Mayor, council, what you’re doing is wrong

Sat., Sept. 20, 2008

Gene Hinkle Staff writer

Mayor Munson and the Spokane Valley City Council members: You have no mandate for what you are doing. In your heart of hearts you have to know this. Why would anyone want to lose their property rights and their financial well-being by a Draconian, onerous form-based zoning code?

This is the perfect example of the law of unintended consequences. It is subjective, selective and superfluous.

You (city of SV) exempt yourself from it, and also exempt stakeholders and favorite businesses from the parts of it they don’t like. This is wrong! We, citizens, know this and I suspect you know this as well.

So I just say no and move on. There has to be a much better way. If you won’t govern by the Golden Rule, then you lose all moral authority.

It has been over five years since our city was formed and still you do not have mission statement, which might help to keep the city government on track, instead of chasing rainbows, and the “dream sheets” of a small number of businesses. This is at the great expense of the other 5,500-plus businesses and thousands of citizens.

Yes, Mayor Munson, there is a simplistic three-line Spokane Valley vision which says: “Community of Opportunity where individuals and families can grow and play, and businesses will flourish and prosper.” This is not a mission statement. I suggest you Google it, so the council can understand the difference.

There is no way to calculate the cost-to-benefits ratio of this crazy unfunded “Revitalization Plan.” It is safe to say that the more people know about the plan, the more they dislike it, due to the costs, the inconvenience, down-zoning of one’s property and loss of financial well-being.

Then the blatant discrimination, pitting some businesses against others, the subjectivity, the nonconforming zoning and financial ruin that it can cause; the list is endless.

I am positive that you, the City Council, are not willing or able to pay for this expensive boondoggle. You hope and plan on using others people money, our money, the citizens of the Spokane Valley, right?

When you put it to a vote, you will see how much we dislike the plan. The last several months, those opposed have been a solid 80-plus percent.

So keep it simple. Go and and look at successful businesses on the Spokane/Appleway couplet and tell the unsuccessful one’s to take a lesson and emulate the successful one’s like the Valley Vet Clinic, the Cottage Cafe the Peerless Dental Lab and many others.

Lastly, Mr. Munson and the City Council, we in the Valley do not want a large expensive city center that is livable. Homes are for living. If we want to tiptoe through the tulips, we will go to Manito Park or our own tulip garden.

Gene Hinkle lives in the Terrace View Park neighborhood of Spokane Valley.

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