If Eugster Club Has Code, It’S Hard To Crack

What must a citizen do to join the secret society lurking behind Stephen Eugster’s efforts to crush downtown redevelopment?

Chris Marr will pay extra dues. He’ll spring for muffins at meetings.

He even sent Eugster a bouquet Friday. Anything to butter his way into the lawsuit-happy Spokane Research and Defense Fund.

The apoplectic attorney sent back the posies with an angry note scrawled in red ink: “You are not a member of the SRDF!”

“Aren’t you supposed to say it with flowers?” quips the disappointed but undaunted Marr.

Eugster has no use for Marr. The vice president of the Foothills car dealership is on the side of everything the lawyer is suing to stop: the downtown parking garage, the Lincoln Street bridge, River Park Square …

Marr, however, wants to make a point, and it’s a dandy.

Eugster continually brays about the lack of disclosure from City Hall. He paints downtown business interests as fat-cat bullies who betray the public from behind closed doors.

Yet when it comes to his own murky club, Eugster - the self-proclaimed president and founder - is as forthcoming as a deceased carp.

“None of your business,” he snaps, bristling at my inquiries. Revealing SRDF donors or members, adds Eugster, would expose them to reprisals and violate their free speech rights.

Pure malarkey.

Marr’s curiosity was piqued during a recent hearing on River Park Square. He quizzed Eugster about the SRDF and whether or not NorthTown Mall owner David Sabey belonged.

Eugster did his clam impression.

So Marr mailed Eugster a wry application for membership and a $20 dues check.

“I know that you may be suspect of my intent, since we have often taken differing points of views on various issues,” argued Marr. “However, if there is one thing I’ve learned in my many years of social, political and civic activism, it is that organizations and institutions can only be changed from the inside.”

Eugster was unamused. As always. Back went the letter. Ditto the check.

Driven “by the sting of rejection,” Marr asked if I would help him crack the SRDF shroud of silence.

“They can even blindfold me and drive me around in the trunk of Mayor Talbott’s new Contour,” says Marr. “That way I won’t know where meetings are held.”

Speaking of Talbott - elected by a whisker thanks to sugar daddy Sabey’s anti-downtown loot - hizzoner says he has donated money to SRDF, but “I don’t think I’ve ever been a member.”

On the SRDF trail, a tip led me to the Great Harvest bakery Friday morning. Marr and I crashed a weekly gathering of what may or may not be Eugster’s club. Marr actually furnished muffins.

Only Roy McCleod, an antique dealer, had the spine to own up to being an SRDF member. The others were frustratingly Eugsterlike.

“Maybe he (Eugster) doesn’t want you to know the depth of his organization,” says Nancy Gillespie, flashing an enigmatic smile.

Maybe so. Especially if that depth is as embarrassingly shallow as I suspect it is. Could the ominous-sounding Spokane Research and Defense Fund be nothing more than a handful of malcontents plus cranky Eugster banging on a word processor?

The secretary of state’s office in Olympia shows the SRDF to be a registered nonprofit corporation. Eugster is president. George Durrie, a college professor, is vice president. Accountant Kristine Wolbach is secretary. Susan Whaley is a director.

According to the document, the purpose of the SRDF is to promote responsible government. Impeding progress via endless litigation is a more apt description.

The Spokane Observer is another facet of the SRDF. Eugster lists himself as editor of this newsletter that presumably stumps for issues his defense fund holds dear.

Like the Feb. 22 issue, for example. In it Eugster calls for the legalization of drugs.

It’s swell to see there are other goals occupying the civic-minded lawyer besides keeping downtown Spokane in the Dark Ages.