Science Center Not Down For The Count City Attorney Says Voters Could Get Hands On Issue Again In Six Months

Plans to move a science center into Riverfront Park’s Pavilion may not be dead - despite a recent election that indicated otherwise.

The City Council could bring plans to put a Pacific Science Center in Riverfront Park’s Pavilion back to voters for a second try - but not for at least six months.

That’s the word from City Attorney Jim Sloane, who wrote in a Tuesday memo to council members that the science center proposal narrowly defeated by voters last month could be brought back as early as spring of 1996.

Mayor Jack Geraghty said Thursday while he still supports the hands-on science museum, a decision to bring it back for another vote lies more with science center officials than the council.

“It’s their agenda, not ours,” said Geraghty. “I personally still favor it.”

Said Councilwoman Phyllis Holmes: “My sense of it is that it’s still strongly supported. That hasn’t changed.”

Kevin Hughes, public affairs director for the Seattle-based center, said supporters are looking at several options to save the proposal - including a second vote.

“That may be a possibility, but there’s nothing concrete,” Hughes said. “It’s a wait and see.”

Sloane said in the memo he was asked by several council members whether the issue could be sent back to voters.

While the council can’t “circumvent the decision of the electorate” by going ahead with the center, it could submit the plan for a second vote, Sloane said.

Citing past court rulings, Sloane said, “The council may decide that the negative result achieved in the election did not represent the sentiment of the majority of voters for reasons such as small voter turn-out, inadequate publicity or post-election comments and the passage of time since the election.”

Sloane said Thursday that confusion over the issue’s ballot wording, compounded by complaints from several voters they missed the ballot item entirely, were “legitimate reasons to consider resubmitting it to voters.”

Steve Corker, who led the campaign to keep the center out of the Pavilion, said Sloane had “done everything he could to protect the ‘yes’ side’s point of view and everything he could to ignore ours.”

Science center critics charged that questions about the plan’s cost to taxpayers and effect on the park’s carnival rides never were answered.

“I’d walk away from it if the council wants to bring this matter back again,” Corker said. “As long as they disclose the answers, it’s fine.”

Sloane also said in his memo the council could present a revised proposal that addresses concerns about the original plan without a vote of the people.

“If it’s a significantly different proposal, case law indicates it could be done without a vote,” Sloane said Thursday.

In a written statement, Ken Withey said that Sloane’s memo was “yet another blatant and deliberate slap in the face of everyone in Spokane who would dare to expect a democratic process or stand up for the taxpayers that are left footing the bill.”

Withey, who lost a bid for the city council Position 3 spot, recently launched a write-in campaign for the Position 1 seat.

Supporters maintained that moving the center into the Pavilion would be less costly than keeping the rides.

City Council members approved a 20-year lease of the Pavilion to the science center last March. A month later, Corker’s successful petition drive pushed the issue onto the ballot where it lost by 350 votes.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: IN THE LAB Center officials say a second vote is among the options being considered.