Composure Aids Mayor In Juggling Act

OK, Mr. Mayor, you have proved yourself a master at maintaining harmony.

In the melee that erupted after Spokane police rousted a CBS crew and seized their news tape, Jack Geraghty showed again he can take the heat and keep his cool.

Equanimity. It may be Geraghty’s best attribute.

It certainly is a capacity that has characterized the mayor’s first eight months in office.

In a column last fall on the mayoral election’s import to the Spokane business community, I questioned the motives of the candidates. And I came up wondering what did Geraghty “stand for”? This public relations smoothie. This slick governmental insider. This political power player who deftly juggles support from big business on one hand and government labor unions on the other.

“Geraghty will have to convince me,” that column concluded, “that he stands for something.”

And so he has.

He claimed he could moderate the infighting that often rendered the previous city council dysfunctional. To a large degree - more than seemed probable - Geraghty seems to have worked wonders.

He said he wanted to involve neighborhoods. He’s done that, too. He established neighborhood councils.

And he voted against a Tidyman’s proposal to level dozens of affordable homes in the East Central neighborhood and build a shopping center in their place.

Yet, despite backing neighborhood activists against a developer, he averted a break with business.

Likewise, though Geraghty chartered a citizens group that fostered the “freeholders” who today are advocating city-county consolidation, the Teflon mayor has steered clear of a clash with Valley incorporation addicts.

And finally, the silvery-maned charmer has been incredibly patient with and unfailingly courteous to the wannabestars of public access TV at council sessions. You know, the same half dozen council junkies who always appear in the guise of public advocates and render their personal view at agonizing length on every agenda item.

It’s really quite amazing how the mayor has managed to maintain amicable relations with so many confrontational factions. But public relations is his forte.

Even so, a key question remains - whether this public relations whiz might be too easy to get along with where his good ol’ political pals and union chums at City Hall are involved.

So, now, Mr. Mayor, how about “eliminating” those 25 mid-level managers you claimed would save the city a million bucks a year?

A quality labor force is a city’s No. 1 asset in attracting a blue chip employer.

That’s what chief executive officers and presidents of 127 leading firms said in a survey by the Bureau of Business Research at American International College.

A governmental pro-business climate was ranked second by top execs.

And absence of a corporate income tax was third.

No surprises there. This is what the payroll recruiters at the Spokane Area Economic Development Council have been preaching right along.

But in a list of 12 relocation factors the managers were asked to rate, a healthy and vibrant “downtown area” came in next to last. That’s a shock.

The importance of downtown to Spokane economic future has been highly touted by many, myself included. But said a synopsis of the survey: “Social and cultural attractions appear to be a minor consideration.”

Here’s the entire list: 1 - labor pool, 2 - business climate, 3 - corporate income tax, 4 - mass transit, 5 - real estate prices, 6 - schools, 7 - personal income tax, 8 - proximity to market, 9 - number of colleges, 10 - proximity to suppliers, 11 - downtown, 12 - proximity to competition.

Does a rising percentage of students qualifying for free and reduced-price lunches at Spokane schools signify falling family incomes locally?

Fading economic strength?

Or a stepped-up government giveaway?

Whatever, in Spokane School District 81, the proportion of students who receive a lunch subsidy is approaching two-thirds. That has to be food for thought.