Let’S Start Fighting For Each Other

Standing on the threshold of a new year, and a new day for our region, John Powers took the oath of office and became Spokane’s first strong mayor. He has the opportunity to renew the city and, by reaching out in the best tradition of Spokane’s role as a hub for the Inland Northwest, he can form mutually beneficial alliances with other communities, strengthening awareness of our interdependence.

Powers says he’ll elaborate on his goals in a Jan. 12 speech, but he already has sounded notes that resonate well beyond Spokane.

A key goal, shared all over our region, is this: to raise the standard of living. From economically stressed farming towns to the poverty of inner-city Spokane, from low-wage hospitality workers to worried Kaiser Steelworkers, concern runs deep.

And yet, real solutions are at hand.

One essential way to grapple with poverty is to roll up sleeves and deal with immediate miseries such as drug houses, absentee landlords, domestic violence, homelessness, alcoholism and the lack of safe, affordable housing. Spokane’s social service and charitable organizations have a strong record of collaboration and outreach to undertake this crucial work.

The other way to grapple with poverty is to prevent it, by lifting the economic and cultural fundamentals that determine the quality of jobs and neighborhoods. In this realm, important new opportunities await our region’s energy for the coming year.

Job training and education convert low-wage workers into productive contributors to the new economy. This year, several major proposals need help from the Legislature as well as area businesses. They include:

Eastern Washington University’s renovation of Cheney Hall, a key to producing more graduates skilled in computing technology.

The Inland Northwest Technology Education Center (INTEC), to provide specialized, quick-turnaround job training.

Mirabeau Point, a community center that will make the Valley even more attractive to new-economy firms by combining cultural, recreational and job-training facilities.

Transportation funding is needed to relieve congestion, improve safety and move commuters, shoppers and shipping more efficiently.

Energy prices and a shortage of electricity became a crisis last year, threatening major employers such as Kaiser and creating an urgent need for both conservation and the permitting of new generation plants.

Facilities to enhance culture, trade and quality of life will be in the public eye this year with renovation projects: the Spokane Convention Center, the Davenport Hotel and the Fox Theater.

Farming, basic to our economy, is in trouble. As Congress rewrites federal farm programs this year it will have to find a better way to keep U.S. producers viable in a tough global market.

Environment shapes our quality of life. Seed-field smoke in Idaho should be more effectively controlled. Salmon restoration, with dam removal off the table, can succeed only with unified support for a wide range of hatchery, harvest, habitat, hydropower and estuary improvement projects.

Families need good jobs and safe neighborhoods, which depend on good education, responsive government and a regionwide determination to attract and keep good employers. To get started, we need to stop fighting against each other, and fight for each other.