Loose Cannons A Sign For Change
Spokane County Commissioners Steve Hasson and Phil Harris are making more urgent the case for dissolving the archaic, easily abused governmental structure they head. This fall voters should have a chance to replace it. Freeholders propose a consolidated city-county government with an elected executive and 13-member council to represent interests of the whole area.
On the commissioners’ three-member board, it only takes two to work mischief. Harris’ arrival this year gave Hasson a partner.
They claim they’re out to slash an overgrown payroll and prepare for declining revenue. But the vast majority of payroll growth was for criminal justice needs the public supports. Tax revenue has been growing; they can’t yet quantify the feared slowdown.
In their own office, Hasson and Harris have enlarged the payroll. And they’ve created a multi-layered public-works hierarchy with handsome pay raises for administrators loyal to their purposes. What are their real purposes?
In recent weeks, they forced out respected professionals in the planning and engineering departments. (One, county engineer Ron Hormann, believes he annoyed commissioners and developers by arguing to protect public interests in road and drainage standards.) Next, commissioners intimidated professionals who remain, with threatened layoffs and a hiring freeze. Finally, they swallowed up road and planning agencies in the big new public-works bureaucracy whose mission includes a smooth path and one-stop shopping for developers. That may cost road and planning experts their professional independence.
Public interests require county collaboration with the city of Spokane. But commissioners undercut it by threatening to block city utility extensions and by firing John Mercer, a respected planner who coordinated policy with the city. (Blushing now, they’re trying to hire Mercer back; stay tuned.) They also are preparing to take over the city-county health district, which protects our drinking water from septic tanks. And they’re discussing a county takeover of the city-county transit authority.
County department heads have not been privy to the commissioners’ moves and don’t understand them; when Treasurer Linda Wolverton raised valid questions last week Harris abruptly silenced her. Employees say morale is in ruins.
This county needs a representative governing board large enough that one or two members can’t ram through a damaging agenda. The county also needs an efficient government. Freeholders propose one. The current structure made it easy for Hasson and Harris to trash morale, compromise integrity and dole out raises for a favored few in their growing hierarchy. That’s not efficiency. At best, it looks like a clumsy power grab.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board