School board made the right choice

Just a note to THANK the school board and APPLAUD its courage on the stadium location decision.

Despite the criticism, the school board made the best choice, optimized public resources and opportunity, and struck a good bargain. The community will come to see this in a positive light.

When I was on the Park Board, we were harshly rebuked for buying the old YMCA building to prevent construction of a high-rise condo in the heart of Riverfront Park. The newspaper was relentless with 3 editorials painting us as irresponsible obstructionists of healthy development. The City Council came out against us; but after they couldn’t stop our purchase, they held their own ad hoc hearings to inject opinion on how to best use the old building and prevent us from turning the site into open space. (A meddlesome and half-baked intervention…much like the City Council sponsoring the Albi advisory vote.) A County Commissioner voted against granting us Conservation Futures funding to restore the land for recreational purposes.

We prevailed against all that headwind. And the critics all came around. At the dedication of the restored site many of our fiercest opponents got on stage to praise the amazing open space and bask in beautiful new views of the river (and take credit for it).

The downtown stadium will eventually be seen as a self-evident success. Many of the critics and naysayers will convert.

That’s how it works when you do the right thing.

Again: a big THANK YOU to the school board.

Steve McNutt

Spokane