Local Lawmakers Have Empty Feeling

If Spokane came to the Legislature asking for a full dinner plate this year, it left with a sprig of parsley.

Officials pushed proposals that ranged from allowing county voters the right of initiative and referendum, to subsidizing Playfair so the ponies will run this year.

Here’s how some of those bills fared.

A bill to allow Spokane County to replace its elected coroner with an appointed medical examiner passed the Legislature and is awaiting the governor’s signature. The bill requires county voters to approve the plan.

The Senate rejected a request by Spokane police to use electronic machines to take pictures of speeding vehicles and mail tickets to registered owners.

The 24-25 vote almost assures the proposal will resurface next year. Spokane Sens. Jim West and Bob McCaslin led the charge against the bill, saying tickets should be handed out by real, live police officers.

A plan to give county voters the right of initiative and referendum passed the House unanimously, but died in the Senate.

Sen. Mary Margret Haugen, D-Camano Island, let the bill die in the Government Operations Committee, saying there wasn’t enough time to give the measure a hearing.

Initiatives allow citizens to bring proposals before the voters. Referendums let voters second-guess measures passed by the county commission.

A bill to subsidize Playfair Race Course passed the House but died during the budget negotiations. Playfair wanted the break to help make up for $1 million in operating losses last year at the horse track.

Playfair officials have said that without financial assistance, there will be no horse racing in Spokane for the 1996 season and beyond.

A planned juvenile detention center, Martin Hall, on the campus of Eastern State Hospital got boosts from two bills that await the governor’s pen.

One clarifies the administration of the center, taking it out of the hands of Superior Court judges and giving it to the county. The other lets the state lease the property for $1 a year.

Martin Hall will be used by an eight-county consortium of which Spokane County is the biggest partner.

The state capital budget yielded nothing for Spokane. A request for money to expand the Cheney Cowles Museum died after a brief fight. Money to study an expansion of the Spokane Convention Center also went nowhere, and a plan to Expand the Riverpoint Higher Education Park was shelved until next year.

The supplemental transportation budget includes money for several Spokane projects, including $1 million to begin widening and improve on-ramps on Interstate 90 from Sprague Avenue to Argonne Road.

Legislators also approved $400,000 to redesign roads around the Riverpoint Higher Educational Park; $400,000 for sidewalks and a left turn lane on 29th Avenue between Crestline and Ray; and $331,200 for widening Magnesium Road between Division and Dakota.

Lawmakers approved $3.5 million for a new Department of Licensing service center in west Spokane, and $5 million to repair damage caused by storms and flooding.

, DataTimes