bleckblog: musings of a community college english teacher

Regular readers might recall that I joined the city's Bicycle Advisory Board sometime last spring, after attending a few meetings and doing some volunteer work for the board. Since then I won't say that I've thrown myself headlong into local politics, but I do find myself involved to a much greater degree than I expected. I had hoped that working with the BAB would give me a way to contribute to the city with an emphasis on my love for bicycling. I think I've been able to do that to some degree, but in doing so I've come into contact with a few folks who are career civic-minded volunteers, though the motives of some, I've come to see, may be less than honorable.

What brings me to write about this is the result of a resolution submitted to a subcommittee of the Community Assembly. The Community Assembly, CA from here on out, is the umbrella group for each of the neighborhood councils, of which there are 27. I live in the Cliff/Cannon Neighborhood. The Cannon is for a park a few blocks away, and the Cliff is for the cliff that is a few blocks away that provides a beautiful overlook of the city. I'll snap a pic at some point to show what I mean. But the view of the city from my neighborhood is beside the point.

Ever since I spoke to a city council study session in August where I brought up the notion of using bicycle boulevards as part of the city's non-motorized transportation infrastructure, I've had to work with, and often against, a husband and wife team who I won't bother to name here. The husband is the chair of his particular neighborhood council. The wife is the chair of the Pedestrian, Traffic and Transportation subcommittee of the Community Assembly. If you live in Spokane, or want to google a little, you can find out their names, but as I said, that's beside the point.

This husband and wife team, from the get go, have been advocating for a particular bicycle boulevard route through their neighborhood, a route which runs just three doors from their home. Before they even discussed the merits or the possibility of the route with the BAB, the folks who are supposed to work on these sorts of issues, they had surveyed their neighbors to see what they thought. The problem was these neighbors, despite giving their support, were poorly informed. Subsequent looks, might I say study, of the route, has shown it less than ideal, especially as a pilot project to demonstrate the merit of bicycle boulevards. Ever since, it's been head butting.

The head butting culminated in a resolution to the Spokane city council, one that's being discussed right now as I write, but I can't attend because I had to drop Tobias at piano and have to pick him up in a few minutes, as soon as I stop typing. The resolution initially named the couple's desired route, but the BAB and other bicycle boulevard supporters, along with city engineering staff who work with us, thought naming a route premature and in need of study. Because of that, the language of the budget resolution was revised to take out named routes. At about the same time, probably while this discussion was in progress, the husband drafted a resolution of his own at the neighborhood level that would remove oversight of bicycle boulevards, intra-neighborhood routes he called them, from the BAB and transfer that oversight to the 27 neighborhood councils, regardless of each councils understanding of the issues involved. One could call the process rigged, though it seems some people spoke against it at the neighborhood level. It could be called rigged because the BAB was not invited to be part of the discussion.

From the neighborhood council, the resolution went to the subcommittee chaired by the wife. Again, one could say the process was rigged. I don't think this is particularly nepotism, but it is underhanded if nothing else. However, I'm sure most of the people on the PETT subcommittee know the relationship between the chairs of the neighborhood council and the chair of the subcommittee. Again, the BAB was not invited to be part of the discussion. The vote was 11-1 in favor of the resolution. At this point, because the same person who advises the PETT advises the BAB when it comes to traffic engineering issues, we were brought into the loop. I, and many others of the BAB, were not at all happy to learn what was happening behind our backs.

At the same time all of this is going on, the husband of this duo has thrown his hat into the ring, seeking appointment to a vacant city council seat, a seat recently vacated when a council member was elected mayor. The appointed person would serve until the next scheduled election takes place and is ratified. My view is that this person is incapable of setting aside his narrow interests to serve beyond his neighborhood. It just so happens, otherwise I wouldn't care as much as I do, that his neighborhood and mine are in the same council district, meaning he would represent me if appointed. With what little power I have, which is little, I decided to act. I wrote a letter to the editor, which probably won't be published because they would have called by now if it were likely to see the light of day, and to each member of the city council, the folks who will make the appointment. Being above board, I copied the duo, since they share an email address (do a lot of husbands and wives do that?), but mostly to be straight with them. In general, I argued that he was unfit to serve the whole district. I'll write about that tomorrow because it's time that I pick up Tobias, and I have to drive up to Sandpoint tonight to meet the cable guy in the morning.