New Century, Focus 21 Jockey For Lead Role In Post-Momentum Era

As the economic acceleration epoch led by Momentum draws to a close, efforts to rally Spokane businesses behind a new agenda to boost the region are a bit confused.

New Century, a broad-based community-consensus organization, has identified six key areas where Spokane needs to devote civic attention. These include such non-economic planks as affordable housing and better K-12 education.

The New Century Plan benchmarks are good, but now comes the hard part: securing financial support for this wide range of civic objectives from what is mostly a business-oriented pool of potential donors.

Many business leaders familiar with Momentum’s success quietly are saying they want to focus on the issue of jobs and industry.

So now comes Focus 21, an offshoot of Momentum, whose leadership is drawn from the old Momentum leadership and the emerging New Century inner circle.

With a proposed budget of just under $5 million, Focus 21 proposes narrowing the scope of its work to strictly measurable economic initiatives.

A recent draft of its proposal zeroed in on creating 10,000 new jobs, most paying $28,000 a year, some up to $45,000, and none less than $22,000. It stressed strategies to recruit targeted industries, undertake a concerted work force development effort, expand existing businesses and improve the business climate through political action.

It also suggested ways to merge the Spokane Area Economic Development Council - the community’s premier business recruiting institution - into the Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce.

Chamber trustees balked at merging the EDC outright, but were receptive to the idea of taking the EDC in as an “affiliate.”

The EDC’s upper echelon opposes affiliation, while endorsing the concept of collaboration and possible collocation to achieve greater productivity and efficiency with less cost.

Bob Cooper, president of the EDC, said he would not want to be part of any plan that would place the economic development agency under the oversight of the chamber.

Understandably, rumors of his imminent departure are rife. But Cooper insists the reports are just that - rumors.

Momentum sunsets in January. Meantime, all of the above - the old Momentum, New Century and Focus 21 - remain active at some level. But none have the money to achieve their goals.

Needless to say, all this has caused some confusion, if not consternation.

A final draft of Focus 21 is in the works and presumably will be presented to the business community for its consideration and, hopefully, funding.

Hospital group tabs Davenport official

Thomas J. Martin of Lincoln Hospital in Davenport is the new chairman of the Washington State Hospital Association board of trustees.

Martin has been administrator of Lincoln Hospital since 1987. Before that, he was administrative director of Tamarack Adolescent Psychiatric Center in Spokane since 1983. Previously, he was regional manager for a number of Fortune 500 firms.

He was elected to head up the state hospital association at its recent annual meeting in Spokane.

Research council sees tax cut opportunity

The 1997 Washington Legislature will have a “rare opportunity” to cut taxes, analysis by the Washington Research Council says.

General fund revenues for the 1997-1999 biennium will exceed by more than $750 million the spending limit imposed by voters a few years ago with passage of Initiative 601, the study found.

The present budget is running below the Initiative 601 spending cap.

And the State Forecast Council says economic indicators “suggest a more robust economy in the coming years.”

That squares with the expectations of others in government and in the private sector.

Researchers for the heavily business-funded, non-partisan think tank say the state tax system performs well in terms of fairness and administrative simplicity. They say their analysis determined that property taxes are uniform and assessed at 100 percent of market value.

But, say the researchers, “The general level of taxes is too high.

“The burden on business, particularly the services industry, is disproportionate.

“And there is excess tax earmarking and ‘off-budget’ spending.”

The analysts recommend lawmakers take action in the coming session to:

Complete repeal of the tax increases that were imposed by the 1993 Legislature.

Provide general property tax relief.

Curb the practice of earmarking taxes for programs not included in the general fund.

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes a notes column each Wednesday. If you have business items of regional interest for future columns, call 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review