Accentuating Our ‘Postiveness’

The Olmsted Brothers, the turn-of-the-century landscape architects whose vision began Spokane’s phenomenal park system, wrote this once in a report to the Spokane Board of Park Commissioners:

“City life, with its confinement during long hours to stores, offices, factories and the like, has a decidedly depressing effect on the general health and stamina of breadwinners. Even the home-keeping members of families living in the city are apt to be similarly depressed.” Public parks, they said, “are very important aids to the improvement and preservation of the health of the people.”

The Olmsteds, and the city leaders who made the vision happen, gave Spokane a park legacy envied by many other cities. Tuesday night, voters kept the vision alive by approving a $15 million park bond that will add three parks, improve existing ones and also buy land adjacent to Riverfront Park.

The bond has a bit of something for every resident. It will improve Riverfront, but also neighborhood parks, many on the North Side. One hundred years from now, we hope, pundits will applaud this visionary vote of 1999. Perhaps it will go down in Spokane history as a clear indication that this city was moving forward, out of bickering, tunnel vision and the weary battle of downtown vs. everywhere else.

Voters also said yes by an even bigger margin to a $21.4 million firefighting bond.

Those two important votes came as a relief to many who worried that Spokane residents were feeling stuck in pessimism and gloom, and expressing those feelings by saying no to anything new or improved.

Here’s a hope, and a plea, that “positiveness” remains the watchword in the campaign season leading up to the November election.

The three City Council races will now heat up. The six candidates have a choice. They can articulate what they are for, rather than what they are against. They can outline their visions, rather than their vengeances. And they can turn down attack ads. Candidate Jeff Colliton was the victim of a last-minute attack ad by a group calling itself the Lilac City Garden Club. It’s not a real garden club and many members of Spokane’s true garden clubs were offended that the name was co-opted. It was a tacky move. Spokane voters deserve and want better.

The Olmsted Brothers said the open space of parks would help “those whose nerves are tired.” Spokane has the parks. We’re getting more. So let’s hope the campaign season now upon us reflects - not a depressed city with tired nerves - but a healthy city, envisioning a greater future.