Spokane, Washington

It's Problems and Solutions

This web page is not about my experiences with Ham Radio. It is not about the latest "rig" or some contraption I built. Rather, it began its life as a letter addressed to the Mayor of Spokane, Mary Verner, after she gave a budget report to the City Council earlier this year. I wrote it because I was, and still am, fed-up with the asinine programs, and the greed-driven, shortsightedness of the local government and the business and civic leaders who, in a misguided desire to achieve economic "prosperity", have instead, created a sickly creature that is close to death. Were it not for "government", who, it seems, is the largest employer in the area, Spokane would have died already, and all the government-controlled hospitals in town wouldn't be able to save it. The aforementioned people and groups seem to believe that, by entertaining a process of continual growth, expansion, and taxation, they can magically bring prosperity to the community. They could not be further off-base if they were trying. The only alternatives offered up recently are worse than the current system, and that's no solution at all. So, I changed the letter a bit, made it larger, added some old photos, and posted it on the Internet, so everyone interested in the future of Spokane could read it, (while they still can, that is, because views and opinions like mine will never be permitted under Obama's "Net Neutrality"). If you like what you read, or parts of it, then tell City Hall . Tell Greater Spokane Incorporated. Even if you don't like what I've written, tell them what YOU want! Tell the people you've been electing all these years to lead the community that they have lost their way and it's time to go back to the proverbial fork in the road, and get back on track. Tell someone, if you're not happy with the way things are going here. Don't parrot me. Use your own words. Remember: Silence is Consent. We still have time, but the tipping point is close. Once past it, we're finished as a community. We will have to start all over from scratch.

Oh, by the way, if you don't like things here the way they are, have you considered moving to a real city, instead of advocating and supporting the trashing of this community?

The Economic Recession

We are indeed in a time of recession, and everyone needs to cut back on spending and tighten their belts. It's sad that public safety has to suffer also but, perhaps if we were to work at reducing their workload, with the goal of achieving stability, we might avoid having to make these difficult decisions in the future.

Tightening Our Belts

What I am suggesting is something that most likely would give the Economic Development Council, aka: Greater Spokane Incorporated, (why are they taking trips to China? Can't find anyone here to make their stuff?), a collective coronary: pulling back the corporate limits of the city to the pre-1962 boundaries. Reducing the size of Spokane would mean a smaller area of responsibility, geographically, for fire and police. Additionally, it would reduce the miles of street that require snow removal services every Winter and surface repair every Spring. It would also mean less total infrastructure to maintain. All of that translates into less money required to keep things going. Those areas annexed after 1962, that have been connected to the City water and sewer infrastructure could stay connected if they wanted, paying the County for the service that the City would sell to the County

A Murder of Crows

Personally, I don't see that GSI has done much good for us anyhow, so hurting their feelings doesn't rate very high on my list of things to be careful of. The argument, that I'm sure will eventually surface, that such a reduction of the city's tax base would do more harm than good, doesn't hold water with me; Not a drop. The size of the existing tax base is insufficient to maintain the current basic services. In this unsure economy, and there are no guarantees that it will improve anytime soon, no guarantees exist for maintaining future levels either, assuming future planned expansion. However, if the city reduces it's obligations through size reduction, at least, there's a chance of achieving economic stability. This becomes really important when we see our community as part of the larger national community.

The Government, Yet Again

The prospect of the national economy getting worse is far more likely, especially when one considers the noise coming from OPEC concerning the possibility of moving away from the dollar, as a base currency for oil trading, to a “basket” of foreign currencies which doesn't include the dollar (do you realize what that would mean?); The federal government spending money it doesn't have to fund things most people don't want, and and the central bank (that's the "Federal Reserve Bank", for those of you who have a "modern" history education), working overtime trying to quietly monetize the national debt. All of that spells hyperinflation and that will effect our community in a major way, unless we prepare ourselves ahead of time to weather the storm and insulate our local economy from the bogus one created by Woodrow Wilson's Federal Reserve Act. I am very concerned about how this community would stay afloat in such a situation. Would we survive or, would we just spiral down the drain with the rest of the country, like so much of California presently is these days.

