Panel OK’d to develop ‘the gateway to Hillyard’

A nine-member advisory committee to turn an abandoned military facility into “the gateway to Hillyard” will be set up by the city of Spokane with a strong membership from the northeast section of the city.

The Spokane City Council approved Tuesday the basic structure of a Local Redevelopment Authority for the Joe E. Mann Reserve Center, rejecting a suggestion from Mayor Dennis Hession to change the membership of the nine-member board.

Reserve units that have used the 7-acre parcel on North Market have been moved to a new center on Fairchild Air Force Base as part of the Pentagon’s effort to consolidate. That leaves the Mann Center available for the city, if it follows federal rules to set up a committee with a diverse, broad-based membership to acquire and redevelop the property.

That committee would develop a plan for a new use for the parcel, which was described Tuesday evening as both the “gateway” and the “front door” to Hillyard.

The original proposal called for the advisory committee to include a business representative from Hillyard and another business representative from the Northeast council district, as well as a Hillyard Neighborhood Council representative and both council members from the Northeast District.

The council agreed to broaden business representation to the entire community, not just the council district, over Councilman Al French’s objections. The district, which includes much of downtown and stretches all the way north from the Spokane River and east of Division Street, has about 75 percent of the city’s businesses, said French, the senior councilman from that district.

But the council balked at Hession’s suggestion that only one of the district’s two council members should be on the committee. If the committee needs two council members, the second should be from another district, he said.

“This is a city property,” Hession said. The committee should have “a perspective that is broader than just Hillyard.”

French countered that both he and Councilman Bob Apple have worked hard on the redevelopment project and only they are elected to represent the district’s interests. The council has been studying the committee for several weeks, and the mayor’s last-minute change seemed like politics to French.

Whoever is on the committee will have to follow federal guidelines, he added.

Hillyard Neighborhood Council Chairman Dave Griswold suggested the council make a decision – any decision – Tuesday night.

“Our number one concern is: May we move forward?” Griswold said. “We’ve lost a lot of time.”

That’s what the council did. When no council member offered a motion that matched Hession’s request, it voted unanimously to set up the committee that has both members from that district on the panel.