Meeting with city officials lively despite small turnout

Spokane Valley officials and city employees outnumbered the citizens who attended the quarterly Conversation with the Community on Wednesday, but the 10 people who were present raised wide-ranging questions.

“Thank you, everyone, who showed up to our staff meeting, it looks like,” Mayor Mike De-Vleming joked.

The meeting, held at Mirabeau Point Park, allowed citizens to ask questions and express concerns to the council. Ownership of a proposed sewage treatment plant was among the issues raised.

“They’re asking us to give away our future,” said retired attorney Howard Herman.

Spokane County is planning to build a large, regional wastewater treatment plant that would expand the amount of sewage that could be treated in the Spokane area. Without the ability to clean more wastewater, the region could face a moratorium on building new houses and other structures – a situation that could hurt the local economy.

Some Spokane Valley citizens want the city to build the plant rather than the county because utilities such as sewer can generate revenue. The council has said that it makes more fiscal sense to let the county build the plant since it has secured a low-interest loan, and for the new city to take on such an expensive task could mean higher rates for sewer customers.

This week, the Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce joined the citizens who are asking the council to consider ownership. County commissioners have said in a letter to the chamber that they would be open to letting the city take over the project under certain conditions.

The council sent a letter to the county Wednesday asking the commissioners to specify those conditions. “We’ve put the ball in their court. Nobody has brushed over it,” DeVleming said, responding to a citizen’s accusation.

At the community meeting, citizens also asked about taxes, parks, libraries, curbing the growing number of panhandlers in Spokane Valley and the interior color scheme of the CenterPlace community center now under construction.

The council is considering putting a measure on the Sept. 14 ballot that would ask whether citizens want to increase their property taxes by $0.21 per $1,000 of assessed property value. The money raised by the increase would be used only to fully repave roads after sewer lines are installed. The city currently collects $1.60 per $1,000, which goes into the general fund and pays for a variety of services, such as police protection. “We can’t afford to pay more taxes,” Elaine White, 64, said before the meeting.