Running an Economy

Economic development has been a “hopeful monster” here for a long time. Like it's evolutionists' namesake, it has not proved to be the saving economic grace it was hoped to be. GSI needs better direction as to what sort of businesses they should be trying to attract to the community. We need more producers of products that come from local raw materials first, and no more of the “service industry”, an oxymoron if ever there was one. Taxes on these new businesses need to be kept at the bare minimum because, as we all know, Washington State is infamous for it's programs of “punitive taxation”. The expression “making your money through volume” should apply here. Government, after all, is not supposed to be a growth industry. Someone should tell them that, don't you think? We have to stop making it too expensive to employ people here. Our businesses, industries and local government must be de-unionized. These trade unionists are vile parasites who line their pockets with money they steal from their "members" and drive otherwise good, self-supporting businesses away. They are Marxists and traitors to all things that made this nation great, and made Spokane a good place to live and work. None of these ideas will eliminate greed, however. That is part of Mankind's natural condition but, the way it is now, decent people won't get involved in business or government because, the only way to survive in a system riddled, from top to bottom, with corruption, is to become corrupt yourself.

Living Within Our Means and Preserving Our Heritage

Because we need to learn to live within our means, all demolition and new construction should be justified to the n^th degree. There are plenty of empty buildings in Spokane that are presently awaiting the wrecking ball, and for what? Surface parking! What sort of short-sighted, greed-driven, waste is that anyhow? What does it teach our children of the value of our history and culture? Just tear them down, those beautiful old buildings, and erect a cookie-cutter box in their place. Maybe another Metropoloitan Mortgage or Wells Fargo building, eh? I'm just waiting to see the old Hillyard High School become a heap of rubble.

For example, some lunatic developer recently finished a bunch of two-story apartments up on Lincoln Rd., and Crestline. What I want to know is who is going to live in them? Where are they going to work? How will they get the money needed to pay their rent? How will they feed themselves? Now, granted, they didn't demolish anything to build them. All they did is fill-in yet another one of the empty spaces in Spokane. I suppose it's that abhorrence they have for empty spaces that drove them to it.

Old buildings should be renovated and used by new businesses if at all possible, before they are allowed to build new within the city limits. That obnoxious model of a post-Expo '74 city that some science fiction aficionado put together should, along with all memory of it, be destroyed, and I mean that seriously. We have to learn to make do with what we have, not allow ourselves to come under the delusion that a flashy new package will make the old shoes sell better.

Local Industry

We need to attract and encourage industries that make something we can, not only use locally, but sell to others, using locally available raw materials (just so you know, I'm not talking steel refining or petro-chemical industries, or the like). Textiles, dairy and agricultural products, meat packing, production of leather goods, real recycling, (not just shipping recyclables to China and India); those are just a few possibilities. Our new industries could help with building a streetcar system by contributing to laying track for routes to and from their operational locations and the neighborhoods. That translates into fewer, smaller parking lots.

Small, locally owned and operated businesses should also be encouraged. Not these “service industry” businesses that presently litter our streets, but things like small cabinet and furniture making, upholstery shops, shoe repair, tailors, appliance repair shops, bicycle manufacturing, neighborhood grocers, that sort of thing. They are the ones who can employ the most people in stable and secure jobs. Additionally, they must be protected from the state and federal taxmen (we cannot be expected to survive on the 3-cents back on every dollar we give them in taxes. We need to keep most of our money here, locally), and the socialist trade unionists too, who seem to really enjoy making them fail. It has been said that chain and big-box stores have obsoleted my suggestions. Not so, because those are the guys who will pay the high taxes, (they have to be good for something. Right?), if they want to operate here, or, until they decide to move their snake-oil operations elsewhere. Consider the products they sell; It's mostly imported junk and products made by people who are collectively, nothing more than slave labor. Their products don't last and are virtually unrepairable. Basically, those businesses are, in the long run, bad for local economies.

Counting on tourism and conventions to save the city has to be one of the most insane ideas I've ever heard. Capsizing an old ocean liner downtown and calling it a "Convention Center" makes no sense. There were two beautiful buildings among many downtown that could have been part of a convention center. But, oh no. Those had to go because they smelled of "The Railroad", and we just couldn't have that, now could we?

Our citizens and especially our children need to be educated about locally-based economies so they will stay and support them, by becoming part of it. We need to start looking further ahead than the ends of our noses. Looking ahead sometimes means looking back to the tried and true programs and methods of the past.

