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

Editorial: City-county turf wars are costing taxpayers

The Spokesman-Review

It doesn’t take Columbo to recognize that the Spokane Police Department needs a better place to store evidence. The one it uses is jammed to its splintered rafters and architecturally substandard. When the harsh winter of 2008-’09 tested its ability to survive a weather crisis, it nearly failed. The consequences that were narrowly avoided could have been catastrophic.

Compromised evidence, if it comes to that, is not something the justice system treats lightly. It can lead to acquittals and successful appeals that are based on matters of procedure and admissibility rather than facts and justice.

So citizens, including voters who last year turned down a bond issue to build a new evidence facility, should be grateful that city officials have persisted in their search for a solution.

They found one, although the reactions haven’t been entirely favorable.

We would agree that there is cause for concern, but not particularly over the real estate decisions that some have criticized. More troubling is the enduring inability of city and county government to cooperate. How’s that relevant to the issue at hand? Bear with us.

Over the past several months, city officials have worked out a complicated deal. It involves rearranging the work location for a couple of police units and borrowing from the city’s own centralized investment fund to finance the purchase and remodeling costs of acquiring two buildings, one of which would become the new evidence facility.

The plan appears viable, but the secret that makes it so is the fact that one of the two buildings to be purchased, the Gardner, is already being leased by the city – which isn’t using it.

The three-year lease on the Gardner was signed as a precaution in case Spokane County evicted the city from the Public Safety Building when Spokane set up its own municipal court system. As things turned out, the courtrooms stayed put, costing the city almost $115,000 a year, even as the vacant Gardner Building lies fallow at a cost of more than $200,000 annually.

Given the circumstances, officials at City Hall came up with a prudent way to solve a serious problem.

But those circumstances include the aggravating reality that the city is pouring $200,000 a year down a hole, all because it felt a need to defend itself against the possibility of hostility by Spokane County government.

This inability of two local government structures to cooperate in the interest of their more than 200,000 mutual constituents has been going on for too long. Voters have spurned one proposal to consolidate city-county government in this region, but that doesn’t justify the inefficiencies and missed opportunities that sprout from jurisdictional turf conflicts. They need to stop.

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