Charter Campaign Begins Former Freeholders, Others Address Consolidation Costs

The campaign to sell Spokane city-county consolidation has quietly begun.

A group of former freeholders and others is planning the campaign it’ll wage before the Nov. 7 election.

The campaign group includes some members of We the People, the organization that led the 1992 campaign to elect freeholders to write a charter. It will use the same name for the current campaign, said Ed Sharman, a former freeholder and one of five campaign leaders.

Elected freeholders couldn’t campaign for the charter while they still held office. The group disbanded in May after finishing its work.

The campaign probably won’t begin in earnest until the business group Momentum, the chamber of commerce and other groups decide whether to support it with endorsements and money. Momentum, a group of Spokane business leaders that endorsed the charter-writing process, is at least a month away from making a decision, said executive director Susan Meyer.

We The People’s first order of business: highlighting flaws in a $17,000 study that showed consolidating city and county government would cost $20 million in additional taxes each year.

The study, conducted last year by consultant Tom Nesbitt, stunned many freeholders who assume melding two governments would make local government more efficient.

Nesbitt warned that the estimated cost was based on a number of assumptions that might not prove true.

Still, opponents latched onto the figure as proof the charter written by freeholders would create a bloated, wasteful government. Many election watchers predict voters will reject the charter as a result.

Campaign leaders contend Nesbitt, whom they say was underpaid and rushed by freeholders, used faulty figures and made some assumptions the proposed new government likely would not adopt.

“I wouldn’t call it damage control so much as clarifying some of the issues,” said former freeholder Steve Worthington. “Our message is primarily that $20 million is an erroneous figure.”

Among the group’s contentions:

Nesbitt was wrong to assume the government would need to spend $8.1 million bringing 400 miles of suburban roads up to urban standards. In fact, most of the roads already meet city standards, said Worthington.

Nesbitt’s estimate for libraries assumes $1.25 million in loan payments on construction projects.

“We’re certainly not going to spend $1.2 million on capital expenses every year,” said former freeholder Carol Lawton.

Nesbitt noted, but charter opponents overlook, that the government would gain about $3 million from state funds earmarked for cities and consolidated city-counties. That alone reduces the $20 million estimate to $17 million.

There’s little doubt residents of the Valley and some other suburban areas would pay more taxes under consolidation than they now pay under county government. Even charter supporters concede suburban residents probably would pay a utility tax, just as city residents now do.

Most of the money would go toward providing more police, better parks and other services in the suburbs, supporters say. Residents likely will demand those services regardless of whether the charter is adopted, proponents contend.

Worthington said no one knows the actual cost of consolidating the two governments. It would eventually be overshadowed by better representation and more efficient government, he said.

“What you really have to do is look at how is this going to benefit the citizens in 10 years or 20 years,” he said, noting consolidation would end squabbles between the city and the county.

“Those points of friction draw tremendous resources” from each of the two governments, he said.

, DataTimes