Growth Committee Members Will Speak For Valley’s Interests

He’s an advertising executive. She’s a fulltime mother and parttime consultant.

He’s heavily involved in the local business community, including the Valley Chamber of Commerce.

She’s a neighborhood activist who’s fought against wealthy developers and their high-priced attorneys.

Robert Henry and Linda Tasca come from different backgrounds and represent diverse interests.

As of Tuesday, they’re working together toward the same goal.

County commissioners picked the two Valley residents to serve as non-voting members on the county’s Growth Management Steering Committee.

Sue Delucchi, former chairwoman of the state Boundary Review Board and a leader in the latest failed effort to form a city in the Valley, was passed over.

Henry and Tasca will advise the 13 voting members of the committee about Valley issues as they work to implement provisions of the state Growth Management Act.

That includes identifying areas throughout the county where urban growth can occur and ensuring that services like schools and roads are in place before buildings are constructed.

The committee is made up of elected officials from all the cities and towns as well as county commissioners.

Henry, 30, is an executive with United Specialty Advertising of Spokane and has served as chairman of the Valley Chamber’s local government committee.

He currently chairs that group’s legislative committee.

Henry has lived in the Valley for more than four years.

Tasca, 43, is a former Kaiser Aluminum employee and currently works as a self-employed consultant.

She serves as president of the Micaview Landowners Association, a well-organized neighborhood group that has fought urban development in the Greenacres area.

Tasca moved to the Valley eight years ago.

While the two appointees come from different arenas, their views of the job and what’s important for the Valley are quite similar.

“To me, the thing that gives the Valley its community identity is the diversity of lifestyles,” Henry said. “We need to try to preserve that. I think what we need to avoid is a cookie-cutter policy for development in the urban area.”

That’s Tasca’s thinking, too.

She said the idea of developing high densities throughout the entire Valley is unacceptable.

Many people, like herself, moved to the Valley for a certain lifestyle, she said, and they shouldn’t be forced to give that up.

Continued high-density growth is fine in areas that are already urban in nature, Tasca said, but would be unacceptable in areas that are lightly developed, like her neighborhood in Greenacres.

“We should develop projects that are consistent with what’s already there,” she said.

Both of the appointees see the position as a two-way conduit for information.

They said it’s important that they communicate to the committee what Valley residents expect from growth management.

“I hope they will listen to what the average citizen out here wants,” said Tasca, 43.

But both said it was equally important that they keep Valley residents apprised of the decisions the committee makes.

“I thinks it’s very important that I try to communicate back to the Valley (residents) what’s going on,” Henry said.

Tasca agreed.

“I think that’s critical - that we keep the public informed,” she said.