Revenue short for street repairs

Spokane Valley Mayor Rich Munson delivered good news in his State of the City address this week: There’s money to maintain streets.

The bad news, he said, adapting a joke about a minister and his congregation, “is that it’s still in your pocket.”

There are two problems, Munson said.

Annual fuel tax revenue is about $2.5 million short of the amount needed for short-term maintenance, such as snow removal and pothole repair. And no money is available for long-term maintenance, such as resurfacing and chip-sealing, that is estimated to cost more than $4 million a year.

Without more money, “we’re going to face some ugly choices, and it’s going to start looking like our neighbors to the west,” Munson told about 125 people who turned out for his speech Wednesday.

“We’re probably going to come to you this year for that $2.5 million deficit for street maintenance,” he said.

Munson didn’t offer details, but on the previous evening he told the City Council that he and Spokane Mayor Mary Verner have been discussing a countywide vehicle registration fee.

Spokane County commissioners are interested in the fee to satisfy Gov. Chris Gregoire’s demand that local governments help pay for the north-south freeway now under construction. But, when state legislators authorized the vehicle fee last year, they put Spokane and Spokane Valley in the driver’s seat.

However, any fee greater than $20 would require a plebiscite.

Munson told council members he and Verner are talking about a deal in which most of the money would go for city streets, not state and federal highways. The money would be divided according to a formula, and participating cities would decide now to spend their shares.

Call it “revenue enhancement,” Munson suggested to his Greater Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce audience at the Mirabeau Point Hotel. But, he acknowledged with tongue in cheek, what looks and “smells” like a tax probably is.

The chamber’s chairman-elect, Philip Rudy, said afterward that Munson served up “some meat and potatoes here at the end for us to think about.”

Unlike hotel food servers, Rudy said, the mayor led with dessert.

Munson said the city has 91 employees, about twice as many as when it was newly incorporated five years ago, but still the smallest staff of any comparably sized city in the state.

Accomplishments include completion of the 54,000-square-foot CenterPlace community center and ongoing development of a plan to build a city center and revitalize the Sprague-Appleway corridor, Munson said.

Plans call for the city center to have a new city hall and a new library. Votes are to be counted Tuesday on proposals that would provide the library and other library improvements.

Munson endorsed the proposed $33.4 million library bond measure and warned that additional money will be needed for the city center.

The new city hall probably will need about $6 million more than is currently available, Munson said.

Also, he said street improvements on Sprague Avenue and Appleway Boulevard, between Dishman-Mica and University roads, such as striping and landscaping, will require another $6 million.

Infrastructure and landscaping within the city center itself will add an estimated $12 million, for a total of $24 million, Munson said. City officials hope they won’t have to ask taxpayers for the full amount, he said.

“This project could take years to complete, but it’s what our great-grandchildren are going to be looking at,” Munson said. “It’s an opportunity for them to look at us, and maybe our pictures, and say, ‘They figured it out and we have wonderful city to live in.’ “

Meanwhile, Munson said, City Council members work together respectfully even when they disagree, and city officials have responded quickly to problems.

When public disclosure requests doubled last year, the city began converting records from paper to digital files for more efficient handling.

When people complained that permits took too long to obtain, “We said to staff, ‘Fix it,’ and by golly, they did,” Munson said.

Some problems take longer to solve, but Munson said a five-year effort to achieve a joint land-use planning agreement with Spokane County is about to pay off. He said city and county officials are “very close” to a deal that would give the city a voice in developments just outside the city.

“I’m hoping we can tell you at the end of March that it’s been completed,” he said.

Munson sounded less enthusiastic about another of Spokane Valley’s accomplishments, the imminent construction of its first traffic roundabout – at the corner of Pines Road and Mansfield Avenue.

“Whoopee,” he said in a tone usually reserved a new pair of socks at Christmas.