Listen to the voters

I think Jim Allen just hit the nail on the head when he wrote “That vote has remained the biggest obstacle as the board weighs a proposal that surfaced only two weeks ago from the Downtown Spokane Partnership” (“Downtown stadium gets heavy support,” March 18), so when is the vote and advisory vote backed by 67 percent of the voters an obstacle? Is voting useless? How many people attended the pair of two- hour meetings that the headline stated the downtown stadium gets heavy support, but how many people did attend?

I happen to love high school sports and also soccer, played in soccer in high school, but the key issue for me is parking. The 5-year downtown development plan calls for eliminating many of the existing surface parking areas with mixed-use and small green space areas. Couple that with eliminating the parking lot across from the Arena, the question is where are people going to park for events like Chiefs hockey games, concerts, Lilac Parade, Hoopfest, St. Patrick’s Day parade, etc.

Spokane also has a large elderly population for whom walking or biking quite a way to access local downtown dining and shopping would now reduce their access. Downtown Spokane has many fine establishments that I love to frequent. My suggestion is listen to the voters, build at the existing Albi site — which has great access and free parking — and instead focus on solving the safety and homeless issues downtown, fix the roads which are terrible, and continue to improve beautiful Riverfront Park.

Steve Hintyesz

Spokane