layout problems.

Even though it is not an official Planning Commission recommendation at this point, council members may bring up mandatory garbage service during Comprehensive Plan discussions anyway.

“I think it should be talked about, positively,” said Councilman Gary Schimmels, who is also the city’s representative on the regional solid waste board.

“It’s just a plan, and it’s looking at 20 years out,” he said.

Comprehensive Plans are required by state law in all larger Washington cities, and they outline how land use, transportation, utilities and other topics will be managed to accommodate population growth over the next two decades.

“I would be willing to talk about it,” said Councilman Rich Munson, adding that it would be a good thing to research.

Other council members think the Comprehensive Plan discussions aren’t the place for the talk on trash.

“There’s no reason to even address it at this point,” said Councilman Dick Denenny.

It would make more sense to discuss the curbside pickup issue when the city’s contract with Waste Management comes up for review in a few years, he said.

Mayor Diana Wilhite and Councilmen Steve Taylor, Mike DeVleming and Mike Flanigan said they didn’t plan to bring the issue up now that it is not in the Planning Commission’s draft of the plan.

The Planning Department waited two weeks before publicizing the trash-pickup mistake because it had to present the plan at a Planning Commission meeting, said city spokeswoman Carolbelle Branch.

It was not announced at the first meeting the commission held after the error was discovered because there were not enough planning commissioners in attendance for a quorum, she said.

The text of the plan will be updated on the city’s Web site Monday.