It’s going to take a long time for the wounds to heal following four years of litigation over the River Park Square parking garage, but the settlement that was reached this week between the mall developers and the city of Spokane at least lets that process begin.

More important, it allows the city – the municipal structure as well as the citizenry – to concentrate its attention on building a stronger economy without the distraction and wastefulness of a horrendously complicated and bitterly divisive lawsuit.

It was apparent from much of the testimony at a special City Council meeting on Saturday that even if many legal questions have been resolved, certain resentments will persist as a result of the parking garage dispute. If they had it to do over, of course, neither city officials nor the mall developers – owned by the company that owns The Spokesman-Review – would approach the downtown project exactly as they did when it was launched a decade ago.

But the stated objective of the collaboration – revitalizing downtown Spokane – would still be embraced, as it should be now. And toward that end, the unpleasant experience of the past several years should not become an excuse to reject public-private partnerships as a useful approach.

The National Council for Public-Private Partnerships notes that local governments in this country have been teaming up with for-profit businesses for more than 200 years. They’re an effective way of achieving purposes from delivering social services to building infrastructure. Techniques such as tax-increment financing – new in Washington but valued in many states including Idaho and Oregon – have been credited with generating economic vigor.

In difficult economic times, such partnerships are essential, the organization says.

In Spokane, where the city still may have to go to court next month to settle differences with some parties, the settlement of the major issues not only gives both city officials and the mall developer a clearer picture of their risks and responsibilities facing them, but it curtails the flood of legal costs (already $11 million) and restores to the city’s low-income neighborhoods the federal Community Development Block Grant funds that have gone in part to cover parking garage losses.

Spokane City Councilwoman Mary Verner, one of the councilmembers who voted reluctantly for the settlement, said citizens have told her they want out of the parking garage entanglement. Those people will appreciate the settlement even if their sense of relief has the rough edge of hard feelings.

It would be unrealistic to expect emotions to disappear with a penstroke, but we need to keep old animosities from derailing economic development strategies that could be the key to a more prosperous future.