Incorporation Of Valley Would Create Wide Rift

Spokane stands to lose a good portion of its identity as one community on Tuesday of next week.

That is the day on which residents of the proposed municipality of Spokane Valley will vote on incorporation as a separate city.

Incorporation could easily pass, which, from my point of view, is a disturbing prospect.

Maybe it’s a mistake to attach much importance to the value of a unified community. But I have always felt this city benefited greatly from a very strong sense of cohesiveness, a rarity in today’s increasingly divided world.

I hate to see this sense of place diminished.

But it’s hard not to view incorporation of such a large piece of the metropolitan area as an act of separatism, a drawing apart.

This community will never again speak with a single voice in Olympia.

It will no longer act as one community in recruiting businesses and industry payrolls. This will be Spokane and Spokane Valley.

Spokane City and Spokane Valley City each will have their own separate bureaucracies and charge each other’s citizens for library cards. And I think the community will pay a penalty overall.

From what I have seen and experienced, divisiveness and factionalism come at a high cost to communities. The same as in companies and families and personal relationships.

But maybe residents living within the boundaries of a new city will gain more than they lose. Some obviously think they will, personally. In particular, the organizers and promoters of a new municipality aspire to local control.

They have turned deaf ears on arguments for awaiting a communitywide decision on city/county consolidation later in the year before voting on Valley incorporation.

But, right or wrong, the champions of a new city in this community have every right to pursue self-determination without undue interference from those of us who favor a different course.

I just hope, if incorporation passes and the new city of the Spokane Valley gets strapped for cash flow, it won’t resort to becoming another of those speed traps like Airway Heights, Colville and Chewelah used to be.

In Olympia, there’s no shortage of money, state workers attest, and who would know better?

The Association of Washington Business lobby has published a list of suggestions by members of the Washington Public Employees Association union on how the state can save $1 billion. Yes, that’s one billion. A thousand million.

“We don’t agree with all the suggestions,” said the AWB, “but many of them merit a second look.”

Here are a few of the biggest opportunities to curb spending and cut waste, followed by the projected savings in just two years:

Eliminate one-fifth of managers and their aides - $100 million.

Eliminate the sales tax on statepurchased goods and services - $210 million.

Freeze existing state governmental programs and employment levels until need is demonstrated - $500 million?

Conduct annual program efficiency evaluations - $100 million.

Eliminate agency managers’ pay raises for the biennium - $50 million.

Avoid overlap and duplication of agency regulations - $10 million.

Fire state-paid lobbyists for state agencies - $3 million.

Consolidate inefficient commissions and panels on government efficiency - $2 million.

Cut back the corrections bureaucracy - $20 million.

Require prison inmates to pay a medical co-pay, so they don’t spend so much of their time in prison on sick call - $10 million.

And on and on.

The soap-box saga of the Festival at Sandpoint continues with executive director Connie Berghan rallying behind dear old dad, Mayor Ron Chaney.

His honor took it on the chin from the media after the city evicted the acclaimed concert series from its waterfront home. But no soap says the daughter. The real culprit is the City Council. Unofficially and behind the scenes, dad is really supportive.

Aren’t we all?

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