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Mayor scandal jars Spokane's new spirit
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| Contributor | Ralphie |
| Last Edited | Ralphie May 15, 2005 07:43am |
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| Category | Perspective |
| Media | Newspaper - Seattle Times |
| News Date | Sunday, May 15, 2005 01:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | For sixteen months, it seemed like Mayor Jim West and this city were a perfect match.
Becoming mayor had been a lifelong dream for West, a former sheriff's deputy and powerful Republican state senator who'd battled colon cancer in recent years.
And West seemed like just the tonic the city needed after being gripped for years in a toxic dispute over River Park Square, a downtown shopping mall financed by a controversial public-private partnership.
Since West was elected in November 2003, Spokane's fortunes have been on the rise.
The town of 200,000 was named an All-America City and landed the 2007 U.S. Figure Skating Championship. The mayor flipped the switch on a 100-block wireless Internet zone. Voters approved a $117 million road-repair bond after having rejected smaller road measures in recent years. Downtown bustled with new hotels and restaurants.
Perhaps most importantly, West settled some of the last significant lawsuits surrounding the River Park Square imbroglio, allowing the city, at last, to look beyond its self-destructive feuding.
"We can think of no mayor in recent decades who has accomplished so much in so little time," a Spokane Journal of Business editorial gushed in February.
But as it turns out, maybe Spokane didn't know Jim West very well at all. |
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