Good morning, Netizens...

Aren't you glad yesterday was FRIDAY? Today is the Saint Patty's Day Parade which weaves its way through downtown Spokane while the Irish and temporarily-Irish drink green beer and make promises they may or may not keep. Of course St. Patty's Day doesn't actually come until later next week, but I guess that means everyone can say they are Irish and get stinko on green beer until then.

Of course if everyone is plotzed to the gills on cheap green beer, nobody will notice how County Commissioner Mark Richard wrote a glow-in-the-dark summation of our fine county's accomplishments, neatly overlooking the debacle of Spokane's Raceway Park, which we aren't through paying for yet. Of course we aren't finished spending money we don't have in-pocket by a long shot. There is the thoroughly madhouse way we have been trading on our good looks (since there is a huge deficit in the County Budget) to parlay the YMCA building into something profitable.

Oh, I get it. All the county officials are hoping we can ignore the smell that emanates out of the Office of the County Assessor's Office. You did see Assessor Ralph Baker's explanatory ad in yesterday's Good Paper, didn't you? Didn't that explain all the issues that KREM-2's Randy Shaw brought to the surface about the shambles in the Assessor's Office?

Baker's bright, shiny teeth, which is about all he shows when he senses he is trapped, much like how he lawyers up with smooth ease on-camera is the best smile that tax payers money can buy. Try calling Baker's office and see what you get. He only returns phone calls when he wants to.

Just do not cross Assessor Ralph Baker. In addition to having a glittering smile upon demand, like a true Irish leprechaun, he can make public records disappear. Poof! Just like that, and he'll make it sound like you were responsible all along. Put a little green leprechaun hat on Ralph Baker and put him in the St. Patty's Day Parade, remembering, of course, to keep a smiling face where he can see it.

Dave

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