Blame it on the curse

I have read both Shawn Vestal’s and Doug Clark’s articles as they strutted and fretted about Mayor Mary Verner’s actions. Verner generously forfeited $70,000 of her annual salary so it could be placed back into the city coffers. When she lost the mayoral election, she asked that the forfeited, accumulated sum be returned to her in the form of back pay or a pension.

Quickly, Clark and Vestal wrote articles vilifying the former mayor. However, neither columnist cited the real reason for Verner’s actions. Doesn’t anyone remember the name Jimmy Marks? In 1997, the local Gypsy leader, following the death of his father, pulled the hearse up to City Hall, opened the hearse and City Hall doors and gestured his father’s spirit into the building to haunt 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. forever.

Verner, through no fault of her own, was acting under the Marks Curse when she asked for back pay and/or an increased pension. Clark and Vestal, longtime residents of Spokane, missed this obvious fact. Also, while I am thinking about it, this same reasoning may be applied to Spokane’s police and fire departments’ current trials and tribulations.

Forrest Diehl

Spokane