Public Periscope

Dialogue diatribes

Monday afternoon Spokane City Council briefing sessions aren’t well-attended, but that doesn’t make the debate any less feisty. … Witness, for example, the exchange between council members Rob Higgins and Steve Eugster on the latter’s proposed ordinance to clean up after pets in city parks:

Higgins: “Who’s in charge of enforcement?”

Eugster: “City Council members.”

Higgins: “Maybe you have time.”

Eugster: “You’d like me to have time.”

Higgins: “Just get off the Rick Miller show for a while and you’ll have time.”

Eugster: “You’re just jealous.”

Obviously not from around here

The CBS News Web site discovered last week that people from the Term Limits organization are stalking U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt in a weasel costume. While it’s nice for the region to get some national attention, we’ve got to wonder if anyone from the CBS Campaign 2000 Web page has ever been close to Eastern Washington. … If anyone had, CBS probably would not have introduced the story by proclaiming, “A giant weasel is running rampant in the land of the sequoia and the spotted owl.” … Note to New York news nabobs: The closest sequoias are in California, and spotted owls are on the other side of Washington.

Garage note 1

Sheriff Mark Sterk was looking for a place with certain specs to hold the many vehicles seized in the serial killer case. The building must have plenty of room, be near downtown and have a concrete floor to keep oil and other automotive fluids from leaking into the ground. … County commissioners were sympathetic but leery of the $600,000 estimated price tag and suggested looking for alternatives. County administrator Francine Boxer said she knew of such a place that has fallen on hard times and might even give the county a good rate. … “That’s why I thought the River Park Square parking garage would be perfect,” she said to general laughter in the commissioners conference room.

Garage note 2

It’s probably a mark of how deeply the community feels about the River Park Square garage that folks keep coming up with ideas to help fill it. Such as the idea that the Spokane Club, which wants to build a parking garage, should arrange to send its members to the mall car park instead. … Logical on the surface, but there’s a slight problem. Bonds for the garage require the spaces to be available to the general public. The Spokane Club’s standard for membership is slightly more exclusive than that.

Getting involved

Spokane School District 81 has two openings on its Advisory Committee for Human Growth and Development, which reviews all materials and programs on those topics for kindergartners through 12th-graders. Both are for three-year terms on a committee that meets in the afternoon on the last Wednesday of each month during the school year. Nomination forms, available at the district’s administration building at 200 N. Bernard, are due by next Monday.

Spokane County has lots of opportunities for citizens who want to give advice. It has positions on the Solid Waste Advisory, Boating Advisory, Community Services Substance Abuse Advisory, Community Development Advisory, Open Space Advisory and Growth Management Advisory boards as well as on the Parks Board. Applications, available in the commissioners office on the first floor of the county courthouse, are due by May 19.