Council Approves Stoplight School Kids Dodging Cars At 5Th And Freya
After Monday night’s meeting, the score out of the Spokane City Council’s department of largesse stood: Traffic lights 1, Downtown library 0.
The council approved one request on the city’s already strained budget, for a traffic light at the corner of Fifth and Freya, while postponing a vote on another to fund the downtown library.
The East Central neighborhood, which hosted the meeting at its community center, received a $100,000 traffic light after neighborhood representatives beseeched the council for its help. The light is for an intersection where children have spent years dodging cars on their way to the Sheridan Elementary School.
“It’s not getting any better,” said Councilwoman Roberta Greene before the council’s unanimous and unscheduled vote. “To have children crossing that particular arterial without assistance, we are really courting disaster.”
Patrons of the downtown library will have to wait at least another week, however, to see if the council will be as generous and provide funds to keep the branch open on Saturdays.
The council indefinitely postponed a vote on whether to transfer $211,000 from the parking meter revenue fund to the library in order to open the downtown branch on Saturdays.
The vote was put on hold in part because Councilman Rob Higgins was absent. Also, the library board is meeting this week and it may explore ways to find dollars for the downtown branch.
The hope is that the library board will provide some money while the city provides the rest, said Councilman Steve Eugster, who put the library funding resolution on the agenda.
“That remark is specifically directed at Mr. George hoping that he will ask his board to come up with some funds,” Eugster said.
Aubrey George is director of Spokane’s libraries. The downtown library has shut its doors on Saturdays due to cutbacks stemming from I-695, a ballot initiative that eliminated the state motor vehicle tax.
Eugster’s replacement funding measure has proved controversial because parking meter revenue has been pledged to support the struggling River Park Square garage.
The Public Development Authority, the city-created agency that operates the garage, has come before the council to request a loan of $450,000 in parking meter revenue over three months. As of Friday, there was $356,700 in the parking meter fund.
A vote on the loan to the PDA, which was deferred from the March 13 council meeting to the March 27 meeting, has also been postponed again.
The initial postponement was in order for the council would be able to consider a report on the garage’s financial viability. It now appears that the report won’t be available as early as expected, so the council may not make its decision on the loan until April 10.
In addition, Eugster said there has been no formal loan request. The PDA board hasn’t voted on the request, which was made by board chairman Terry Novak, nor have any details of the loan been offered, said Eugster, who sits on the PDA board along with Greene and Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers.
“If we’re going to make a loan request, we have to propose what the terms are,” Eugster said in an interview after the afternoon briefing session.