Community did the right thing the right way

At the end of an ancient drama, a character often stepped forward to present an epilogue. After Spokane’s recall of Mayor Jim West, we’re left to craft that one ourselves.

West stepped into a press conference on Wednesday with some of his bravado intact. Asked if it was difficult to face the questions of reporters, he exclaimed, “I’m in my element. This is what I do.”

“He had ever but slenderly known himself,” Shakespeare wrote of one of his tragic leaders. In the time ahead West has the chance to write the rest of his tale. We can all hope it includes new insight and self-discovery.

But the story that fascinates me now has to do with the growth and health of our community. We’ve come through a long and difficult seven months, which sometimes seemed to stretch on forever.

It began with a sense of shock, as The Spokesman-Review landed on doorsteps in May with startling stories about the mayor’s behavior. Some of us devoured the news. Others could hardly bear to read it.

Spokane women were among the first to react that Mother’s Day weekend, from former mayor Sheri Barnard to single mother Shannon Sullivan. Many of us thought of the teens the mayor pursued, and the children we raise, and instinctively felt the need to protect. The mayor’s behavior simply flunked “the mom test.”

Early on, the reaction seemed muted. But even in that, the city’s essential character began to reveal itself — cautious and respectful, if somewhat bewildered.

Many of the city’s most influential leaders sought private conversations with the mayor, urging him to step down. They also took action not in public outrage or thundering sermons, but rather by uniting to take votes and make carefully worded statements.

Along the way, friends and neighbors voiced their opinions. They varied widely. I heard a cacophony: “It’s not for me to judge.” “He’s got to resign.” “This was a witchhunt.” “I feel sorry for him.” “I don’t know what to believe.”

Over time, Spokane residents, many of whom would ordinarily be loathe to cast judgments, realized the recall process would force them to make one.

Public opinion seemed to crystallize around what I’m now thinking of as “the HR question.” The mayor’s behavior likely wouldn’t hold up against any human resources manual in this city, many people concluded.

They began to echo the lines of Anthony Bonanzino, chairman of the Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce and chief executive officer of Hollister-Stier Laboratories. He pointed out that other CEOs in the city would be fired for this behavior.

In the end, Spokane residents reacted with characteristic civility. They quietly picked up their pens, marked their ballots, and sent them flying back through the mail.

One snowy Spokane day in late November, weary of the sad tale of the Spokane mayor, I caught up with my mailman outside my neighbor’s front porch. I handed over my mail-in ballot and noticed that he clutched a handful of matching bluebird-tinted envelopes. Suddenly, I felt hope.

To help me think about the community’s reaction to the mayor’s recall, last week I talked with two local sociologists.

“I’m really proud of Spokane,” said Georgie Ann Weatherby of Gonzaga University.

Here’s why: The process forced us to talk about issues we would otherwise have avoided. We managed this conversation with very little prejudice voiced against gays. And in the midst of adversity, local heroes emerged.

Weatherby said she was so glad it was single mom Shannon Sullivan who led the recall effort. She characterized Sullivan as a representative of Spokane’s solid, ethical, working-class core, who had nothing to gain politically or professionally from the mayor’s ouster.

“She’s sort of every person’s person,” Weatherby said. “She’s not from the South Hill. She represented to me the people of Spokane who struggle to get by, who don’t have a lot, who make the very best of it.”

Garrison Keillor once arrived here expecting a smaller Seattle. He discovered instead, he joked, “a bigger, greener Billings.”

Todd Hechtman, associate professor of sociology at Eastern Washington University, finds the community combines both the “live-and-let-live” sentiment of the West and the down-to-earth quality of the Midwest. He believes it speaks well of the community that it was neither polarized nor filled with anti-gay sentiment in these last months.

“It really is middle-of-the-road in the best sense and in the worst sense,” he said.

I look around at this city where I’ve lived for more than 20 years and see a unique Inland Northwest conservatism, a deep concern for family life, and a strain of civility and restrained emotion that can strike newcomers as bland or excessively nice.

It turns out that what underlies this cultural veneer is essential goodness.

I knew that the day I glimpsed my neighbors’ blue ballot envelopes and sensed Spokane voters were going to politely, but resoundingly, do the right thing.

And they did.