Election 2000: Making A Choice Candidates Not Reserved About Account Status

Challengers for the Spokane County District 2 seat took aim at the county’s reserve account and discussed ways to encourage growth at a forum for the candidates this week.

Commissioner Kate McCaslin, the Republican incumbent, and candidates Sylvia Riddle and Bill Burke each spoke briefly at a Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce meeting.

Valley businesswoman Riddle, 54, said Spokane County’s reserve account is “too healthy.” While the county was saving the taxpayers’ money, residents were losing money on their investments.

“While the county has a reserve, housing values have been flat for the last four years - nearly flat. And when your house isn’t appreciating … you have really lost value in your home,” she said.

Riddle, who will face McCaslin in the Republican primary, accused the incumbent of trying to sway voters by continually pointing to the county’s $16 million reserve fund.

“The reason for a reserve is not to buy votes at the time of an election,” Riddle said.

The money should be spent on infrastructure and needed services, she said. For example, the Sheriff’s Office has only one sergeant to monitor 1,500 sex offenders living in Spokane County, and only 20 percent of burglaries are investigated, Riddle said.

Spokane County needs to encourage “healthy growth,” Riddle said. While other areas benefited from the low interest rates and booming national economy, foreclosures in Spokane County doubled in the past four years and bankruptcies continued to rise.

“Why have we not had healthy growth? Because instead of a red carpet down at the … Public Works department we’ve had roadblocks.”

That has forced businesses to choose other communities to expand their businesses, Riddle said. If elected, she said she would help remove those obstacles to encourage growth.

McCaslin said Spokane County has come a long way since she was elected to office in 1994 and she’s proud of the county’s reserve.

“Four years ago today we didn’t have a good strong financial position; in fact our reserves were less than 3 percent of the county’s general fund,” McCaslin said.“And at times even maintenance of funding of basic services was often questioned.

The healthy account has helped the county maintain a good credit rating, weather the revenue cuts caused by Initiative 695, and fund emergency needs such as the sheriff’s request for $500,000 to fund a homicide task force.

County commissioners now have a policy and they spend money according to priorities, McCaslin said. Reserves are spent on one-time purchases so the commissioners don’t create a “bow wave” of continuing expenses.

And county commissioners have maintained the reserve account of 10 percent of the county’s budget without cutting services, McCaslin added.

“Over the past few years we have made law enforcement and public safety our top priority,” she said.

The county has increased the sheriff’s budget by 20 percent in the past two years, McCaslin said, including enough money to hire 16 new officers. Money has been allocated to replace aging cruisers and put computers in the cars.

The county has funded road maintenance projects across the county, including the new Valley Couplet, and given money to build new county pools at Valley Mission park and on the North Side.

McCaslin said she supports streamlining the permitting process and a taskforce appointed last year has been working on the details.

Good government leadership will help attract new businesses to the area, she said.

“If you don’t have a solid government … how can you possibly hope to recruit new jobs and businesses in this community?”

Democrat Bill Burke, 48, said his experience in economic development and community revitalization makes him uniquely qualified to be a county commissioner. He has worked in 750 communities across the country.

“The prosperity that has swept America has skipped our county,” he said.

Spokane County residents make $15,000 a year less than the average King County home, $7,000 less than the average Washington state home and $4,800 less than the average American home, Burke said.

He called the county’s reserve account “obscene.”

“How many families do you know in Spokane County that have been able to increase their savings by 1,000 percent in the last four years?” Burke asked. “So, in other words it’s OK for government to out-prosper the citizen base it serves … Government prospers based on the prosperity of the citizens it serves, not instead of.”

Spokane County needs to improve its attitude, more aggressively recruit new businesses to the area and shift its focus to attracting new blue-collar jobs.

“We make the same mistake that almost every community in America makes, all we want to talk about is high-tech and biotech,” he said. “How many here know an engineer, a doctor, a chemist, or a programmer walking the streets of Spokane today looking for work?”

He added: “We need to employ the people who live here. We need to set a goal of five to 10,000 high-paying blue-collar jobs immediately. We need to put the people on the street back to work.”

Burke said the county needs to give more money and more direction to local economic development leaders. And they need to set goals and demand results from programs before they can continue to receive funding.

As a county commissioner, Burke said he would help the county create a 10-year plan to help anticipate the county’s future and create it rather than reacting to things as they happen.