City finances solid, Mayor Wilhite says

Spokane Valley is on solid financial footing, the City Council has made prudent decisions for taxpayers and the intent of the people who voted for incorporation three years ago is being honored.

That was the message Mayor Diana Wilhite shared in the annual state of the city address Wednesday.

“The future of the city of Spokane Valley is bright and we continue to reach for the stars,” Wilhite told the midday audience.

About 100 people, mostly from the business community, attended the speech and dined on a $25 lunch. Only one citizen took advantage of free seating available for the general public.

Wilhite touted some of the city’s major accomplishments, including:

•The Centerplace community center, the city’s first major capital project, is under construction and within its budget. A grand opening for the facility is scheduled for Sept. 24.

•In two years, the city has paid off its start-up debt without raising taxes – a task officials had thought would take five years to complete. In fact, property taxes still are 21 cents lower per $1,000 of assessed property value than when the area was in unincorporated Spokane County.

•The city created a six-year financial forecast, which the council relies on when making spending decisions.

“Although women are thought of as people who spend a lot of time shopping, I take spending the revenues we receive from you, the taxpayers, very seriously,” Wilhite said.

•The once-bleak financial forecast has improved, thanks to higher-than-expected sales tax dollars and other revenues. That allowed the city to avoid a utility tax it had been considering as a way to close an expected budget shortfall.

•The city expects to have an $800,000 reserve fund by the end of this year.

•Services, such as police protection, pothole repair, pavement replacement and street sweeping are being provided. And services are contracted out to private companies or other entities when doing so “makes sense,” Wilhite said.

She defended the council’s decision to open the library contract up to competition last year, but didn’t mention the upheaval it caused when citizens became concerned that the library might be privatized.

After the speech, some audience members said they were pleased by the mayor’s remarks.

Brent Mathison, of Farmers & Merchants Bank, said he was glad the city’s finances were in order and that the council hasn’t raised taxes.

A few attendees declined to comment on the speech because they said they didn’t want to upset their business clients who are against the city.

A group of citizens is trying to collect signatures to disincorporate Spokane Valley. Among them is Sally Jackson, who didn’t attend the speech but had concerns when excerpts were read to her.

“I’m just wondering where the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow came from,” Jackson said, referring to the brighter financial forecast the city has been predicting since late last year. “It’s just amazing how they were doom and gloom and forecasting a huge debt in 2010 and now that the petitions came out they found a rosy road to financial success.”

Jackson criticized the city for selling park maintenance equipment for a fraction of the value at which Spokane County had assessed it. The equipment was sold to a private company that’s now under contract to maintain the city’s parks.

The city has said an independent appraisal of the equipment it received was much lower than the county’s estimate and that it was legally bound to sell the equipment to the company because it had advertised it would do so when it first put the park contract out to bid.

Jackson also said the city has focused too much on minor issues, such as ridding neighborhoods of junk cars and limiting the number of days people can hold garage sales.

“That’s what I’ve seen as their accomplishments, and neither one has thrilled me,” she said.

Jackson said the signature gathering is going well and that she receives phone calls every day from more citizens who are against the city.

The dissent is not just among nonbusiness types, she said. More than 70 Spokane Valley businesses have agreed to display the petitions at their establishments, Jackson said.

The group has until late summer to collect the almost 24,000 signatures to put disincorporation on the November ballot.