Our view: Help, don’t hinder

As therapeutic as it feels to beat up on the rich and privileged, it’s a shortsighted strategy when you’re trying to encourage investment in a healthier economy.

And if anyone should be dedicated to a healthier economy in Spokane it’s the elected officials whom taxpayers count on to deliver services and provide for public health and safety.

All of which makes it puzzling that private developer Marshall Chesrown has run into so many impediments from both City Hall and, now, the Spokane County Courthouse as he tries to move forward with an ambitious project to transform the long-neglected north bank of the Spokane River, downstream from the Monroe Street Bridge, into a sparkling, mixed-use urban village.

Chesrown hasn’t been shy about saying he wants to make money with his Kendall Yards project, lots of it. By his track record on other ventures in the community, he probably will. If he can ever get it off the ground.

But while he’s already poured about $1 million into an award-winning environmental cleanup effort on the land, and while he’s hired engineers and designers and planners whose salaries he continues to pay, and while he’s secured financing on which he must pay interest, local officials have dragged him through the plodding permitting process that threatens at some point to render the whole idea implausible.

The latest stroke of governmental shortsightedness comes in the form of a threat by County Treasurer Skip Chilberg to sue, if he has to, to halt a tax increment financing proposal that Spokane County commissioners seem inclined to approve.

“I just don’t understand why we should be giving public money to rich people,” explained Chilberg, playing the bash-the-wealthy card.

The public money that Chilberg wants to protect, by the way, is money that doesn’t now exist and won’t exist unless Kendall Yards or something like it goes forward. Tax increment financing means this: The county would issue bonds to pay for the streets and other infrastructure that make the project viable. The project improves the property, driving up values within the TIF zone. Seventy-five percent of the resulting increase in property taxes goes to pay off the bonds, after which it goes straight into government treasuries to pay for fire and police protection, street upkeep and other public services the community needs.

In Chilberg’s mind, this is a disservice to nearby residents whose property taxes will rise – because their homes ARE MORE VALUABLE. Moreover, he has a hunch Chesrown will proceed with the project regardless of whether government partners up with him. That’s a gamble on which Chilberg’s willing to ante the community’s hopes for a substantial economic boost.

Chilberg also complains that the benefits promised by tax increment financing for Kendall Yards won’t show up in a big way until 20 years from now when the bonds have finally been paid off. And he’s right, which proves one thing: Spokane should have shown this kind of foresight 20 years ago.