Forecast For The Future According To Jack Poole And A Few Others, Our Region’S Outlook Might Be Improved By Further Changes In Its Form Of Government.

The future’s not ours to see, Doris Day once sang.

But that didn’t stop several fearless futurists from giving Bagpipes their best shot. Jack Poole of Nine Mile Falls has even laid out a decade-by-decade forecast for the Inland Northwest through 2075.

By 2010, Poole foresees, Spokane’s new strong-mayor system will be ditched as a mistake. A decade after that, most city and county services, including law enforcement, will be merged.

In 2040, Spokane will lag behind most major cities regarding anti-pollution regulations, but after another 35 years planet Earth will be operating on a “one-world basis” and will have many of its serious environmental issues resolved.

“The great opportunities for the 21st century are in the areas of alternative fuels and language normalization (i.e., automated translation),” Poole wrote. “The greatest challenges will be in areas of social custom normalization, i.e. teaching people an understanding and respect of others’ cultures.

“The greatest risk we have,” said Poole, “is more intense splitting of the social fabric by religious exclusivity or bigotry. The key to our successful survival is education not based on technology.”

If there really is a regulatory gap, Mike and Karen Hanson of Newport think it should be closed by reining in aggressive rule-makers rather than pushing others to catch up.

Government already is so intrusive, they say, that it threatens capitalism and freedom. They also are alarmed by a “moral downward spiral.”

“This new decade we are in will see the devastating effect that legalized abortion has on the great pyramid scheme called Social Security,” the Hansons wrote.

“The 40 million-plus American babies who were not allowed to live to enter the work force has changed the actuarial effect upon which Social Security has always been based. We have replaced those Americans with immigrants who have been trained in socialist countries to live off the largesse of productive citizens.”

To Peg Lersch of Spokane, intergovernmental rivalry is the problem and a regional approach is the answer.

“Spokane city and county and Coeur d’Alene and the other municipalities must cooperate and jointly promote development and solve zoning, transportation, water and sewer problems,” she said. “They must be solved on a regional, cooperative basis.

“There is no limit if we learn to compromise and plan for the whole region and not our own little corner. It will be utter chaos if we continue to compete for development and scarce funds,” Lersch said.

Like her, David Bray of Spokane sees value in a united front.

“I hope to see a combined cooperative effort between city and county governments to attract more good-paying jobs to the region as well as the continued innovative and creative energies being utilized by some of our independent businesses.”

Mostly, though, Bray places his trust in the people of the community.

“Positive outcomes can only be assured by a continuance of the energy demonstrated by the electorate in the past election but with transference from angry rebellion to one of positive pro-action,” said Bray, author of the council-district initiative that Spokane voters approved in November.

One of the biggest risks facing Spokane, he says, is “the ongoing apathy of a large number of eligible voters who don’t vote.”

On the contrary, Robert Probasco of Moscow believes, one of the biggest risks for the region is a belief that education will cure all ills.

“The majority of the population will continue to be nonthinkers,” he said. “I hope that most of them continue to abstain from voting.”

Probasco, a professor emeritus at the University of Idaho, is counting on technology to make life better in the 2000s.

“The telecommunications revolution will continue to remake business and education and will actually enhance the restoration of family cohesiveness — especially the extended family,” he predicted.

Opportunities to be seized include the worldwide web, global currency and — although “scary” — genetic manipulation in foods, humans and animals.

For a positive future, however, society must be willing to fix obviously broken systems such as public schools (especially in large cities), campaign financing (especially at the federal level) and excessive government involvement in private matters.

“But we will not curtail the necessary government regulation of many aspects of life or else we will relive disasters like the savings and loan debacle,” Probasco said.

One potential for change in the coming century, according to Chase Davis of Spokane, is the coming of age of Generation X who, as they gain power and political status, will exert the political will to convert empty talk about numerous challenges into real action.

For example, said Davis, representative of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1439: “There is lots of talk of revitalizing our downtown’s central business district, yet Walter’s Paints (in business in downtown since 1922) is closing. Lots of talk of growth management and compact development, yet Wal-Marts, other big-box `discount’ stores and residential developments continue to sprawl out on the landscape, which further contributes to the loss of forest, rural and agricultural lands.”

John Pardee of Veradale shares Davis’ concern over sprawl as a threat to farmland.

“I would say growth will continue as it has the past 20 years,” he said, “meaning along major roads and local additions to both business and housing.”

Couple that pressure with depressed farm prices and it adds up to trouble, Pardee believes.

“If the farm prices continue to stay low I foresee the sale of family farms to either big corporations or to housing tracts. This would change the surrounding areas’ landscape, water use and sewer problems. It would also create more traffic for rural areas and add to the air pollution.”

This sidebar appeared with the story:

NEXT MONTH

Negative campaigning

Bagpipes is a monthly feature that invites readers of the Perspective page to share their ideas about a selected topic. For February the issue is negative political campaigning.

People say they hate it. According to a poll released last month by the Institute for Global Ethics, more than 80 percent of voters say attack-oriented campaigning is unethical and hurts democracy.

Yet political consultants who get paid handsomely to develop winning strategies say negative campaigns work. This week in New Hampshire, for example, Democrat Bill Bradley was surprisingly belligerent in attacking Vice President Al Gore as a dirty campaigner. Bradley reportedly was under pressure from campaign advisers to get tough if he wants to make a respectable showing in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.

If the people really do find negative campaigns distasteful, why don’t they show it at the polls?

We hope you’ll join the conversation. Responses will be reported in Bagpipes on Sunday, Feb. 27.

To take part, submit your comments by Friday, Feb. 18, accompanied by your name, address and daytime telephone number. Use any of the methods below:

By mail to: Doug Floyd; Interactive editor

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