Comstock Neighborhood Council looks to build its team

When John Schram moved into the Comstock neighborhood in 2010, he didn’t know anything about the neighborhood council program. But Ted Henry, Comstock’s cleanup coordinator at the time, lived across the street.

“He whisked me into his powerful vortex,” Schram said. “He got me to volunteer … and eventually take over as the Clean Green coordinator in 2011.”

Now he’s in charge of the whole mess. Schram, along with Terryl Black, the council’s Community Assembly liaison, recently took the Comstock Neighborhood Council reins.

“We’ve been put here by default,” Schram said, “because there was a vacuum.”

Home to Comstock Park and the Manito Shopping Center, Comstock is situated above the bluffs overlooking Latah Creek. Neighborhood boundaries are 29th Avenue to the north, the bluffs along High Drive to the west, Perry Street to the east and the city limits near 57th Avenue to the south.

The reluctant oligarchs want to build a team. “I love to do things – I love to accomplish things,” Schram said. “But my preference (with the council) is to do as little as possible and have a whole bunch of other people come in to do whatever their passion is.”

One example is Phil Svoboda, who handles communications and prefers to work behind the scenes. “That’s his realm,” Schram said. “He loves to write things … and communicate on NextDoor.com, but he doesn’t want to lead a meeting to save his life.”

At the moment, only a couple of committee slots are filled. The annual Spokane Summer Parkways event, held last week, is one of the gatherings they attend to drum up interest in the council. The 4-mile loop between Manito and Comstock parks attracts hiking and biking enthusiasts from all over the city.

“We typically have a booth out along the road,” Schram said. “We have kids’ events and pass out flyers and brochures, introducing ourselves as the neighborhood council.”

In the meantime, the council beat goes on. Some recently uncovered homeowner covenants dominated the most recent council meeting, but the ongoing neighborhood dialogue revolves around traffic issues large and small. And, occasionally, ridiculous.

Guest speaker Logan Camporeale, volunteer programs coordinator for the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, spoke at the council’s most recent meeting about a number of racist covenants he unearthed while he was a graduate student at Eastern Washington University. The covenants are scattered around the city like tiny pockets of dinosaur DNA.

“They are completely null and void now,” Schram said. “But they still exist in the documents that are delivered to homeowners as they purchase a home that is in one of those pockets.”

The covenants, which date back to the 1940s, precluded people of nonwhite races and nationalities from occupying homes unless they were employed as domestic servants.

Homeowners who find these covenants attached to their home deeds, and wish to get them removed, are encouraged to contact Rick Eichstaedt at ricke@cforjustice.org for assistance. Eichstaedt is the director of the environmental law clinic in the Gonzaga University Legal Assistance program.

Council co-chair Black, who moved into the neighborhood in 1986, started attending meetings several years ago. “I like to know what’s going on,” she said.

But she didn’t join the council until 2015. A proposal to install a concrete barrier at 29th and Lincoln Street – similar to a barrier at 29th and Pittsburgh Street – brought Black into the mix.

“I was violently opposed,” she said. “It would divert traffic into the neighborhoods … because they couldn’t cut through to get to the Comstock Park neighborhood.”

The barrier idea was ultimately scrapped in favor a flashing light. “(The City Council) was very responsive to the neighborhood,” Black said. “They sought input, and it ended up great.”

The Spokane Transit Authority’s Monroe to Regal streets high-performance transit line, targeted to begin service in 2019, was slated to go up and down High Drive until, in a planning meeting, a neighbor pointed out a flaw in the plan.

“One of the comments that came up was that there are ‘no trucks’ signs on High Drive,” Schram said. “It’s been designated as a quiet road for several decades.”

Schram said the planners, who weren’t from the neighborhood, had no idea. “That’s what the councils are for,” he said, “to remind them.”

The current plan has Grand Boulevard penciled in, but both sides continue to search for the best route.

The Comstock council knows that something has to be done to ease traffic pressure from new construction on Moran Prairie. “We’ve got all this great new development that attracts neighbors in there, but it also causes additional congestion,” Schram said.

Schram understands that it’s easier to fix a sidewalk or install a ramp than to resolve complex traffic protocols. “It’s not a simple fix,” he said. “There’s a recognition that there’s a problem, but the can keeps getting kicked down the road … because it’s a bigger issue.”

Not all traffic issues are as complex as the High Drive conundrum. In 2017, the council placed a speed feedback sign near Jefferson Street and 37th Avenue. Schram was taking a picture of the sign for social media when he ran into a neighbor who lived nearby.

“He said one group of people parked their car and got out,” Schram said. “They took out one of those little remote-control cars and drove it up and down 37th, to see if they could get the feedback sign to register.”