Council’s hasty Sprague/Appleway proposal unnecessarily expensive

Spokane County was appropriated a Transportation Improvement Board grant for $4.2 million for the Sprague/Appleway extension and it spent $300,000 for an environmental assessment and the city of Spokane Valley inherited all of that.

The TIB grant went back to the state because it wasn’t used in the time frame allowed. The Spokane Regional Transportation Committee then voted to supply the $4.2 million for the Sprague/Appleway Revitalization Plan as funds become available.

The city has terminated SARP, so that money is gone unless the city comes up with a new revitalization plan. If the city does come up with a new plan, the SRTC would consider reinstating the $4.2 million.

The city will also have to pay back the $300,000 to the TIB for the environmental assessment because SARP no longer exists.

Now the Spokane Valley City Council is proposing to put the question of one-way vs. two-way on the ballot at a cost of over $6 million. They are asking taxpayers to foot the bill for an extravagant plan when it gave away the $4.2 million that was approved for SARP when they killed it.

Last year the city of Spokane Valley held public meetings for every section of Sprague Avenue, inviting business and property owners to attend to voice their concerns with SARP. Every concern was addressed and SARP was changed to meet almost everyone’s approval. The amount of staff time plus the time devoted to this by the business and property owners was extraordinary. The cost to the city had to be very high for the staff time expended. There is no way to figure the cost of the time devoted by the business community.

When this came before the City Council, Councilman Dean Grafos made a motion to kill SARP altogether. It passed. No discussion. SARP was dead. There was no recognition of all the work done by staff or the business community to revise SARP. It appeared as if this was predetermined before the council meeting.

Without the council doing its homework, and making quick, uninformed snap decisions, there are unintended consequences. They gave away the $4.2 million that was approved by the SRTC and will have to pay back the $300,000 that was spent.

Once again, these grant dollars are transportation funds. Those are taxes the citizens paid for at the gas pump. Now the city wants our citizens to pay more on their property taxes. Road projects should be financed with transportation funds, not property taxes.

If the council would develop a revitalization plan for Sprague Avenue and make the revision of Sprague/Appleway a priority to be done as transportation funds become available, then no bond issue would be necessary. The city could then go back to the SRTC and ask to have the $4.2 million reinstated.

The proposed ballot issue is not a vote on the one-way vs. two-way question, but it is a bond issue that is so expensive that it has been designed to fail. The results of the election will prove nothing except that the council was foolish enough to spend the money to put it on the ballot.

• $1.6 million for the two-way conversion

• $1.8 million for repaving and stormwater systems, which will be done anyway even if the bond issue fails. Why is this even included?

• $3.0 million for landscaping?

The council is asking the citizens for a blank check! They have designed this bond issue to fail by making it unnecessarily too expensive.

I am asking the City Council not to rush this to get it on the November ballot. Demonstrate good leadership by looking at all your options. Come up with a plan that the whole city could endorse.