Parks board proposed

The best use for the old Valley Mission Senior Center may be to let firefighters burn it for training, but it might lead the Spokane Valley City Council to form a parks board.

A parks advisory committee could weigh public opinion and recommend a new use for the senior center’s portion of Valley Mission Park if the vacant building is removed, City Councilman Dick Denenny suggested.

The committee also could be helpful in future park issues, including policies, regulations and land acquisitions, Denenny said.

Councilman Steve Taylor wanted assurances that the committee would follow the city’s parks master plan and not attempt to “reinvent the wheel,” but the plan calls for formation of an advisory board.

Mayor Richard Munson agreed the proposed board should have no authority of its own. It would be “not even close” to the autonomous Spokane Park Board, he said.

“We want a board that’s going to help us – not that they don’t,” Munson said of the Spokane board. “The last thing we want is another political football to kick around.”

Deputy City Manager Mike Jackson told the council an engineering study found the 12,000-square-foot senior center building is cracked and slumping because it was built on debris that is still settling.

The basement floor has sunken 6 to 10 inches, the main floor support beams are splitting, the roof is full of holes and the exterior steps and the building lean in different directions, Jackson said.

“It looks like a tragedy waiting to happen,” Munson said.

Repairing the building would cost an estimated $1.7 million, compared with $1.3 million for a new building that would last longer, Jackson reported.

The building at 11423 E. Mission Ave., which opened in 1976, has been vacant since the senior center moved to the CenterPlace community center at Mirabeau Point Park in September 2005.

Council members took both the demolition and parks board issues under advisement.