Roskelley Gets Seat On Scapca New Commissioner Will Replace Phil Harris On Clean-Air Board
John Roskelley, Spokane’s newest county commissioner, will replace Phil Harris on the county board that oversees air pollution issues.
The commissioners decided this week to make the switch, Roskelley said Friday.
“Commissioner Harris decided he had enough other board commitments,” Roskelley said.
Harris, a Republican, replaced Democrat Skip Chilberg on the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority board in May, when Chilberg quit his county commissioner post for another job.
Harris’ few months on the five-member board were tumultuous.
He caught flak from clean-air activists, who criticized him for discounting the testimony of hundreds of citizens demanding a ban on grass field burning, while accepting campaign contributions from grass growers.
Harris also clashed with SCAPCA director Eric Skelton, hinting he wanted to fire him. He joined fellow Republican commissioner Steve Hasson in pressing for an extended performance review for Skelton, which continues behind closed doors on Thursday.
Roskelley, a Democrat and clean air advocate, joins the SCAPCA board at an important point in the grass field burning controversy.
The board must soon decide whether to weaken or keep intact local regulations that seek to control grass burning by capping, and gradually reducing, the county acreage devoted to bluegrass.
Growers are pushing for an elimination of the 37,000-acre cap - and for the right to plant more than 10,000 acres of new bluegrass fields. They already won a victory this year in the state Legislature, which eliminated SCAPCA’s powers to control the length of their burning season.
Clean-air activists want to keep the cap and ultimately ban the practice of torching fields each year.
Roskelley says he likes the grass seed farmers who serve with him as volunteer firefighters in Fire District Nine.
“They are great people, but we are looking at some very serious health issues involving grass smoke. Spokane’s medical community is getting more and more involved in this,” Roskelley said.
Hasson, in a Nov. 13 interview, predicted the county’s grass field burning regulations will get “stronger, not weaker,” because of health concerns.
, DataTimes