New Arena Shows What We Can Do Together

How do you build a community? How do you make it, and keep it, a good place to live?

As Spokane opens its new arena, let’s reflect for just a moment on the dogged effort to build it. The effort began around the same time Cal Ripken Jr. played the first of his 2,131 consecutive baseball games.

We live in times of hostility toward government, some of it warranted. Yet government also is a force for good; it should not be corny to remind ourselves that government, fundamentally, is not them, it’s us. It is the way ordinary people work together to improve their communities.

Spokane’s new arena was a governmental issue, a hot one, for a decade and a half. Three times, Spokane voters rejected various proposals to fund the arena. Each time, civic leaders who realized the need to replace the old Coliseum went back to the drawing board and tried again. Finally they came up with a plan voters approved, tapping hotel-motel and sales taxes instead of property taxes and creating a new entity, the Public Facilities District, to build the facility.

That district’s board members, we must point out, were not partisan politicians, they were citizens committed to local betterment. The public should salute their success as the building opens - on time, within budget, with a dazzling array of modern features.

The arena brightens the future of downtown Spokane and it opens a new chapter in this region’s cultural and recreational life. The people of Spokane County can be proud of what they have done, together.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board