Volunteerism key to successful effort
The “Tale of a New City.” Some day this could be a best seller, or buried in the ashes of contempt.
I want to have the record show that I am so very proud of our new city and will do everything possible to defend and support it. I am one of the many who, for approximately 20 years, felt it was necessary to incorporate the Valley, if for no other reason than to have a voice in our destiny. I am told that five attempts were necessary to get the job done.
The first thing I did when I heard they had 11 new successful cities incorporated on the West Side was to personally go interview the managers of Federal Way, University Place, SeaTac, Lakewood and Sammamish. My eyes were opened to what we had to do to be successful.
On returning, a coalition was formed of the Community Action Committee, Spokane Valley Business Association and the Governance Committee of the Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce.
I had brought back with me a special edition annual report of the City of University Place. It contained the success of their city for the first five years and their proud accomplishments.
We had our work cut out for us. The key lesson from University Place was volunteerism, which generated public cooperation and assistance, and this was attested to by City Manager Bob Jean’s statement that all cities were successful for this reason.
We immediately began public meetings. There was also another strong lesson from officials and volunteers in these new cities. Politics would not and did not have an influence on our efforts – contrary to false statements that have been made. We all felt we had to work for the sole purpose, the long-awaited incorporation of “Spokane Valley.”
We knew we had to provide answers to concerns such as “just another layer of government, taxes will go up, don’t try to fix something that doesn’t need fixing.”
At this point, volunteerism came to the front because we did not have an abundance of money as has been charged by some opponents. Many of us spent hours painting signs, such as large billboards that were provided if we hand-painted them, and made sure they all got up.
As chairman of the Community Action Committee, I am privy to the state of Washington Department of Revenue reports (a public report) and I have received the improving revenue reports for the 2004 calendar year.
It is as follows:
Spokane Valley: 2004 distribution of local sales tax, $13.5 million compared to $6.9 million in 2003. Distribution from criminal justice purposes, $1.1 million in 2004 compared to $752,529 in 2003. Distribution of lodging taxes in 2004 was $363,545. Also with our building boom going on, much more is forthcoming from real estate taxes as well.
Finally, I want to say that when we were in the process of getting signatures for incorporation in the mall, each time the city of Spokane had an eruption with the City Council, people searched us out to sign our petitions saying they did not want the city of Spokane to take us over.
Our facts are here, but I have a big question for those seeking to take our city away from us. When did you ever volunteer to help out and assist our city?
I am proud I have, and hope that you will sincerely weigh the facts and also become a proud volunteer.