Void Power Play Of A Selfish Few

Cherie Rodgers is known as a clean air activist.

That shouldn’t keep the Spokane city councilwoman off the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority, given the clean air agency’s mission. If anything, it should make her an ideal fit.

But Rodgers is just a little too active - especially regarding field burning issues - to suit some of the rural mayors in Spokane County. Therefore, they exercised their previously untested authority to decide who will represent the city of Spokane on the board.

Rodgers is out. Former city councilman Mike Brewer, who previously sat on SCAPCA, apparently is back - pending certification of his election by the Spokane County auditor’s office.

The controversy has exposed a serious flaw in state law.

The law that creates SCAPCA says one member shall represent the city of Spokane. But the same law appears to give the small towns, which have their own representative, the authority to pick Spokane’s as well. Which is exactly what they have done in choosing someone whose field burning views are more in line with their own than are Rodgers’.

A year ago, the Spokane City Council chose Rodgers to replace Brewer on SCAPCA. SCAPCA members even elected her chairwoman for 1998.

She had the backing of both former mayor Jack Geraghty and current Mayor John Talbot - a rare point of agreement between the two 1997 election rivals.

For the rural communities of Spokane County to pre-empt city residents’ elected officials in choosing the city’s representative to SCAPCA is as wrong as if the city could override the rural communities’ choice. It undermines the carefully designed balance that the law intended when it spelled out the voices and interests to be represented.

Two steps can and should be taken to rectify this situation.

Someone with authority to do so - the state Department of Ecology, perhaps, or a state legislator - should ask for an attorney general’s opinion on whether the rural mayors’ action violated the intent of the law.

The law itself should be clarified or, if it turns out that the preemptive authority is valid, the law should be changed.

Fortunately, state Sen. Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, has attached an amendment to a bill now headed back to the House of Representatives that would ensure the city of Spokane’s ability to pick its own representative.

Enactment of that legislation would be the surest way to restore fair representation on SCAPCA.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Doug Floyd/For the editorial board