Corker, Griffin both tout experience

At first glance, the race in northwest Spokane’s District 3 might seem to be between two very similar candidates: two Indian Trail residents, practically neighbors, a pair of silver-haired 66-year-olds pointing to their experience in government as a good reason to pick them for an open city council seat.

Lewis Griffin and Steve Corker are both talking about the need for better planning and pushing “impact fees” to help pay for the cost of new or wider roads in the city’s rapidly growing Five Mile and Indian Trail neighborhoods. Both want the neighborhoods to have a greater say in the type of development that occurs in and around them.

As the campaign progresses, however, some clear distinctions have arisen.

The biggest can be boiled down to whose government experience is better: Griffin’s years in administration, as a city manager first in Colfax and then Liberty Lake, or Corker’s years in civic organizations and elective office, including the City Council from 2000 through 2003.

“I’ve been working in the political and social realities of this city for years. I can do the consensus building necessary,” Corker said. That, plus his previous years on the council would allow him to fit in immediately with a group that he says is generally short on experience.

While Griffin has a dozen years as a city manager and a previous career in the military – he retired as a chief master sergeant in maintenance at Fairchild Air Force Base – Corker questions whether that’s more of a background in giving orders rather than finding consensus.

Griffin counters that the job of city manager and the job of city councilman aren’t that much different. Both have to work with other council members and other city and county officials as well as make decisions on budgets.

Spokane switched from a city manager system to its present strong mayor system in 1999, in the same election that put Corker, a proponent of the change, on the council. Griffin opposed the change then and still thinks it was a mistake, prompted by a public unhappy with past councils that were too weak.

“I think the reason we voted out the city manager form of government was the council didn’t have the courage to replace a city manager who wasn’t doing his job,” he said. Replacing a bad mayor takes a recall, while replacing a city manager takes just four of seven votes on the council, he added.

Corker, who was on a council that struggled with replacing a city manager, isn’t so sure. But he’s convinced that a city the size of Spokane needs a full-time, elected executive and council members who may nominally be part-time but willing to work many hours during the week.

Even though he contends the strong mayor system “is not working that well,” Griffin said he wouldn’t try to move the city back to its old form of government. Instead, he believes the charter needs to be changed to give the council more authority as a counterbalance to the mayor, a shortcoming he contends is the fault of those who proposed the switch in 1999.

One of the most contentious issues from Corker’s days on the council, the River Park Square garage controversy, has resurfaced in their council campaign. Corker was a critic of the city’s involvement in the project and part of a 4-3 majority that balked at making payments from the city’s parking meter fund to help cover the expenses of the financially troubled garage. But he disagrees with recent calls for a new investigation into the deals struck in the 1990s by the city and development companies controlled by Cowles Publishing Co. to renovate and operate the mall.

Cowles Publishing owns The Spokesman-Review.

The city was right to settle the case in 2004, Corker said.

“I testified for the settlement because I did not see the will by elected officials or the public to go on,” he said. “I made a political decision that the city needs to move on.”

Griffin said he thinks Corker and other members of that previous council inherited a bad deal but “should’ve worked harder to make it work” rather than get involved in lawsuits. But he wonders about Corker’s change of heart on further investigations.

Corker concedes that River Park Square has been a problem for him in two past elections. He lost in the 2003 mayoral primary and the 2007 general election for District 3’s other council seat. Now, however, he believes the public can put the project into perspective.

Griffin questions one item on Corker’s resume – his connection to Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities, a $2.1 billion conglomerate that was driven into bankruptcy by dangerous lending practices and defrauded investors.

Corker counters that his main connection to Met was a director’s position on the board of one of its affiliates, Western United Assurance, for about 18 months. He did serve briefly as the chief operating officer for Met until an expert in restructuring was hired before bankruptcy was declared, but he said reports that he earned a $250,000 salary for that are untrue. While that may be the listed annual salary, he was paid daily – for 17 days – he said.

None of the Western United officers were indicted, he said. “I have not been interviewed by the Department of Justice or the state. I have not been subpoenaed,” he said.

For Griffin, a question has arisen as to whether he would give up the council seat if he wins Nov. 6. Earlier this year he applied for the job of city manager in Cheney. One of the requirements of that job is to live in Cheney. That would make him ineligible to keep his council seat in Spokane.

Griffin said if he wins the election and is also offered the job, he’d only take it if Cheney officials would change the requirement that he move to that city. If so, he’d try his hand at doing both jobs; if not “I’d stay on the council.”