Do We Have A Prayer?

At the Crescent Court in downtown Spokane a few days ago 550 business people prayed earnestly for local government. This 33rd Annual Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast was the biggest ever for the city.

Ron Kinley, an insurance and financial planning businessman who has helped organize the prayer breakfast for 20 years, isn’t one of those voices heard so often bashing government.

“Our goal at the breakfast is just to honor our elected officials because Christ commands us to do so,” he said, citing a passage from Romans 13.

“As Christians, we believe having Jesus Christ in our life makes a difference in our home, which, in turn, is going to make a difference in our business and community. At the prayer breakfast we want to share this message with those in government,” he said.

Don Hodel, secretary of the Interior in the Reagan Administration, spoke of the challenges facing governments these days.

Hodel acknowledged the importance of separating church and state. The founders of the nation understood this was the only way to ensure that government wouldn’t intrude into religion.

But Hodel also reminded the business people that James Madison assumed government would hold to a high set of values and strive to do the right thing.

Therein lies the challenge for today’s local governments.

From county commissioners, to city councils, to school boards, the big issue of the next few years will be figuring out how to do the right thing as the nation downsizes both federal and state governments.

Without question, this shift is under way.

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to cut $1 trillion in federal government spending over the next seven years with the goal of a balanced budget in 2002.

Washington state’s legislature is finishing a budget that further transfers control and responsibility for regional functions to local jurisdictions.

Together, the downsizing and localization will form a tidal wave of change flooding toward officials holding office in cities, counties and area boards. Soon, these local governments will be struggling with huge, complicated social and financial responsibilities as diverse as funding health care for the aged and feeding the children of single mothers who, by the way, must find jobs.

Are local governments up to the task?

This seems an open question.

On Friday, Spokane County’s assessor Charlene Cooney attended the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast.

Possibly she was asking for guidance on how her office could make up for a $96 million mistake in overassessing Spokane property. This error has meant that Spokane schools and City Hall have to cut millions from their budgets months after the budgets were written and approved.

Or, consider that a few days before the prayer breakfast, voters in the Spokane Valley, wary of forming a third layer of local government, resoundingly rejected a proposal to incorporate in the suburbs.

These fumbles and votes of no confidence suggest more than prayer breakfasts will be needed to keep the shift to more local government from becoming a big, local mess.

Much of the success or failure of this transfer of power and responsibility to local government will depend upon the skills and temperaments of those holding office, and of their decision-making skills.

Think of the people at the levers of political power in your town.

Have they honed the skills needed to make tough, but reasoned decisions? Do they demonstrate a healthy, functional pattern of reconciling differences?

Are their current responsibilities being carried out in an efficient, responsive way?

In the spirit of the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast, no trashing of current local government leadership will be allowed.

Suffice it to say that the success of this country’s transition from an overly-bureaucratic, debt-ridden government to responsive, cost-effective government will depend on the folks in city hall and the county courthouses.

Their success, in turn, depends upon our involvement in their election, our attention to their operations, and an unblinking demand for accountability.

When a local official does well, tell him or her so.

When the process doesn’t work, get involved to fix it, not just criticize from the bleachers.

Otherwise, the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast will have to be held in the new Spokane arena in years to come so we all can pray for divine intervention.