Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Community Comment

History, unimpeded, will repeat itself…

Good morning, Netizens...


Mobius of Spokane has been characterized by a local blogger as Riverpark Square 2.0, which by itself is a controversial condemnation of the stilted process the Spokane Park Board has started. Now that the lease is public, there are even more reasons to question it. The biggest flaw appears to be the sub-leases which gives Mobius virtually unlimited authority to lease the land they have grabbed to other more public entities.


Will these sub-leases be untaxable? The members of the cartel that put Mobius together did not trust the taxpayers to make such a decision, nor did they even broach the issue. That is wrong! Can you envision a shopping mall in Riverfront Park? A bank? A skyscraper full of lawyers?


The last time Pacific Science Center came before the taxpayers it was voted down. Since that time, several of the Science Centers that were built are now in serious financial trouble. When you take their fiscal track record, and combine it with the questionable lease agreement, you do have some of the elements of the public-private funding miasma that brought us to the edge of fiscal bankruptcy to begin with.


Everyone seems to have a warm-fuzzy feeling about the Mobius exhibit currently on display in Northtown Mall. I don't. There are a lot of people known to me, whose opinions I have come to trust over time, who are questioning the fancy paperwork that has, until recently, hidden all the plans behind Mobius/Pacific Science Center's card shuffle.


Listen to history. Unless we study it, give it the accord it demands, we are doomed to repeat its worst mistakes over and over again like a bad record.


Dave



Spokesman-Review readers blog about news and issues in Spokane written by Dave Laird.