Bert Caldwell: Already, Verner is getting down to business

Spokane’s business community has found an ally in City Hall since the strong mayor system was put in place six years ago. In John Powers, Jim West and Dennis Hession, the Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce and other groups had a chief executive sympathetic to their concerns.

The transition plan drafted for West in 2004 might well have been subtitled “Spokane Inc.”

Clearly, based on contributions, Hession enjoyed stronger business support than Mary Verner during the campaign that ended with her victory last month. But the new mayor says she is ready to move on. She has met twice since the election with Greater Spokane Incorporated President Rich Hadley and will sit down with the business group’s executive committee Monday morning.

“It’s very important to me to have a good relationship,” Verner says, noting that she has been mindful of business concerns as a City Council member. She gives her reconsideration of a living wage initiative as an example.

Although at first inclined to support the effort, Verner says she backed away after reviewing the implications with the business community.

“My goal was to see where sort of a balance could be struck,” she says. “I’ve been listening very intently as a council member.”

Hadley says GSI expects to work with Verner and her new administration as it has worked with others. Estimating he has dealt with 10 mayors during his career, he says the person at the top may change — quickly, in the last two instances — but ties between the members of the business community and city staff are ongoing.

“The relationship isn’t all just the mayor,” Hadley says, adding that each chief executive brings something unique to the position.

Continued improvement in the local transportation infrastructure, and more streamlined permitting remain on the business agenda, and Verner says she is on board with both. With the likelihood that federal highway spending will slacken, and the state facing a multitude of high-cost projects, the community may have to rely more than ever on its own resources, she says.

Verner says she will probably look for more money to expand ongoing reconstruction and resurfacing funded by a 10-year, $117 million bond issue voters approved in 2004. She also remains a proponent of light rail.

Neighborhood businesses will get the same attention downtown does. Verner says efforts to revitalize Hillyard and the Keystone International District on East Sprague will be priorities.

The environment, Verner says, will be critical to Spokane’s future, not just as a quality of life asset, but as the foundation for new green industry that will address energy and pollution issues nationally and internationally.

“Water is at the heart of our economy,” she says. The city will be working with other governments on both sides of the Idaho border, area tribes, and with Olympia, on as comprehensive an adjudication of water rights as possible.

Noting that Jim Sheehan could not locally source many of the materials that went into the recently completed overhaul of the former Saranac Hotel, Verner says she would like to see Spokane add more “green” industry to meet increasing demand for environmentally friendly products.

“What’s good for the environment is good for the economy,” she says.

That, too, dovetails with thinking at the GSI, which is already a partner in a statewide clean technology initiative. The Spokane area, with companies like Itron and Avista Corp., with spinoffs ReliOn and Advantage IQ, can already claim leaders in their respective industries.

The challenge, Hadley says, will be differentiating Spokane from the many other communities jumping on the green bandwagon.

But more important than whether the agendas of City Hall and the business community mesh is a more simple priority identified in the West transition plan: visibility.

Hession deservedly received kudos for his tireless efforts on behalf of the skating championships. He was equally diligent on behalf of other civic endeavors. Powers and West did their share, too.

The willingness of every mayor to go forth and represent the best of Spokane is critical. Verner certainly has experience in Washington, D.C., and Olympia. Her campaign connected with the majority of Spokane citizens.

If she can become the city’s great communicator, Verner will serve everyone well.