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Doug Clark: In Spokane, politics is a cozy business
Spokane came in eighth with Portland as the fifth-coziest burg.
Portland three spots cozier than Spokane?
Not in my toasty feather bed.
I’ve been to Portland many times. Though there’s plenty to enjoy about that town there’s a considerable, um, hippiefied element that seems at odds with some of the basic cozy-inducing aspects of life.
Attention Portlandia: It’s not 1968 anymore!
Not to be judgmental, but the freshness factor alone should have the Lilac City swapping cozy rankings with Portland.
Released last week, the coziest burgs list is put out by Honeywell Heaters, which didn’t trigger any cozy images in my mind. But the company apparently teamed up with an environmental scientist to make its selections.
A story on CountryLiving.com reports that although we get “a fair amount of snow,” Spokane’s first appearance on the list stems from many coffee shops that “offer more than enough space to cozy up.”
Maybe. But when I’m out for a caffeine fix the last thing on my mind is hanging around and chit-chatting with strangers.
Coffee availability, however, is just one of the ingredients that went into the mix. Other factors included restaurants, breweries, florists, bookstores, bakeries and B&Bs.
Meth chefs per capita apparently didn’t make the cut.
That said, it only took a moment for me to spot a glaring omission that, had this been included, would have put Spokane atop the entire heap of cozy destinations.
I’m talking about that coziest of all American institutions …
Politics.
What a shame that the honchos at Honeywell didn’t include political coziness in their equation.
When it comes to hush-hush dealmaking, why, Spokane’s as cozy as drinking a cup of hot chocolate while watching a puppy frolic on the living room rug with a kitten.
Ahhh …
Exhibit A – Here we are, months and months later, and we still don’t know what went on in a private meeting that was held before Spokane police Chief Frank Straub was fired.
We do know that Spokane Mayor David Condon was there. We know some city administrators and City Council members were there, too.
But what, exactly, was said about the sexual harassment accusations being leveled against Straub by a police spokeswoman?
Did anyone map out a strategy for axing the chief?
Or was the discussion centered on what outfit the mayor might wear at his next re-election fundraiser?
Who knows? Nobody who was in this cozy nest is talking.
Exhibit B – When functioning at its best, a city council focuses on real issues that face a community.
Like fixing the streets, say, or making sure the trash gets picked up in front of my house on Tuesday mornings.
A good council tries to represent all taxpayers in a nonpartisan way that will get the job done.
There’s give. There’s take.
Then there’s the Spokane City Council, which has become an all-but monolithic clan of leftist progressives led by an ideologue who wants to be Boss.
Too high-minded for the mundane, this Council focuses instead on how much sick leave business owners should dole out or how best to silence critics.
Or they vote to sign some intergalactic charter that says we’re compassionate even though Spokane is already one of the most caring places on the planet.
But what can you do? Until voters wise up this council will remain as cozy a gang as Spokane’s ever had.
Exhibit C – The quality of a municipality’s museum was one of the considerations used in selecting America’s coziest cities.
And I would argue that recent events prove that our Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture is the chicken soup of cozy.
Take the recent firing of Forrest Rodgers, the museum’s executive director. This is the second time in four years that the MAC board has mysteriously voted to oust Rodgers.
The first firing came in 2012. Rodgers got his job back three months later, thanks to public hollering.
What’s going on?
I wish we knew.
“No explanation was given,” Rodgers told the newspaper, adding that this canning came out of the blue.
And the MAC board?
Keeping quiet as a mummy’s tomb, which should come as no surprise because, hey, that’s the way things work here in SpoCozy Land.
Doug Clark is a columnist for The Spokesman-Review. He can be reached at (509) 459-5432 or by email at dougc@spokesman.com.