Parking Garage Needs City Backing

For the good of Spokane, the City Council should park its fears and suspicions and work with developers to try to find a solution to River Park Square parking garage finances.

The parking garage, which is owned by a nonprofit foundation and operated by a city-chartered parking authority, needs some help at the moment to cover its operating costs.

Many cities, including Portland and Seattle, routinely offer some kind of help to publicly operated parking garages. Here are three reasons why the Spokane City Council should do the same:

* First, it’s a matter of government keeping its word. Three years ago the Spokane City Council passed an ordinance pledging parking meter money to help operate the parking garage if necessary.

That binding pledge allowed the garage to be built, allowed bonds to be sold to investors across the country, allowed the larger rejuvenation of downtown to progress.

Hundreds of wage-earners, businesses and bondholders took the city at its word, never thinking for a moment the city would renege.

Now is not the time to start.

Such a move could cost the city millions in higher costs for future borrowing because lenders wouldn’t trust the city to keep its word.

* Second, the garage is still a good investment for the city.

Although the garage isn’t yet generating enough money to cover its operational costs, the larger River Park Square Project made possible by the garage funding plan is more than making up for the current $450,000 shortfall.

Just this year, retail sales taxes, property taxes and theater admission taxes collected by the city from the River Park Square project will total an estimated $954,000.

That number likely will go up in the years ahead as more of River Park Square is completed and more movie theaters come on line.

* Third, the continued pledging of parking meter revenue is a clean way to track the costs of this project and minimize impact on other city projects.

Under the current arrangement, the city of Spokane has one fund that is dedicated to helping the parking garage and is not tied to other worthy projects like libraries or community centers.

This should continue. Tacking on other uses for meter money would only set up additional battles for funding down the road.

As it is, people who park at meters are simply helping fund another place for themselves to park, in a covered garage.

There is one negative consequence of solving the parking garage money problems: A successful solution would remove a handy political whipping boy from the public arena.

Council members intent on making political hay from this unfortunate financial crunch will be tempted to keep some element of controversy alive for their own political gain. That wouldn’t be for the good of Spokane.