Spokane’s Mayoral Candidates Address Teen Issues

I had the chance to ask the Spokane mayoral candidates, incumbent Jack Geraghty and John Talbott, a couple of questions during a Spokesman-Review debate last week. Here’s an excerpt of what they said.

Our Generation: Mayor Geraghty, how has your system made life better for teens?

Geraghty: I am part of the overall council and I think that we work very hard to respond to the various problems that we have with young people, and listen to young people. We have the Chase Youth Commission in the city government and … at least every couple of months I go down, and I simply listen to the other Teen Advisory Council… It’s very helpful to me to get a perspective of young people as to what’s really going on out there in schools, and you really get to see what’s happening with some of the drug problems that are there in schools.

We also work very hard through our community centers. We have three in Spokane… We have summer programs for youth, night basketball. We have a whole range of activities for young people. Every time I go out and talk to young people… people are saying, well, what is there for kids to do?

Our Generation: Mr. Talbott, explain specifically what effect your system will have on teens.

Talbott: The system that we have … works well for the teenagers, and we have a lot of them involved. A lot of the things we tried to do in our community some time ago, and we tried to open up a new sports facility on Hamilton. … I think the location was bad. I think the idea was great, and I think that we should embrace that in every way that we possibly could to get a private enterprise, the government, the churches, the community behind that. … We need that. We need those kinds of gyms. I would encourage the schools to try and keep their gymnasiums open more on weekends and on free time for our kids, and granted, there is a risk, but I think our young people are worth the risk. Every school, every high school, there is a political science class, I think our council ought to be out there talking to those people and let them know what our government is all about. I think we need to listen carefully to what our young people are saying. We need to tap in to the energy of young people and put it to work for us.

Our Generation: I’ve been skating and biking around, and I’ve run into signs saying, “No skateboarding or biking or rollerblading,” and I’ve been kick out of stores for just hanging out with friends. What are your views on teen rights for this, along with curfew?

Talbott: Well, it’s kind of like my right to ride the Centennial Trail. There are certain days that I won’t ride my bike on the Centennial Trail because there are people out there walking and I might frighten them because I ride pretty fast, or I might cause them to slip and fall because suddenly I’m upon them. So I respect other people’s rights to be in that same place, and I think that we all need to have that community respect for the rights of everyone. To take a skateboard or rollerblades into a store - I question whether we should be doing that. We should respect the rights of the store owners and the other people in the store. So, along with the freedom to rollerblade and to skateboard and to bicycle comes also a certain responsibility for those other people that are in the area.

Our Generation: People have told us we can’t go places, but they never give us a place to go.

Talbott: Well, I don’t know what I can say about that. You can go to the parks and you are free to rollerblade in the parks. … Do you want to have to go to a park every time you want to rollerblade? No. You want to be able to go out the front door, and you ought to be able to do that. Rollerblading is turning into a means of transportation, as opposed to skateboarding, which isn’t quite so much a means of transportation.

Geraghty: The park departments are developing two new skate parks. Are you aware of that? One is going to be located under the freeway. Another one out at one of the outlying park areas, so that we can begin to provide a place for skateboarders, and it’ll be kind of an exciting place with all the ups and downs and everything. We’re also working on bicycle lanes. We have a bicycle plan. Bicycle lanes will make it much safer for people.

Our Generation: What about places to hang out?

Geraghty: That’s a continuing problem, and that’s why we are working to use the community centers. … I know that, for example, NorthTown Mall has worked very hard to draw the fine line between letting kids hang out, as you say, and at the same time not have what would amount to wannabe gang activity. They’re trying to draw the fine line because they want to have young people, so it’s just working together. And I think that through the Chase Youth Commission, we could address this issue and come together with a different approach because this is a continuation, I know it is. I’ve grown up in Spokane myself.

Talbott: Yes, there is at times almost a fear on the part of adults, particularly senior adults, of young people. They’ve been harassed by them, and I think you’ll agree that in many cases our young people are a component of them, a segment of them. A segment that you’re not happy with. … I think we have to figure out collectively, you and I, the community together, how to overcome that, so that you, in fact, are welcome. But again we have to talk about private property rights and quite often where you want to hang out is a business, that for some reason you are interested in and being around. And it’s not conducive to customers or shopping, and those are considerations that have to be … considered.