Public Transportation

Some common sense needs to reign supreme at Spokane Transit also. Just because they call Spokane a “great city” in their T.V., propaganda spots does not make it so. Those buses are expensive to maintain and operate. They are noisy and smelly. The "hybrid" they bought has the battery problem, not to mention the increase in maintenance for such a contraption. I believe all those big busses should be replaced, one route at a time, with electric street cars. Eventually, the savings in diesel alone would pay for the change and then the system revenue could be used to expand the system. That corrupt, anti-rail coalition, (the greedy driving force, among others, behind Expo 74 and the demolition of the Great Northern and Union Pacific terminal buildings), that has been hiding in the city over the past 100-years or so can go soak their collective heads. Street cars are an excellent way to move people efficiently and economically, while at the same time, encouraging a reduction in automobile usage. Reducing surface automobile parking, in the city, without going to issuing draconian edicts, would discourage auto usage and make it possible for new businesses to build on those lots or the establishment of small urban parks.

Self-Sufficient Communities

I hate to use the word because it tends to pidgin-hole one as an environmentalist wacko, socialist, communist, or progressive, (none of which I am), but we need to make this community sustainable, or a better phrase might be self-sufficient. We need to end our dependence on government entities and the spoils by the theft of your neighbor's wealth. They are: 1) not dependable and, 2) many are far too corrupt to be trusted, let alone, relied upon and, 3) many were created and are sustained by fulfilling special interest agendas. It's helpful to remind people who put out their hand that whenever government gives them something they didn't earn, they first had to take it from someone else who did. That's called “redistribution of wealth”, and it's Marxism, flat out. If that's really how some people want to live, there are places where such systems are already in place. They should go there and stop trying to tear down this constitutional representative Republic. Those who are still not convinced need to look at how the federal government, and FEMA in particular, dealt with hurricane Katrina. Do we really want to place our future in the hands of people like that? Or, do we want to trust in God, and our friends and neighbors to help each other with a hand-up, not a hand out.

We all need to remember, there is no such thing as growing oneself out of economic trouble. No one, absolutely no one, has ever made it work. It involves spending what one does not have, and as we can see from Washington D.C., the only observable growth is in government itself. Such plans are foolhardy at best.

The Enemies Within

Envision Spokane, the Progressives behind Proposition 4, tell us they want to make Spokane a "sustainable" community, with all these rights and entitlements for everything from "the environment" to the lazy slug who refuses to get up off his couch for nothing less than his Obamamoney Check. I believe their proposition will only advance our economic collapse. Maybe that's the idea. The problem with Progressives is, you can never tell what their agenda truly is. That's what teaching relativism and situation ethics in public schools has bought us.

Managed Growth Schemes

I am aware of the Comprehensive Growth Management edict and have been witness to the damage it has done to this community during the past nineteen or so years. You see, the problem with things that profess to be “comprehensive”, is they bear no resemblance to reality. Just reading material on the Spokane.com web site like this:

or this load of tripe from the GSI web site:

It's enough to gag a maggot already! What fantasy world do these people live in anyhow? What an offensive collection of New Age buzzwords. All this striving towards becoming integrated in some bizarre globalist utopia (a word that means “nothing” - a perfect word because, the socialist system they desire has never, and will never work), reminds me of really bad science fiction writing. Their "embracing" of traditional industries must be the embrace of the Boa Constrictor, because I've watched traditional industries do nothing but die here since 1972. Along with those industries went most all the blue collar jobs. New "technologies" are not self-supporting. Most people can't use them and we don't provide the raw materials used to make the devices used. It's just another short-sighted scam we've been told will save us. When I use the word “community”, I have something totally different in mind from what these folks do.

If our community is to survive, we have to learn to be independent; economically, socially, and politically. We have to stop giving our tax dollars to Olympia and Washington, D.C., only to get 3-4 cents back for each dollar they take. We have to learn to do business locally, using locally-produced materials, that can also be sold elsewhere. We have to employ all our citizens who want to work, in both blue and white collar jobs. If Greater Spokane Incorporated likes China so much, then let the whole lot of them go live there. We have people here who could do those jobs; people here who need those jobs. We don't need GSI and their economic experiments. We must become self-supporting. We have to learn to allow people to work as hard as they desire, reaping their due rewards, or even failing a few times, as they struggle to make their own lives better.

Give people a chance to develop their own sense of self-respect by working an honest day, for an honest day's wage. Let them keep it. Then maybe, just maybe, their children will turn their hats around, pull up their pants and do the same, instead of learning that everything will just be given to you by "The Government." Greedy for gain, narrow-minded, short-sighted people who believe they are "entitled to ...", are a bane to any civil society. We need to discourage that sort of thinking if we desire to live in a community that reflects the very best of our hopes and desires.

Michael McCarrey

Spokane, Washington

October, 2009