Business For 7 Planning Commissioners Is All Work, No Pay Volunteers Put In 10 Or More Hours A Week

Some jobs offer prestige.

Some offer great pay.

The job of Spokane County planning commissioner offers little but hard work.

The seven planning commissioners earn only the cost of lunch during all-day meetings, reimbursement for any miles they put on their cars for county business, and up to $2 per meeting for parking.

Their names aren’t familiar to their constituents. And they don’t even have real authority; any decision the panel makes goes as a recommendation to the three elected county commissioners.

But the volunteer positions have become job-like as the county feels its way through the regulatory maze of the state’s Growth Management Act. That work has been added to the commissioners’ typical fare, which includes such issues as the height of buildings, the location of adult book stores and whether pet cougars should be kept in suburban neighborhoods.

Planning commission members, who serve four-year terms, say they’re each putting in 10 or more hours a week.

“It’s almost overwhelming,” said county Commissioner Phil Harris, himself a former planning commissioner. “They’re mapping a picture of what things will look like for years and years to come.”

Here’s who serves on the planning commission:

Mike Britton, chairman. Britton lives in the hills north of the Spokane Valley, on nine acres that are part of the land homesteaded by his wife’s great-great-grandfather in 1880. He works for the city of Spokane, helping arrange funding for road projects.

Mike Schrader. Schrader is the semi-retired co-owner of an insurance firm. He lives in the Alpine Shores neighborhood in Liberty Lake and is active in the Liberty Lake Property Owners Association.

Clyde Haase. A landscape architect, Haase lives on 100 acres near the community of Mica. He was one of 25 freeholders elected in 1992 to study local government. Their proposal to consolidate Spokane city and county government was rejected by voters in 1995.

Tom Hargreaves. Since retiring from the Air Force, Hargreaves has worked as a potter and helped organize art shows, among other things. He is active in the Friends of the Little Spokane River Valley and lives on three acres overlooking that stream.

Sandy McCauley. McCauley and her husband, Larry McCauley, own Pacific Crescent Quilting in north Spokane. They live in the Ponderosa neighborhood in the Valley.

Don Moore. A former chemist, Moore raises horses on the West Plains and sells residential real estate. He has served on planning commissions in communities in Idaho and California.

Curtis Messex. Messex, who lives on 32 acres near Medical Lake, is retired from the Air Force and as a commercial pilot. He is the author of two books-on-tape about his combat experiences in Vietnam. A family illness forced him to drop his 1990 candidacy for county commissioner; he lost a bid to be a freeholder in 1992.