Public Transportation Referendum Flawed, Retired Auto Club Exec Says

A state public transportation referendum asking voters to approve a $1.9 billion bond issue would throw one more roadblock in the path of Spokane’s proposed north/south freeway, says a leading expert.

Dale Stedman, transportation consultant and secretary of the Spokane County Good Roads Association, which has been behind efforts to build the freeway for 50 years, says he would vote for the referendum, reluctantly.

“Money is urgently needed for transportation,” the retired long-time president of the Inland Automobile Association readily admits. And the referendum, which appears to be on a fast track to the fall ballot, would provide critical short-term funding.

“But the idea behind this legislation, that we can just shuffle a minimal amount of money around and somehow solve a crisis of this magnitude is, to put it very kindly, just not very practical,” Stedman said. “I’d use stronger language but the GOP might get mad at me.”

The money, part of a $2.4 billion Republican-sponsored plan passed by both houses of the legislature with differences that still must be ironed out, provides no funds for a start on the Spokane freeway. This failure, says Stedman, is of paramount concern to the Spokane business sector. The Spokane County Good Roads Association, now in its 94th year, boasts a membership of 144 business members whose names read like a roster of Spokane’s corporate elite.

Neither do funds earmarked by the Republican plan, which focuses heavily on the West Side, tackle the overall long-term transportation crisis facing the state, the counties and the cities of Washington, Stedman says. Instead, the stopgap funding zeros in on only the most dire needs in the next half dozen years.

That, Stedman worries, could foster a false sense of security among the state’s motoring public and could lull businesses into thinking the crisis has been averted when it has not. “At that time,” he says, “we’ll just be six years further behind the curve on this crisis.”

Even so Stedman says, “If it comes down to a public vote on a bond issue to fix what we can now, I think we have to be for it.”

Jim Hill’s legacy visible downtown

The business community lost a true gentleman and a key figure in downtown Spokane history last week with the death of Jim Hill.

Hill, owner with two sons of the Someplace Else restaurant/pub, played a major role in saving the Davenport Hotel.

Several years ago, when the money-losing grand hotel’s absentee owners debated tearing it down, Hill prevailed upon Hong Kong investors to buy the beloved Spokane landmark. Whether that in fact rescued the hotel from a wrecking ball is unknown. But after 10 years in mothballs, this most difficult of preservation projects still awaits full-scale redevelopment.

Hill also played a key role in saving the Spokane Central Steam Heat Plant with its towering twin stacks. The long-vacant plant is now being converted into a restaurant on a grand scale, which was Hill’s idea originally. But, for him, it was not to be.

Over and over, for more than a year, Hill and his agents met with the owner, Washington Water Power Co. More than once he informed me they were close to a deal.

That was before the magnitude of WWP’s steam plant oil spill came to light. Hill told me, and I reported at the time, that WWP seemed to be stalling him and seeking to “avoid liability for possible environmental cleanup costs running into the millions.”

Finally Hill gave up. Today, WWP is cleaning up its oil spill, and someone else is about to realize Hill’s ambition of a grand restaurant in the old steam plant. Hill, the true gentleman, harbored no ill feelings toward the new developers of his dream restaurant.

Instead, he opened a family restaurant in downtown Spokane across Sprague Avenue from the Ridpath Hotel. But the name there is a reference to his vision for the old steam plant. This place is not the restaurant he originally set out to open. This is, well, Someplace Else. Someplace Else ranks high on the list of this city’s finest dining spots. Jim Hill will be missed by many.

Nigerian letter scam returns

The Better Business Bureau of the Inland Northwest reports another outbreak of the Nigerian letter scam in Spokane and North Idaho.

“This round of letters appears to target area businesses in particular,” advises BBB President Lisa Stephens.

“The Nigerian scam has been around quite a few years,” she said, “and it flares up periodically in different sections of the country.”

Typically a letter arrives in a plain brown envelop with a Nigerian stamp on it, and is addressed to an individual. It offers to transfer millions from a secret bank account to the bank account of the letter’s recipient, then to proper Nigerian authorities. It’s all hush hush, top secret, and those who receive the letters get to keep millions for themselves.

“They play on people’s greed,” said Stephens. “Those who fall prey to their scheme get their bank accounts looted. Many times the victim also gets dragged deeper into the scam and is threatened physically and mentally.”

“We’ve had a rash of these letter recently, and we are quite concerned,” she said. “Any letters we receive we send on to the U.S. Secret Service, which has arrested some suspects (none in this area).”

Stephens said targets of the scam can help the investigation by sending the letter and envelope to: The Better Business Bureau, 508 W. 6th Avenue, Suite 401, Spokane, WA, 99204.

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes a notes column each Wednesday. If you have business items of regional interest for future columns, call 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review