Four the Future - January 25

On Tap: Building demolition, county sued again, smart meters (audio!), and avoiding stimulus funding.

• Bid to save warehouse fails
  Source: The Spokesman-Review; January 24, 2010
  Summary: A warehouse on the southeast corner of Riverside and Division will be demolished to make way for an extension of Riverside Avenue. Developer Dan Spalding attempted to save the building, but Washington State University and the City of Spokane are moving forward to preserve the availability of federal transportation dollars and to prevent the loss of parking for SIRTI. Alternatives were considered and found to be unfeasible. Historic preservation advocates say the process was not respected. The new road, to be called Martin Luther King Jr. Way, will connect Riverside to Trent.
  Opinion: First of all, I have to say that I don't have the skills to determine the historical value of this building. However, I should point out that what this building is in the way of is greater automobile use in downtown Spokane. I'm not sure that's of a very high priority. On the other hand, there is an underutilized area between Trent and the rail line. Let's make this even more complex. Part of the conceptual engineering of the light rail also determined that the building to be demolished was also in the way of that project. All in all, a mess. But, I don't think there's anyone here with bad motives. I have found that it is possible in planning that there are two goods which are incompatible with each other. I have also found that early participation in the process is the most effective way of making sure your voice is heard in the final product. Governments need to be better at letting people know what's going on, yes, but each citizen also has a responsibility. If your circle of concern includes historical buildings, then you have a responsibility to make sure you're involved. Because once they're gone, they're gone.
• Plan change appealed to state hearing board
  Source: The Spokesman-Review; January 21, 2010
  See Also: Four the Future - December 23
  See Also: Four the Future - December 12
  Summary: Spokane County is being sued by Community Addressing Urban Sprawl Excess (CAUSE) in response to the county's recent rezoning of a property near Liberty Lake. The county's comprehensive plan declares the area rural, but Commissioner Mark Richard and an unnamed commissioner voted to allow 6 units per acre, with an additional condition of approval that it not be greater than 5 units per acre.
  Opinion: The unnamed commissioner is Todd Mielke. I'm sure the people up on the south hill would be interested to hear that the commissioners suddenly believe in conditions of approval. To the main point, however: Mielke and Richard ignored the law which only allows one house per 10 acres and now they're being sued for it. No one should be surprised about this. Even Mark Richard knows which way the wind blows when he said that the Eastern Washington Growth Management Hearings Board "has a tendency to decide against the county." Well, duh, Mark. When you ignore the comprehensive plan, that happens. And now he'll be using your tax dollars to defend himself in a losing battle because he wants to make a point to developers that he'll do whatever it takes to help them. But, the citizens of this county should learn a lesson, too: that Mielke and Richard are willing to use your resources against you.
• Debate: Do Smart Meters Curb Energy Use?
  Source: National Public Radio; January 8, 2010
  Summary: Google is pushing a new device which can track your energy use, and alert you in real time on your desktop. Using it, a person can see what appliances in your house are driving up your energy costs. (Energy is delivered in an odd way. Imagine that when you went into a grocery store, nothing had a price tag on it. Then, at the end of the month, you'd get a summary bill without any itemization.) The theory is that if you were aware of how much energy you were using, you would reduce. However, the debate comes in when one notices how cheap energy prices are. So, perhaps, you would actually use more. The offered solution? Have a machine make those decisions for you.
  Opinion: Energy prices are low to many people, but part of that is only because there are massive externalities (carbon emissions, habitat destruction, etc. which energy companies are not required to mitigate) and federal subsidies which make it cheap. For commercial buildings, at least, I think it's a pretty good idea to have automated energy usage decision making. I also think that energy companies should be allowed to charge based on the time of day so that our peak energy usage can be reduced (although, still regulated!).
• What We Learned From The Stimulus
  Source: Smart Growth America; retrieved January 25, 2010
  Summary: The amount of work generated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was twice as great per dollar for transit than for highway infrastructure. For every billion dollars spent by the federal government, the Surface Transportation Program (STP) created 8,781 job-months and public transportation dollars created 16,419 job-months. Far more dollars were spent on the "shovel ready" STP projects. Texas received six times more STP funds than transit funds, yet transit created 15 percent more jobs. Transit creates more jobs because they spend less money on land and more on people, projects are more complex, and they buy and maintain vehicles.
  Opinion: A lost opportunity for Spokane. Spokane was ready to build a light rail system. Indeed, construction could have been underway as we speak. But certain "conservative" members of the STA board--most egregiously Al French--and STA CEO (and anti-transit activist) E. Susan Meyer used public dollars to withhold information from the public and purposely failed to educate the public about the light rail vote that they had deliberately obfuscated. (Why conservative in quotation marks? They're not actually conservative in this matter. They're anti-transit, which is much different. Many conservatives embrace light rail because it's more efficient than buses and better for economic development. See Paul Weyrich, for example.) In the end, what did they do? They redirected transit funding to other cities, and left people here unemployed. Way to go, "conservatives!"