A Different Approach Valley Incorporation Supporters Are Trying Again; This Time They Propose Making The Valley Into Five Separate Cities

Five groups that recently launched another attempt to incorporate the Spokane Valley are advertising their proposal as new and improved.

This time, they’ve offered up five cities instead of one.

They’ve come up with new names to replace Chief Joseph and Spokane Valley. These new cities would be called Hillcrest Park, Park Place, Evergreen, Opportunity and Dishman.

There is even a new crop of leaders to replace Joe McKinnon, Howard Herman and Sue Delucchi, who bowed out after last month’s defeat at the polls. This time, Ed Meadows, Raymond Perry, Donald Kachinsky, John Trechter Jr. and Vivienne Latimer are organizing the incorporation efforts.

These incorporation proponents hope the new look gives them a different result at the ballot box. Three times since 1990, including just last month, voters rejected Valley cities.

Not everything has changed in the latest proposals, though.

The five new cities take in the same parts of the Valley as previous proposals to form a single, larger city. They stretch from the eastern Spokane city limits to the IdahoWashington state line and include neighborhoods from Yardley to East Farms, Ponderosa to Orchard Avenue (see map on page 1).

All five propose the same form of government suggested in the previous attempts: a strong mayor with a seven-member city council.

The sales pitch is similar as well.

Proponents say the Valley doesn’t have clout in local government because it lacks a specific voice on most county boards and committees. Valley residents pay out more in taxes than is spent here providing government services, they add.

As a primer to the latest incorporation effort, here’s a quick look at the five proposed cities:

Opportunity

History suggests that this city of 16,000 people has the best chance to win approval.

In 1994, more than half the voters living within Opportunity’s proposed boundaries cast ballots in favor of forming a single Valley city.

During the May 1995 election, the measure lost ground, but about 46 percent of Opportunity residents voted yes, well above the 41 percent approval the proposition garnered Valley-wide.

“That’s where we’ve had our strongest support,” said Meadows, 66, a retired United Airlines worker who is leading the Opportunity movement. “We think we have an excellent chance to get Opportunity.”

The proposed city is smack in the heart of the Valley. It is mostly residential, with older, middle class homes surrounding a strip of commercial areas along Sprague.

The best sources of property and sales tax revenue would be the University City shopping center, the Appleway Subaru and Mazda car dealerships and the Shopko and Target discount stores.

The proposed city would be home to the Valley’s busiest intersection - Pines and Sprague - where more than 100,000 cars travel each day.

Dishman

This city of 12,000 would be the richest of the five.

Home to the Valley’s “auto row” and part of the Yardley industrial area, Dishman could count on a steady diet of sales and property tax revenue.

In fact, leaders of efforts to form a single city in the Valley compared the Dishman area to a municipal ATM, a place where a city government could count on making plenty of tax withdrawals.

The numerous car dealerships along Sprague between Argonne Road and the I-90 interchange generated about $2 million in sales tax revenue last year.

While tax revenue is plentiful, favorable incorporation votes aren’t. Not a single Dishman precinct ever has gone for incorporation.

In 1994, the single city proposal got only 41 percent approval in the area. In May of this year, it got just 40 percent.

Kachinsky, president of Bert Shields Auto Supply, is the leader of the effort to form Dishman.

Evergreen

This would be the biggest Valley city, both by area and population.

It would stretch roughly from Evergreen Road east to the state line, encompassing the Greenacres, Liberty Lake and Otis Orchards neighborhoods.

Evergreen would be home to nearly 26,000 people, a population similar to that of Coeur d’Alene, but the population density would be much less.

Much of the land within the proposed city is undeveloped. The boundary review board cut most of Otis Orchards out of the May 1995 effort to form a single city, saying the area was too rural and didn’t belong in a city.

Evergreen would be mostly residential, with some commercial areas along Sprague Avenue and the Sullivan corridor.

Incorporation achieved some backing in the area in 1994 when three of 20 precincts went in favor of forming a Valley city. But that support evaporated in May, when only 39 percent of the voters in the area said yes.

Latimer, a long-time Democratic Party activist, is in charge of the Evergreen effort.

Park Place

Park Place, which would surround the town of Millwood on three sides, would be equal parts industrial, commercial and residential.

Half of the Yardley industrial area would dominate the west end of town, while the taverns and small businesses along Trent Avenue would make up the east side.

Residential neighborhoods, including Orchard Avenue, would be on the north and south sides of town.

It is the smallest of the proposed cities, with a population of about 9,000 people.

The vote in the area during the past two incorporation elections mirrored precisely the Valley-wide vote.

In 1994, when 44 percent of all Valley voters supported incorporation, 44 percent of the voters in the boundaries of Park Place said yes.

This past May, 41 percent of the voters in Park Place supported incorporation, identical to that of the Valley-wide vote.

Perry, former manager of the county fairgrounds, is the leader of the Park Place campaign.

Hillcrest Park

This would be strictly a bedroom city.

Located in the south Valley, Hillcrest Park, population 20,000, would have no industrial or commercial areas to speak of.

It would have plenty of houses, though, ranging from trailers and manufactured homes in the Chester neighborhood to high-end houses in Ponderosa.

Barney’s Soopermarket and a few convenience stores and small shops and companies along Dishman-Mica Road would comprise the business district.

Support for forming a city in the area was dismal in the past.

In 1994, only 40 percent of the voters living within the boundaries of Hillcrest Park supported incorporation.

In May, that figure plummeted to 36 percent.

Trechter Jr., a chemist, is the point man of the Hillcrest Park movement.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Map: Dividing up the Valley

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Boundary Review Board to weigh proposals The state Boundary Review Board for Spokane County will hold a public meeting June 26 on the proposal to form five cities in the Spokane Valley. The meeting will run from 5 to 8 p.m. in the downstairs hearing room of the Spokane County Library, 12004 E. Main. Proponents from each city will lay out their plans at that time. Beginning the next day, supporters will have six months to gather the signatures of 10 percent of the registered voters living within the boundaries of each of the proposed municipalities. For those that are successful, the review board will hold a series of public hearings to consider the boundaries. The board may change the boundaries so long as it doesn’t affect the land area by more than 10 percent. When the board signs off, the county commissioners will set an election date. Adam Lynn