Millwood’s No Spokane, And They Like That

Some woman in Bangor, Maine, tries to track down a document. A reporter in Boise wants information on a City Council meeting. A guy in Boston needs to talk to a zoning official.

These people haven’t met. The only thing they have in common is that whatever they’re after centers in the Spokane City Hall. So they dial 1-509-555-1212 and a phone company android gives them a number.

That’s when the weirdness sets in.

For reasons perhaps known only to Rod Serling’s ghost, the number given these people and scores of others across the country connects them not with Spokane’s governmental hub, but with the Millwood Town Hall.

Yes, Millwood, that “don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it” community of 1,700 people just east of Spokane.

This phone foolishness has been going on for months, say workers inside Millwood’s folksy command center. It has brought an unexpected flash of chaos to an otherwise snoozy place.

Get a load of some actual recent Millwood calamities: An elderly resident called the Town Hall to get her hot water tank switched on. Another woman called in a panic about crows in her yard. A man accidently locked himself out of his home.

Now, as many as five or six times a day, “I’m getting calls from people who think we’re Spokane,” complains Eva Colomb, Millwood’s city clerk and treasurer.

“Well, I don’t have time to take care of Spokane’s problems. I’ve got to take care of Mayberry here. We’ve got dogs piddling on neighborhood shrubs.”

Eva is too polite to hang up on errant callers. Instead, she grabs a telephone book and digs out the number of whatever Spokane department is requested. “Maybe I should start charging them a dollar for every number I look up,” she says.

Eva says she has talked to telephone supervisors in a vain effort to solve this. “It just cracks me up. They’re one of the biggest companies in the world, and all they can say is, ‘Duh, I don’t know.”’

As proof of her frustration, she asked me for help. Trouble is, I’m nearly as aggravated by telephone miscues as she is.

According to recent news reports, AT&T has been a wrong-number factory ever since it began offering its own long-distance directory assistance two years ago. Maybe Millwood’s problem is connected to that. Who knows?

I recently tried to get a number for Metaline Falls, Wash. An operator assured me the town doesn’t exist. “But I’ve been there,” I protested. “Sorry,” said the operator, “I’m showing no listings.”

Maybe Millwood should relax and enjoy being mistaken for a big city. Millwood’s mail bears a Spokane postmark, a result of the Millwood post office closing a couple of years back.

“Bigger is not better,” sniffs Millwood’s three-term mayor, Jeanne Batson, whose father, Horace, settled here in 1910.

Goober and Barney would love Millwood. Surrounded by Spokane Valley sprawl, it is a tidy pocket of modest homes and businesses. The Town Hall doesn’t have Voice Mail. That alone makes me want to move there.

Because Millwood is well-funded by taxes from a paper mill, the city provides many services such as leaf removal and chasing away crows. The sewer and water systems are new. Snowplowing is prompt.

“If there’s a house for sale, it’s for sale about a week,” Jeanne says. “Somebody usually has to die before you can get into Millwood.”

Hmm. Maybe the plethora of wrong numbers in Millwood is a sign. Are cosmic forces trying to tell us that Spokane would be better off in Millwood’s hands?

We probably could end the Lincoln Street bridge bickering over warm cinnamon rolls that Mayor Jeanne often sets on the pink Formica counter tops in the Millwood Town Hall kitchen. I never saw Spokane Mayor Jack Geraghty doing any baking.

Sorry, Mayor Jeanne says at my suggestion. “We don’t want to be Spokane. We like being little Millwood.”

, DataTimes