Rural Areas Are Wary Of Merger Plan Many Residents See Little To Gain, Much To Lose
Many people who live among Spokane County’s wheat and bluegrass fields view a proposal to combine city and county government the same way they look at forecasts for rain in August.
They don’t put much stock in either.
From the rolling hills of the northern Palouse to the pine forests just south of the Pend Oreille County line, a dozen rural residents expressed doubt when asked about the proposal.
County residents will vote on the proposed city-county charter Nov. 7.
Many rural residents don’t believe a consolidated government offers them anything they don’t already have, and some say it will hurt residents who live and work along the county’s gravel roads.
“I don’t think it’s any good for the people out here,” said Glen Ramsey, who farms 160 acres north of the town of Rockford. “We’re voting no.”
Boosters claim country folks would be better off under consolidation because their representation in local government would increase.
The proposed city-county charter calls for council members elected to serve 13 districts, including two in rural areas.
A third district is mostly in the country.
That would give the rural areas about a 20 percent voice in the new government.
In addition, the most powerful position in the consolidated government - the county executive - would be elected countywide and could come from the rural areas.
Currently, the county is governed by three county commissioners who are elected countywide.
All three commissioner districts include portions within the city limits of Spokane, so rural areas could be completely shut out.
Some rural residents, like David Gady, don’t know much about the proposal. What they do know, they don’t like.
Gady, who farms in the southern part of the county, calls a possible increase in representation a wash at best.
Most of the districts in the consolidated government still would be in the populated areas, Gady said, so the urban areas could exert their will on the rural ones.
Many city dwellers have no concept of the rural lifestyle, Gady added. “I think it actually hurts our representation,” he said.
Other rural residents expressed similar concerns.
A consolidated government would give people who live in the city or Valley authority to dictate policy to those who live in the country, they said, like imposing noshooting zones and putting restraints on agriculture.
Some bluegrass seed farmers, who endure a barrage of criticism each year when they burn their fields, also are wary of the proposed charter.
Many people who live in the high-density neighborhoods of the city and Valley oppose field burning and possibly could put more regulations on the practice under a consolidated government, the farmers said.
Other rural residents said they are suspicious of the proposal because they think it’s too vague.
The freeholders who wrote the charter left a lot of the specifics about how the new government would work up to the representatives who are elected to run it.
That doesn’t sit well with Don Moeller, who lives in a sparsely populated neighborhood south of Browne Mountain.
“It’s not that I think it’s necessarily a bad idea,” Moeller said. “There are just too many unanswered questions.”
Still others say a consolidated government would soak farmers with taxes to pay for improvements in such as sewers, streets and police protection for more populated areas.
“We’ve got the land, and that’s where they get the property taxes,” Gady said.
Consolidation supporters concede that the new government is likely to cost more than the two existing ones, at least initially.
But urban areas, rather than rural ones, would bear the brunt of the tax increases, they say.
The charter calls for an urban service area where residents would be taxed for city-like services. Outside that boundary, in the wheat fields and forests, residents would pay taxes lower than those within the urban areas.
As a single government, though, all residents would pay for special projects like libraries and downtown improvements.
, DataTimes