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Not-so-great disappearing act

The Spokesman-Review

Ponder this: Certain county and city elected officials want to use $4.3 million of Conservation Futures tax revenues for the purchase of the downtown YMCA. The YMCA is to be torn down. It will cost $850,000 to tear it down. The YMCA and the demolition money will go away, into the ether.

Along the south bank of the Spokane River, these officials are going to throw away the value of the building and the cost of demolition. The money for this will simply vanish. It will be the same as these officials going to the public’s bank and withdrawing $4.3 million so that they can burn each dollar bill as a sort of celebration of Riverfront Park.

There’s something wrong with this, really wrong! Public officials cannot engage in a “gross waste of public funds.” And that’s what this is, a gross, very gross, waste of public funds.

And, it gets worse. The officials will be engaging in an act of malfeasance. They might even be personally liable.

Steve Eugster

Spokane

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