City Leaders Take Hits On 2 Election Fronts Sabey Contributes To Effort Ripping Downtown Bridge, Mall

With less than two weeks to go before the city primary elections, two new groups - one relatively well-heeled, the other operating on a shoestring - are pushing issue-oriented campaigns.

One effort, run by a group calling itself Spokane for a New Century, questions city leaders’ decisions on everything from the Lincoln Street bridge and River Park Square projects to the 11-year legal battle with the Gypsy community.

That group, funded in part by Seattle developer David Sabey who owns NorthTown Mall, may spend as much as $7,000 on a series of radio ads that will air before the Sept. 16 primary.

“This election is about the future,” Sabey said in a statement. “Right now that future has us bouncing over deplorable streets to get to low-wage jobs.”

The ads do not mention candidates by name. But Mayor Jack Geraghty, who is facing re-election challenges from four candidates, say they are none-too-subtle attacks on incumbents.

“I don’t feel it’s right for Seattle money, using a Los Angeles (advertising) agency, to put together these ads that are very misleading,” Geraghty said Wednesday.

John Stone, a Spokane developer and coordinator of Spokane for a New Century, said that while Sabey is a major contributor, his is not the only money in the campaign.

A full accounting of the group’s contributions and expenditures is being prepared as required by the state Public Disclosure Commission, he said, but is not yet on file with the county elections office.

The steering committee includes a half-dozen Spokane residents, most of whom have been active in individual candidates’ campaigns in the past, Stone said.

“Our mission is to seek awareness,” he said. “It’s basically to get people reacquainted with some of the issues that are in front of us.”

Sabey, described in his corporate statement as a major contributor to previous City Council elections, said he would endorse no candidates before the primary.

Computerized records compiled by The Spokesman-Review show that Sabey, through his corporate political action committee, contributed $4,000 to city candidates in 1993, the last time Spokane elected a mayor.

That made Sabey PAC the 10th-largest contributor to city campaigns that year. All of the $4,000 was contributed after the primary, and half - $2,000 - went to Geraghty, more than a month after the general election.

A spokeswoman for Sabey said she did not have ready access to figures for the corporation’s spending in the 1995 city campaigns.

Records on file at the county elections office show Sabey PAC gave $1,000 to Councilwoman Bev Numbers’ unsuccessful re-election campaign, half of it before the primary, and half before the general election.

The other campaign is seeking signatures rather than dollars. Friends of the Falls is circulating petitions asking the council to put the Lincoln Street bridge project on the November ballot.

The petitions also ask the council to stop the project outright. But Friends of the Falls coordinator Julian Powers said that’s probably “pie in the sky.”

The petition is not a formal referendum and would not carry legal weight if the group gathered a certain number of signatures. It is, instead, advisory.

“If we don’t get a favorable response from the City Council, we may go the formal route,” Powers said.

If the public supports the group’s efforts, the group could circulate petitions for a referendum.

“We really aren’t organized,” Powers said. “We don’t have a budget.”

Although both groups are concerned about the bridge project, neither knew what the other was doing. Powers and Stone both said, however, the two groups might work together in the coming weeks as the mayoral and council campaigns heat up.

, DataTimes