Position 2 Candidates Are Not New To Politics ‘Anything We Can Do To Create Jobs,’ Former Councilman Says Of The Perception He’s Backed By Businesses
Robert Higgins rocks in his chair.
It’s a calm rock, as steady as a metronome at times. Candidate Higgins has another habit: Before speaking he gives the lapels of his jacket an authoritative tug.
They’re habits of a Spokane City Council Position 2 candidate who says he’s “not running on a mission to try to change something.” He’s a man friends don’t hesitate to describe as “practical” and “common sense.”
With his salt-and-pepper hair and unassuming suits, Higgins doesn’t object to being called cautious or conservative. He can enjoy reading a voluminous city budget and has had plenty of practice; he sat on the council from 1982 to 1989.
“He has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of city government,” said Bob Dellwo, a former city councilman who served with Higgins.
Higgins has been a real estate agent, a tax watchdog for business and is currently executive vice president of the Spokane Association of Realtors. It’s a resume that has won strong backing from the building industry and other corporations: Metropolitan Mortgage, Boeing, Greenstone Corp., Kaiser Aluminum and CH2M Hill, the engineering company designing the Lincoln Street bridge.
Donations from such corporations have given Higgins the largest campaign war chest of any council candidate - $13,732.
“I’m perceived as representing business and I don’t shy away from that,” Higgins said. “Anything we can do to create jobs; the more employment we can create in Spokane, the better off we will be.”
What the city can do to spur the economy is limited. But a council that makes thoughtful decisions about the placement of infrastructure can make a difference, Higgins said.
However, his real constituency isn’t corporations, but “grandma and grandpa,” and they deserve the most for their money, especially in the long term, Higgins said.
He talks a lot about the long view, the then and now.
When Higgins was a kid, the Spokane River was “literally filled with turds.” The future location of the Opera House was “lined with bums, most of them with hangovers.” Downtown was nothing but “railroad tracks, warehouses and hobos.”
That was 30 years ago, when Higgins wore white pants and a white shirt working the graveyard shift at the Continental Bakery. Since then, Spokane has become a great place, he said, and he thinks it can be even better.
“We need to think long term. You lay the ground work now and in the long term it will be beautiful.”
A central part of that vision is healthy neighborhoods. Higgins lives in the same Logan neighborhood in which he was raised. It was a stronghold of big families, like Higgins’: six kids, including his twin brother. Later, absentee landlords ruled and junked cars were popular lawn ornaments. Now, the neighborhood is returning to its former respectability.
The city should do what it can to keep neighborhoods healthy. Offering low-interest loans for home rehabilitation is one option, Higgins said.
“Get it looking nice, cleaned up and people will invest in it, they will move into it,” he said.
If elected in November, Higgins will begin his third term on the City Council. His political career went into hibernation after losing to Sheri Barnard in the 1989 mayor’s race. Since then, he’s kept busy coaching baseball and basketball for his kids and playing golf.
But the kids have grown and fast breaks and home runs aren’t on Higgins’ mind anymore. He’s wants back. “He hungers to get back on the council,” said Dellwo, who’s known Higgins since he was a boy.
“I considered him - and I’m sure all the other council members did too - the outstanding council member during those eight years,” Dellwo said. “There is not an antagonistic hair on his head. He has strong opinions, but he states them without offense.”
, DataTimes MEMO: See candidate profile by name