Spin Control: Forecast: New year, same story

Once again, a whole new year stretches before us, white and untrammeled – sort of like snow on a city golf course where sledding has been banned.

Last year, Spin Control looked into the crystal ball to make predictions for 2006. Many worked out so well that in the spirit of various energy shortages – work as well as petroleum-based – it seemed appropriate to recycle some and add others.

Here’s what readers can expect in 2007:

Prediction 1: Candidates with no previous political experience will announce plans to run for legislative or county office, saying they want to “give back to their community.” They will take such risky stands as “drugs are bad,” “children are our future” and “Spokane needs more jobs” but will have nothing to say about budgets, taxes or programs that should be added or eliminated.

Prediction 2: Candidates who follow the pattern described in Prediction 1 will lose.

Prediction 3: The Legislature will start its session with a flurry of bills being introduced on controversial topics. Most will die before they get out of the chamber where they are introduced. The budget – which is the main business of the session – won’t be settled until the final week, under threat of a special session.

Prediction 4: The Spokane City Council will face a budget crisis because revenues are less than expenditures.

Prediction 5: The Spokane Valley City Council will discover more and more things about being a municipality that cost money. This will shock Spokane Valley residents who formed their own city as a cost-savings measure.

Prediction 6: Weather patterns will create one of the following potential disasters: A continuing drought will suggest serious summer forest fires; an early thaw will create flooding in Inland Northwest cities and towns; a heat wave will strike before the city’s pools are open, or a cold, rainy period will strike the day they open. Television weatherpersons will be apoplectic.

Prediction 7: Washington’s Republican faithful will wait expectantly for an announcement that Dino Rossi will run against Chris Gregoire in 2008, all the time acting as though he is already running against Gregoire in 2008.

Prediction 8: Democrats brag about their recent victories in Spokane’s 6th Legislative District and say it’s a springboard for electing other Democrats in other traditionally red districts and counties in Eastern Washington. The bragging will be boldest before they have specific candidates in 2008.

Prediction 9: Some magazine will place Spokane on its “Best Places List” for something most residents take for granted or ignore. Within a month, some other publication will place it on a “Worst Places To …” list.

Prediction 10: Critics will continue to make fun of the “Near Nature. Near Perfect.” slogan. Supporters will say that at least it’s better than Washington’s late, not so great “SayWA” or Seattle’s “Metronatural.” Both will have a good point.

Prediction 11: Gypsy leader Jimmy Marks will attribute some civic or governmental mistake or misstep to the curse his family put on the city in the mid 1980s. Residents will pine for the days before the curse, when the city was perfect.

Prediction 12: Forces of righteousness will find something to complain about the way other people are celebrating or not celebrating Christmas. Agnostics and atheists, meanwhile, will write letters to the editor reminding the world of the connections between Christmas, Solstice and Saturnalia.

How does Spin Control know these things? Because Spin Control has been around a long, long time. And in the Inland Northwest, even those who learn the lessons of the past are bound to repeat them.

Which is no reason not to have a happy new year.