Editorial

For at least the fourth time, irregularities have been reported in how the Washington Assessment of Student Learning – the infamous WASL – is administered in Spokane Public Schools. This time an elementary school principal is in the spotlight. The WASL’s controversial career is about to end over concerns that include cost, but the reported breach of protocol at Balboa Elementary School is still disturbing, especially considering the role played by the person who is that school’s instructional and administrative leader.

The 29th National Veterans Wheelchair Games come to a close tonight, and the big winner is … Spokane? Not to take anything away from the individual achievements of 600-plus competitors – and not to put too parochial an edge on it – but the city’s standing as a convention and tourism player can only be enhanced by what was a positive week as measured by such gauges as enthusiastic verbal feedback and athletes’ Twitter postings. And don’t overlook the veteran who positioned himself along Spokane Falls Boulevard and hoisted a “Thanks, Spokane” sign.

Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings have provided moments of tension and moments of levity. It’s been a refreshing demonstration of national political leaders’ ability to temper serious advocacy with respectful civility. “I like you,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican on the Judiciary Committee, as he proceeded to grill the Supreme Court nominee with a prosecutor’s rigor.

The hostility on display at and surrounding Monday night’s meeting of the Spokane City Council provided a hint of what the community is in for between now and the Nov. 3 general election. A brawl, politically speaking.

Community college leaders across the country are keeping an eye on Michigan today. President Barack Obama will be speaking at Macomb Community College, near Detroit, and the theme will be two-year colleges and job creation. Speculation, fueled by a column Obama wrote for the Washington Post, is that he’ll call for unprecedented federal spending on community colleges.

For all its history and blue-collar pride, Hillyard has been identified for years – fairly or not – with a touch of the rough and tumble. Old-timers remember the Spokane County judge who pronounced from the bench that there are three things about Hillyard: Everybody drinks. Everybody fights. Everybody is armed.

Here’s an idea: Hitch a tow truck to Cash for Clunkers and haul it to the junkyard of bad political ideas. OK, it’s too late for that, but this program, which runs from July 1 to Nov. 1, can be improved in the fall if it isn’t killed outright. Cash for Clunkers was slipped into the latest defense appropriations bill, which meant members of Congress had to vote against larger military items, including the current wars, to express dismay with this $1 billion program. So it passed.

If it weren’t so damaging to the state, it might be good for Initiative 1033 to pass. The state’s leaders have done nothing but react to Tim Eyman’s misguided anti-tax measures, so another kick in the teeth would serve them right. But Eyman’s latest plan is dangerous for Washingtonians. After an adjustment based on the annual inflation rate plus population growth, the measure would return the “excess revenue” for city, county and state governments via lower property taxes. There’s already a 1 percent annual cap on total property tax increases, courtesy of Initiative 747, which was tossed by the courts but reinstated by a cowed Legislature.

Another year, another black eye for Idaho when it comes to a simple, commonplace requirement that lawmakers disclose general information about their finances so citizens can weigh possible conflicts of interest. According to the Center for Public Integrity’s annual assessment, the Gem State is dead last again. Now, the state didn’t do any worse than it did in previous years, but that would be impossible when your score is stuck on zero. The state shares the accountability basement with Vermont and Michigan.

Every little $300,000 helps, so even though the latest chunk of public investment falls short of what economic development specialists once hoped for, it is a welcome installment on a promising project at Spokane International Airport. At stake for the community are some 270 jobs maintaining and painting commercial airliners. Several hurdles remain to be cleared before that objective will be accomplished, but a $300,000 state grant announced last week will allow design and engineering work to get under way for two hangars.

Among the more than 100 federal earmark requests made by U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., is a small item that could quickly become a huge symbol for out-of-control spending from an out-of-touch Congress. McDermott wants to tap a beleaguered federal treasury to repair windows and replace the sills at the Rainier Club, a venerable Seattle establishment with a prominent membership. The brick building was built in 1904, and it seems the deteriorating limestone sills are causing seepage and damaging structural timbers. Members have come up with half of the needed $500,000 for the project and are hoping for a federal match.

The Spokane River has been pouring through the scenic gorge below Monroe Street for eons. It’ll take at least another year to add a whitewater park. It still appears the wait will be worth it.

It has come to the attention of Congress that comprehensive health care reform will be expensive. Expensive enough – $1 trillion or more – to dash President Barack Obama’s and federal lawmakers’ hopes of enacting legislation this year. One objective of health care reform is to curtail the cost, of course. But extending access to some 50 million more people is a big upfront expense, complicated by a shortage of primary care physicians.

Two years ago, David W. Batty was driving on a snowy, icy U.S. Highway 2 when his vehicle clipped a van that was slowing in front of him, sending it into an oncoming pickup. Killed were Gregory Stueck, 37; Kalen Hearn, 22; and Michael Edwards, 51. At the time, Spokane County prosecutors said they didn’t have enough evidence to sustain vehicular manslaughter charges. After that triple fatality, Batty issued a statement that read, in part: “To the family members of those who are gone, please know that Lisa and I and countless others are praying for all of you who have been affected by this terrible tragedy.”

If the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to declare a public health emergency in Libby, Mont., sounds familiar, it’s because the feds were seemingly on the verge of doing that in 2002, before pulling back and settling on a Superfund designation. It’s too bad it took seven more years to do the right thing.

It’s hard to comprehend the magnitude of Ryan Crocker’s transition to retirement in Spokane Valley. That’s largely because it’s all but impossible to comprehend the life Crocker has led and the role he has played for the past two years at the center of the world’s most volatile geopolitical arena. As U.S. ambassador to Iraq, he has been our country’s diplomatic eyes, ears and voice. On the ground he has represented U.S. interests and explained U.S. expectations to that nation’s struggling government.

So, yet another retreat on the math and science front in Washington state. The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction wants to replace the WASL, which it has found wanting, with a different test to assess how well students are learning. The new high school test was to begin in 2012.

Eighteen summers ago, when the Spokane Marketplace opened at Riverside and Division, it was considered part of a revitalization movement at the east end of town, an area described by a reporter at the time as “a neighborhood of run-down warehouses, weedy lots and wandering transients.” But the farmers market quickly became a hit, and operators were eager to dress it up. The warehouses on the site were thought to be ideal for the community’s hopes of emulating Seattle’s decades-old Pike Place Market – potentially. But the structures, the wiring, the plumbing all needed serious work, and that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe more than $1 million.

Has this happened to you? You’re visiting Pike Place Market in Seattle, and you happen upon the fishmongers hamming it up for the tourists by tossing fish. Suddenly, your blood boils as you contemplate the outrage of jocular men treating dead fish as toys, so you storm up to them and demand they desist. Hasn’t happened to us, either. In fact, it never occurred to us that it was offensive. Would we countenance cat juggling or dog bowling, even if the animals were dead? Of course not, so there must be a difference.