Governor lavishes praise on Spokane

Speaking to the Downtown Spokane Partnership, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday praised the city as an economic engine and the cultural and business hub of Eastern Washington.

With a downtown home to tens of thousands of professionals and students and a river and park in the city core, she said the group has “saved Spokane from the wrecking ball.”

Gregoire is a former Spokane resident. She got her law degree from Gonzaga University, and she and her husband Mike still own a cabin they bought decades ago on Hayden Lake.

Most of her speech in Spokane was a reprise of her State of the State address the previous evening in Olympia. She touted investments in education, children’s health care and efforts to boost exports and the economy. And she described her efforts to improve the tracking of sex offenders, move transportation projects forward and foster environmentally friendly new industries.

Gregoire also praised the resurgence of Walla Walla, joking that not long ago “a trip to Walla Walla” implied a prison cell and onions, not wineries.

On the education front, she highlighted a Microsoft-aided push to link Cheney students with new math teachers coming from Eastern Washington University.

“Each of us can do our part,” she said.

“Small steps by a lot of people mean big change.”