Investment Will Pay Off Here, Too

What if politicians who oppose government investment in cities could see into the future, when projects they resist bear fruit? Obviously, most boo-birds would become cheerleaders and plans like the one to expand public convention facilities in Spokane, Tacoma and Vancouver would sprint for the end zone as if billionaire Paul Allen himself was carrying the ball.

Alas, in the real world of legislative politics, cities have to struggle like Super Bowl linemen to win state aid.

The effort’s worth it. Today, few would brag that they opposed the state investments that led to such successes as the Spokane Opera House and Convention Center, the Spokane Ag Trade Center, the renewal of Tacoma’s waterfront, the state’s five university branch campuses, the Convention and Trade Center in Seattle …

Yet the boo-birds haven’t disappeared, they’re just looking for new glimmers of progress to attack.

So, it is on leaders with foresight that cities depend. Only those willing to invest in potential before it’s realized can enjoy the deepest satisfaction in public life: Living in a thriving city and knowing you made it better.

Today’s legislators have a chance to experience that satisfaction. Spokane, Tacoma and Vancouver are asking a Legislature wallowing in revenue to let these three cities keep a little more of the sales taxes paid within their borders. The money would pay for public infrastructure for the convention and tourism industry.

Last year, the Legislature assembled financing for another professional sports stadium in Seattle. Cities should have a higher claim on legislative help than private sports franchises do. Many legislators know this, having backed such investments as the convention center in Seattle - building it in 1988, expanding it in 1991 and backing another expansion to begin this summer.

But the state also must invest in cities other than Seattle. Washington’s economy will be more resilient and diverse if its less prosperous cities receive economic infrastructure enhancements.

For example: If 0.2 percent of the state sales tax rate in Spokane were shifted from the state’s overflowing treasury to the proposed Convention Center expansion here, the new facility would support a 46 percent increase in convention attendance, $24 million in new local spending by tourists, 800 new local jobs and $1 million in new tax revenue to the state.

Vancouver and Tacoma make a similar case. In response, legislators from those cities back this proposal. But some legislators from Spokane have cold feet, as if it’s wrong to help the community they represent. How peculiar.

The Vancouver-Tacoma-Spokane proposal invites an affordable, justified investment in our state’s economic future, one for which there are many good precedents. People of these cities should hold their senators and representatives accountable for how they respond.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board