Richards touts county-city cooperation

Spokane County commissioners are taking a broader, more cooperative approach to criminal justice, economic development and a host of other issues, Chairman Mark Richard said in his State of the County address Friday.

“Since I have been in office, we have been very passionate about this,” Richard said, noting that a new regional council of governments is telling state and federal lawmakers that taking 20 years to complete the north-south freeway “is no longer acceptable.”

Meanwhile, Spokane County and the city of Spokane are working to avoid future conflicts over annexations, and there are discussions about regional animal control, a regional aquatics center and cooperation on transportation costs.

Already, money for homeless people has been distributed according to need and availability of services instead of political boundaries, Richard said.

Some 200 Greater Spokane Inc. members got up before sunrise to hear Richard’s sunny report and still get to work on time. Richard also told the 7 a.m. business gathering at the Northern Quest Casino about a blunder and some expensive challenges.

Public safety is the county government’s top priority, and economic development is its second, Richard said.

The good news in criminal justice is last year’s appointment of Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, he said.

“It probably put my political career at risk,” Richard said, noting he and fellow Republicans Todd Mielke and Phil Harris defied their own party in choosing Knezovich.

Knezovich’s performance and his subsequent “landslide election” to keep the job prove the choice was right, according to Richard. He said Knezovich has demonstrated “the character and leadership skills that we saw in him.”

But Richard said cutting Knezovich’s law-enforcement budget 2.5 percent while leaving intact his jail budget and the budgets for courts, prosecutors, public defenders and juvenile detention also was right. While the sheriff’s law-enforcement budget had benefited from good lobbying in the past, “all other divisions of public safety had their backs up against the wall,” Richard said.

He said overcrowding and understaffing in the jail is “at a crisis level.” Compounding the problem, the county has received an eviction notice on its minimum-security Geiger Corrections Center, with a “drop-dead date” of 2013. Spokane International Airport owns the former World War II-era Army barracks where Geiger is located, and the airport has indicated it does not plan to extend the county’s lease.

Expect a bond measure next year to build new corrections facilities, Richard told his audience. Also look for more programs to reduce incarceration by substituting job training when feasible, and by treating instead of jailing the mentally ill.

Another criminal justice priority is to resume, by next year, using people instead of answering machines to take crime reports. Richard said the demise of the old Crime Check reporting system has skewed crime statistics and deprived officers of needed information.

As always, Richard assured his business audience, “the great proverbial placard above Spokane County is that we are pro-business.” He noted the county issued more than 9,000 building permits last year – more than before the incorporation of Spokane Valley.

“Needless to say, we are amongst some good times,” he said.

Commissioners adopted “performance-based zoning” last year for industrial land on the West Plains to accommodate demand for housing, and building permits were issued for nearly 1,000 units of multifamily housing in that area.

“Of course, we didn’t anticipate that the demand would also reach into the overlay and overflight zone of our (Spokane International) airport and our (Fairchild Air Force) base,” Richard said. “Regrettably, our actions had unintended consequences.”

Commissioners slapped a moratorium on housing construction in October after airport and Air Force officials warned that residential encroachment jeopardized their future operations.

Richard said the air base and airport are “key priorities” and commissioners would never “knowingly take action that might threaten their future.”

Commissioner Bonnie Mager hadn’t been elected when the faulty decision was made, but Richard said he and Commissioner Todd Mielke and former Commissioner Phil Harris “take full responsibility for those actions.”

Still, he wished his “good friends in the media” would recognize that “good stories do sell.”