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Citizen Wants Five on County Commission

Spokane County

There’s a movement afoot to expand the Spokane county commission from three to five members. When the Spokane County Commission was first established, there were about 50,000 people in the county. Now, over 100 years later, the population is about half a million, but the board still has three commissioners.  

To some, that is an argument that more commissioners should be added. One who thinks there are merits to the concept is current county commissioner, Todd Mielke.

Mielke: “By going from 3 commissioners to five, what it means is you divvy up the work among five people, you will have more time to implement the decisions you have gained at these meetings, and have one on one meetings with a colleague to gain that perspective.”

Right now commissioners serve on anywhere from 16 to 25 boards, a time consuming effort that could be spread out if more members were added.

Mielke mentions more one on one meetings because state law prohibits a majority of the commission from discussing issues without calling a public meeting. And since the majority of a 3- member council is two, that restricts conversation between two commissioners to non-business items if they are not at a public meeting.

Community activist Karen Kearny recently approached commissioners to ask that they place an expansion of the commission to five before the voters.

Kearny: “The laws already approved the RCW to go ahead and put it on the books, all the county commissioner’s have to do basically is put it on the ballot.”

While he supports the concept, Mielke says they have been hesitant to ask voters approval. That's because in 2007, the commission held a hearing to guage public support, and Mielke says citizens didn’t see an immediate need, and also worried about what expansion might cost, in terms of salaries.

Mielke: “So the salary commission sets my salary at $93,000 a year, and benefits on top of that, roughly 15 to 20 percent. So you have two of those, and one exempt salary assistant, so you have those costs.”

The commissioner says there would also be the cost of new office space, and says because of the restricted amount of room used by the current commission, that could involve moving all five to a another building. In response to Karen Kearny’s request, Mielke says commissioners would like to see that the idea has public support in the form of a petition. He says "we’d like to see some community support and that this is really grinding some peoples nerves and they’d like to see this fixed."

Mielke: "And so far we haven’t seen, and so what we told Karen is were not opposed to it, were not going to block it, cause she said I'm not afraid to got out and get names. Okay, great.”

While Kearny says she can proceed with a signature gathering campaign, she wishes that step could be avoided.

Kearny: “What I’m waiting for is for them to put it on the ballot without having to get signatures. Let the people decide if they don’t want, well at least let them vote."

Todd Mielke does have some reservations of the cost of putting such an issue on the ballot, which he says can cost as much as $300,000, depending on what other issues are before voters in a given election. But Kearny feels that cost is minimal compared to some of the other things the county has spent its money on.

Kearny: "The Gieger spur was appraised at $125,000, and we paid, what, $600,000 for it? I mean, and their argument is, it would cost too much to put it on the ballot.

Efforts to increase the number of commission members have failed twice in the recent past. Those efforts would have moved the county to a charter form of government, another way of adding members. That concept failed in 1994 and 2007.

Steve was part of the Spokane Public Radio family for many years before he came on air in 1999. His wife, Laurie, produced Radio Ethiopia in the late 1980s through the '90s, and Steve used to “lurk in the shadowy world” of Weekend SPR. Steve has done various on air shifts at the station, including nearly 15 years as the local Morning Edition host. Currently, he is the voice of local weather and news during All Things Considerd, writing, editing, producing and/or delivering newscasts and features for both KPBX and KSFC. Aside from SPR, Steve ,who lives in the country, enjoys gardening, chickens, playing and listening to music, astronomy, photography, sports cars and camping.
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