Residents Oppose Plan For A City Fleet Facility Chief Garry Park Proposed Site

FROM FOR THE RECORD (Friday, October 31, 1997): Correction Headline wrong: Chief Garry Park neighbors who attended a meeting Tuesday about the city’s fleet maintenance center did not oppose the project. A headline in Thursday’s North Side Voice incorrectly stated the neighborhood’s reaction to the plan.

Potentially hundreds of cars, pickups, street sweepers, garbage trucks and backhoes could come rolling through their neighborhood.

Neighbors are worried.

Chief Garry Park residents described their concerns about the city’s fleet maintenance facility coming to their neighborhood in a meeting Tuesday with Spokane city manager Bill Pupo.

The city recently deposited $50,000 earnest money on the old Long Lake Lumber Company site at 2306 E. Mallon.

The city decided to look at alternatives to the proposed Logan neighborhood location after residents there protested vigorously.

Chief Garry Park neighbors have a long list of concerns about the 24-hour facility, including traffic, around-the-clock noise and lights, air and water pollution, resale values of their homes and rodents.

At Pupo’s urging, they also listed potential benefits of the project, including a space for a possible COPS shop, increased police patrols in the neighborhood, paved streets and maybe a mini-park.

“I hope it happens. This will be a vast improvement over what we have now,” said neighbor Gary Lane. “It will clean up an area that is bad now. We might get something done here for once.”

Some disagreed.

“It’s easy to pick on a neighborhood with no voice,” said Julie Broxson, who lives across the street from the proposed complex. “We’re a neighborhood of welfare people, handicapped people and rentals, people who can’t come to these meetings.”

Laura Ackerman of the Washington Environmental Council, and a Chief Garry Park resident, asked to help with the State Environmental Policy Act checklist required before building on the site.

The city staff and technical team will spend the next few weeks reviewing issues raised by the neighbors at the meeting.

Another neighborhood meeting will probably be scheduled in November, said Pupo.

, DataTimes