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Mayor Mary Verner must be tired of media events at City Hall.
And who can blame her? Except for the Chase Gallery outside the Council Chambers, it’s a pretty bland environment.
Monday she decided to talk about non-conforming bus benches in front of (wait for it..) non-conforming bus benches.
She picked a pair at Monroe and Indiana.Word is she’d heard the bench seats, which are essentially wooden 2-by-4s, were all broken last week. What better place to illustrate the problems?
Except that Emerald Outdoor Advertising had fixed the seats in the intervening days. So Verner emphasized that they were on the sidewalk, cutting off space for pedestrians and wheelchairs, and of different designs.
Verner also had to deal with the basic law of press conferences in the wild, which is: Stuff happens…
Stuff like citizen Dave Parisia, a self-proclaimed bus rider, sitting on the benches and telling her removing them would be a waste of money.
Or citizen Dave Schmitt complaining in the background during the press conference that city bureaucrats never listen to the public and wondering why there’d been no notice of changes to bus benches (not strictly true, because the city’s been talking about this, at various public meetings up to and including the City Council, for some time.)
Or four members of the City Council (hey, isn’t that a quorum? Shouldn’t they have sent out a public notice?) showing up on the sidewalk to see what Verner had to say, and adding their opinions when asked by the assembled media. They were dealing with benches that evening, and apparently couldn’t resist a chance to get a jump on the issue. Kudos to Councilman Richard Rush, who was enviromentally conscious and rode his bike to the event.
Or the fact that the Indiana and Monroe may be one of the city’sbusiest, and noisiest, intersections from a traffic standpoint.
Or the fact that a gaggle of news cameras tends to draw curious spectators, including several high school students, one of whom dashed across Monroe dodging traffic to ask if it was true the mayor was here, and when told it was asked: “Which one is he?”
Told the mayor was actually a she, the student asked if it was the 20-something woman behind him. No, he was told, that’s a television reporter. The mayor is the woman about 10 feet in front of you, talking to the intense guy with the beard. Unfazed, he ran back across traffic, returned with a friend in tow, and a camera, and asked if he could have his picture taken with the mayor.
She obliged, of course.
So if some mom in Spokane gets a picture of her son with the mayor in a nice frame for Mother’s Day, you might want to ask just one question: “Why weren’t you in school on Monday morning?”
Jim Camden is a veteran political reporter for The Spokesman-Review.
Jonathan Brunt covers Spokane City Hall for The Spokesman-Review.
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rpburkey on May 07 at 12:45 p.m.
In regard to this whole bus bench controversy—is this really the most important issue our city leaders should be working on? Honestly, is bus bench advertising the most serious problem facing Spokane right now? I can think of some more important things they could be working on…things like the economy, education, or fixing our pot-hole-filled streets, to name a few.
I know the legality of the bus benches is something that needs to be addressed, as well as the issue of pedestrian accessibility. But why has this minor problem ballooned into such a highly-publicized and emotionally-charged argument? There’s no need for personal attacks among the city council members about bus benches.
It seems like Spokane’s leaders are making this a way bigger issue than it really is. Maybe they should stop worrying about bus benches and start focusing on the real problems facing our community.
Ron_the_Cop on May 07 at 12:59 p.m.
Mr Camden and rpburkey,
I wholeheartedly agree with your common sense assessment and in fact wrote Madam Mayor on Tuesday:
Mayor Verner and City Council:
This is not in general release yet. I thought I would give you some advance notice. As I said in my letter to Ast. AG Scott Marlow I have major ethical and professional concerns with how Mr. Tucker handled this investigation [Savage manslaughter case]. To put it bluntly he didn’t do “crap” and buried the Savage case from public scrutiny. I will not let him get away with this.
BTW I have yet to hear from you re my formal demand for an immediate inspection of the RPS parking garage. The City Attorney indicated that the City would wait until after Tucker made his decision - well that was almost a month ago.
I find myself in agreement with Doug Clark’s column this morning. Seems to me this topic has more relevance than the safety/sign bus bench issue that you are spending considerable time on.
Det. Ron Wright (Retired)
BREAKING - Criminal complaint filed against Spokane Co Prosecutor Steve Tucker
http://friendsofmarkfuhrman.org/blog/?p=136
And Forbes magazine just release this story. The door is slowly creaking open. The frauds Mr. Barrett cite are small potatoes compared with the Cowles’ led $100M RPS bond fraud et al:
Fraud: Scam Capital of America
William P. Barrett, 05.06.09, 06:00 PM EDT
Forbes Magazine dated May 25, 2009
image
Rugged individualism often goes hand in hand with cutting corners. Washington State’s second-largest city is a prime example.
There’s the diploma mill that sold 10,000 phony college degrees to buyers in 131 countries. The $31 million parking-garage bond hustle that snared fund firms Vanguard, Nuveen and Smith Barney. And the many questionable enterprises around the continent that turn for legal and accounting services to firms in the heart of the Pacific Northwest’s Inland Empire. . .
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0525/106-investment-guide-09-scam-capital-of-america.html
ChefGus/ John Olsen on May 07 at 4:34 p.m.
The nice man in the Photo with Madam Mayor is a regular client of ours at Shalom, and a very bright, but very intense guy… he is part of the community that Mr Clark refers to that has put a curse on this city…. and is oft seen downtown and at the STA plaza… Many of us are upset with the amount of time and effort being spent on this bus bench thing.. the REAL legal issues in this city are being masked by the bread and circus routine of the mayor and the city council….. good grief… gus
jimc on May 08 at 9:51 a.m.
Ron_the_Cop/Retired Det. Wright/Rocketsbrain,
While I appreciate your interest in Spin Control and willingness to comment on items, I can’t see a good reason to let you veer off in directions that have nothing to do with the initial post.
Because of that, I deleted your latest post, which had nothing to do with the above item on the mayor and the bus benches.
The previous post is also marginal, because it starts with the mayor and veers off into a wide range of other topics and a link to your site for a completely unrelated topic. But it’s in the string and I’m going to leave it there.
In short, feel free to comment on the topic at hand. But please refrain from using any topic available as a vehicle to talk about or link to your views on River Park Square issues.
Thanks.
Jim Camden/Spin Control