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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

‘Epitome of the best’


John Baldwin drives past the now defunct car wash on Main Street. The lot used to be filled with trash and abandoned cars and couches. SCOPE got involved and cleaned out the lot. 
 (Liz Kishimoto / The Spokesman-Review)

John Baldwin looks at you sideways. He speaks in a gravelly, throaty tone, revealing a New York accent that hasn’t faded during the 30 years he’s lived away from his home state. On Monday, Baldwin cruised through Spokane Valley in a Ford Crown Victoria marked with SCOPE logos on the doors. As a volunteer for that community organization, he regularly scans neighborhoods for cluttered yards and other unsafe conditions and watches businesses for possible break-ins that the Spokane Valley Police Department or the city’s code enforcement officers might need to know about.

From the cruiser Monday, he pointed to houses once littered with trash and junk cars. Baldwin has easily submitted 100 or more complaints to the city for residents nervous about turning in their neighbors.

“We do that so neighbors don’t take the heat,” he said.

But Baldwin’s tough Al Pacino-like shell cracked when, at the SCOPE office on University Road, he endearingly called fellow volunteer Arlene Severance “Arleney-Beany.” And the façade melted away completely when Severance reminded him of the hot summer days when he’s donned the McGruff the Crime Dog costume to get kids excited about safety.

“I don’t know how he does it,” Severance says of Baldwin’s service to the community. “… This gentleman is taking on a lot.”

Baldwin has volunteered for SCOPE, which stands for Sheriff’s Community Oriented Policing Effort, for three years. The organization provides extra eyes and ears for the deputies and officers who patrol Spokane Valley and the county. They record crimes for citizens, help burglary victims track down stolen belongings, raise money for people in need, identify roads where drivers speed, and patrol businesses at night checking for suspicious activity, among other tasks.

On top of his regular duties as a SCOPE volunteer, Baldwin also makes sure there are doughnuts at the group’s meetings, and he handles tasks others might not consider, his colleagues said.

“He even goes down there on Sundays and cleans the office and empties the trash,” fellow volunteer Garry Richards said.

Baldwin, 66, also recently was named head of the Community Emergency Response Team. In that role he coordinates classes on search and rescue, fire suppression and other safety topics. In addition to the 40 paid hours he puts into that job, he dedicates another 40 or so volunteer hours to the community each week.

“If I didn’t have fun doing it, I wouldn’t be doing it,” Baldwin said.

Before moving to the Spokane Valley in 1976, Baldwin served in the Air Force. He met his wife, Jeannine, while walking down a street when he was stationed in France.

“She was a knock out,” Baldwin said. “She still is.”

Since she didn’t speak English, the couple communicated in French. Eventually they taught their seven children the language.

After retiring from the military, Baldwin moved back to New York and worked for the government, but an injury forced him to quit that job. With seven young mouths to feed, Baldwin had to find work. He moved the family to the Spokane Valley, a place he’d visited, and took a job as night manager for Rosauers Supermarkets Inc.

When the Baldwins flew into Spokane for the first time, the pilot came in over the wheat fields of the Palouse, Baldwin said.

“(Jeannine) said, ‘Oh my God! Where are you taking me?’ ” he said.

Now, the couple can’t imagine living anywhere else.

“I’d never move from here. I’d die first,” Baldwin said. “I’ll be planted in the garden in the back yard.”

His reasons are threefold: there are four distinct seasons; it’s a great place to raise kids; and, he believes, there are more community organizations, like Kiwanis, Hospice and SCOPE, than in other parts of the country.

Back in the car, Baldwin answered a second call on his cell phone.

“I’m like a drug dealer,” he said. “This sucker goes off all the time.”

He drove through a deserted car wash on Main Avenue, near the Valley library branch.

“People used it as a dump,” he said, describing the couches, truck beds, tires, pallets and other trash that people used to abandon there. Thanks to the SCOPE volunteers who reported it and to the city for enforcing the code, the lot, while not exactly pretty, is trash free now.

He visited other properties that also have been cleaned, and one that was improved for a time but is starting to pile up with junk again. That’s frustrating, Baldwin said.

“I feel sorry for the property owner who has to live next to that,” he said.

Baldwin also stopped across from a sketchy-looking trailer SCOPE turned in. He laughed recalling the night one of the local news stations broadcast live from the spot, reporting on the city’s cleanup efforts. When someone emerged from the home, the crew jumped into their van out of fear, Baldwin said.

Baldwin also cruised past his own home, a well-maintained house he shares with his wife and their 46-year-old son, who has suffered a heart attack and stroke that partially paralyzed him. The couple cares for their son full time, making it difficult for them to vacation together, Baldwin said. Instead, Jeannine travels to California and Western Washington to see the grandchildren, and later John heads to Montana with his children to fly fish.

John Baldwin doesn’t mind. In fact, he’s grateful. Grateful that his son is alive, he said.

Besides, John and Jeannine’s romance is still alive. After buying nine coffees at Victoria’s Espresso, he always leaves his punch card at the counter and tells the baristas to give his free tenth drink to “the French lady” who comes in with her friends.

After passing several neighborhoods where SCOPE has made an impact, Baldwin pulled into the Spokane Valley Police precinct. There, he logged onto a computer where he tracks items sold to local pawn shops. Using serial numbers, he helps victims identify their stolen goods.

Staff members and volunteers started teasing Baldwin the second he snuck past the precinct’s security gate, though. A few days before, he’d tried to fix the photocopy machine. In the process, he spilled ink toner on it and instead of vacuuming up the substance, which could have cleaned it, he wiped it with wet towels. The result is a copy machine that looks like a blurry zebra.

“When John does something he does it right, but look at this poor thing,” Deputy B.A. Garrett joked.

After 20 minutes of off and on teasing by Garrett, the police chief and other staff members, another deputy came by Baldwin’s desk and deadpanned: “John, I was going to tell you. There’s a bunch of stuff on the copier.”

In a serious moment, Police Chief Cal Walker calls Baldwin “the epitome of the best.”

Baldwin doesn’t need people to know the number of hours he volunteers or the effort he puts into making Spokane Valley a safer place. They should know, though, the total number of hours – about 110,000 – all the SCOPE volunteers dedicate every year, he said.

“There are a lot of great programs that save the taxpayers money,” Baldwin said, referring to SCOPE and other organizations.

That said, Baldwin certainly is one of the many making Spokane Valley better. While some people say Spokane Valley lacks a sense of community, he disagrees. So does Sgt. Dale Golman of the Police Department.

“I think SCOPE is a prime example of what a community can be like, and John Baldwin is one of the members who really shows how that can work,” he said.