As stakeholders we care about our neighbors
It’s been said, “Laws and sausage are two things you don’t want to watch being made.” The Valley’s comprehensive plan meetings have been a high-stakes marathon and could also qualify as a Tums festival.
These policies and goals set the stage for everything that follows. It’s a bit like a city bible. They quote chapter and text for authority and applications, but since God didn’t write it, they can amend it once a year. Like sports, one minute your team is up and the next it’s down, but it’s not a game.
When neighborhoods won inclusion as a chapter in the Valley’s Plan. “Whoopee,” we cheered. Yet two days later, council discussion about narrative language and policies in this chapter put a chill into the notion of welcoming collaborative planning.
The term neighbors was tossed, replaced with stakeholders. That’s not a pretty image. We’re not even supposed to run with scissors in our hands. It makes me picture citizens wielding pointy sticks. Why is this controversial? Some discussion certainly smacked of how to keep people in their place; cinching up the council’s saddles of power, while others countered this with language to soften the sting.
Neighborhood planning, while common throughout the country, has evoked suspicion here despite its innocuous 2 1/2 pages that are likely to win the Guinness Book of World Records award for the slimmest neighborhood chapter.
Rumors of Spokane County and city of Spokane’s bad experiences with neighborhoods have not been lost in the retelling with some of Spokane Valley elected officials. It’s had a dampening effect on enthusiasm in our young city.
Instead of being young and in love with life, willing to believe the impossible, the city is being cautious. The council’s discussion of neighborhoods sounded a bit like a pre-nuptial aimed at ensuring it wouldn’t cost much if it things go sour.
The last year of participating in the Valley’s comprehensive plan has been very emotional. Citizens don’t become involved in government for lack of a hobby. These are things we care deeply about and that are likely threatened without our intervention. Neighborhood advocates have had to take the high road so many times, I’m surprised they don’t have nosebleeds.
It’s also a heavy responsibility for our council. They have dizzying schedules and so many issues to familiarize themselves with, it has to be daunting. Whether we love our council or loathe them depends on our experience, however short or long. Ethical notions of fairness are stretched on both sides. We seem to share guilt in making judgments with limited information. Unlike a ball game, we may be calling fouls and cheering the same person all in one meeting.
Aren’t we truly a community of neighbors? The Good Book tells us to treat our neighbors as we would like to be treated. Neighbors encompass business owners, developers and builders, Pharisees, zealots, paupers, lepers, and families like yours and mine.
As this lawmaking process tests our patience and forgiveness, it’s important to remember that we are more than stakeholders. We are neighbors, all sharing the same sausage.