RPS settlement hearing is Saturday

The Spokane City Council has scheduled an unusual Saturday public meeting to discuss something even more unusual in recent years, a proposed settlement with the developer of the River Park Square mall.

The meeting, which begins at 8 a.m., will be televised live on City Cable Channel 5, with repeat showings at 8 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday.

Members of the public wishing to testify can sign up before the meeting starts.

While some details of the proposed settlement are still under discussion, a copy of the most current proposal involving the city and the developer was printed in Thursday’s Spokesman-Review. It is also available on the Internet at the newspaper’s Web site, www.spokesmanreview.com, and the city’s home page, www.spokanecity.org.

Under the proposal, the city would be allowed to keep $2 million of its past parking meter money, currently held in escrow, as settlement for a pending federal fraud case. Just over $6 million of that parking meter money would go into an account to help repay a federally guaranteed loan that helped pay for the mall’s renovation.

In the future, the city would have full control of its parking meter money.

The mall development companies, affiliates of Cowles Publishing Co. which owns The Spokesman-Review, would receive title to the financially strapped garage, but no cash. The city bought the garage earlier this year from bondholders who were suing the city, the developer and other groups connected with the project for fraud.

Cowles Publishing Co. would also shore up the federally guaranteed loan by giving the city a letter of credit for the remaining amount. Currently, the loan is backed by sources of mall and garage revenue that have been less than projections made before the renovation was complete.

Both the city and the mall development companies would drop lawsuits against each other in state and federal courts.

The council will also vote on a proposed settlement with Preston, Gates & Ellis, a law firm involved in some aspects of the financing of the mall’s garage. Details of that settlement have not yet been released.

The council would need at least four yes votes to approve the settlements.