I did not write this ode. It means so much more that somebody else did. Cheers to the person who loved our city enough to so sincerely say goodbye.
Cheers To My Spokane
By Anonymous on Pg. 58 in the September 3rd Inlander, 2009
Cheers to the mid-size city by the river, my home. To all of its grittiness and subtle beauties, to its modest residents and unexpectedly varied urban scene, to its self-consciousness and self-depreciating sense of humor, to its neighborhoods, and to the shared experience of belonging someplace completely average and loving it and hating it all at once.
Cheers to the river that cuts so vigorously through the center of town and to the many spots along it to feed marmots, eat blackberries, and to sleep undisturbed. Cheers to the not overly quaint park that borders the river and cheers to the large servings of ice cream at the carousel always under repair and to the garbage-eating goat also frequently clogged.
Cheers to the aging architecture that softens the skyline and reminds us of the booming city it once was and cheers to the cheap apartments with vaulted ceilings that now occupy them. Cheers to conveniently located watering holes centering on a main arterial and cheers to their non-west-coast-like oeuvres.
Cheers to the taco trucks open ’til three and cheers to the drag queens that pour out of the local establishments at that time and call you honey. Cheers to the potholes and the unplowed streets in winter. Cheers to the cougars in the bus plaza and to the dead end skywalks and to the mysterious unoccupied, art deco food court.
Cheers to the flute player in the king hat who serenades my neighborhood every morning. Cheers to the unassuming. Cheers to the resilient, hard-working residents who make time to pig out at the park every summer. Though not glamorous or worldly, no city can hold a torch, or a light, or a parade to my working-class, lilac-fragranced city by the river.
You and your ground squirrel-loving residents will be greatly missed. Cheers to my family and friends, and friends of friends, and acquaintances. Cheers to eight years well spent, my love.
Tags: Community · Nostalgia · Pretty Things · Spokane Pride18 Comments
18 responses so far ↓
This ode makes me a bit nostalgic for Spokane an its environs
Not glamorous, not worldly, but not average, either. That paean, and that Anonymous felt moved to pen it, shows us that. Thanks for posting it.
So I guess Spokane is all right? I’ll call Tim Eymen and tell him to stop fundraising for our “Make Spokane Seattle” campaign.
Seems like there should be a way for Spokane to expand economically and not lose its charm. It might be very shortsighted to think growth = Seattle. Smallminded , parochial behavior will kill off a city faster than nearly anything. It’s the type of growing that matters. Diversification always helps. In the end though, it’s the type of people who live, work and attract others that’ll help or hurt.
It’s obvious the writer has a soft spot for this city. As a visitor, I can see why. Parenthetically, it’s a nice look at some of the virtues of this city/town.
What are you talking about Spotucky? Why would Spokane ever want to be Seattle?
It was a joke. I see to many liberals trying to copy what Seattle or Portland have done instead of letting Spokane grow naturally. These folks may claim to like Spokane for what it is but they are trying to radically change it.
It’s nice to see an ode to Spokane! Gave me warm fuzzies. It’s a great town to live, work & play in. It’s continuing to grow and become more progressive, dynamic and prosperous.
Unfortunately all that will come to an immediate halt if Prop 4 passes. So, Spokanites… if you love your town and the people, families and businesses that call it home, vote NO on Prop 4.
“Pro-Spo” your threats about Prop. 4 are hollow when you fail to offer any reasoning for your assumptions.
The Community Bill of Rights would protect what we love about this city. Local businesses that are strong and viable, ecosystems that are not threatened with collapse due to unmitigated human exploitation, affordable housing that remains available as Spokane gentrifies and becomes more upscale.
Why can’t we take leadership and realize the community-wide cost savings from offering a fee-for-service preventive health care option? We have a tight knit community and I believe our leaders are up to the task when they decide to work together.
Prop. 4 is about empowering people to fully engage in the life our local society has to offer. I say sit down with dinner sometime and read over the Envision Spokane website. There are a lot of good answers to the commonly thrown around objections to the proposal. I will be voting Yes on Prop.4.
Yeah, you’re right Questioner. That Community Bill of Rights sounds great!
Let’s see… increased taxes to cover community health care, a minimum wage that will put many smaller companies out of business, tax monies going to pay for all the new lawsuits that will be filed against the city, new businesses looking to locate anywhere BUT here because of how much higher the price for doing business here would be, random bands of “neighborhood councils” vetoing everything proposed by the city.
Um, yeah. That sounds wonderful. Are you kidding me?
I wish that instead of WASTING time and money promoting this joke of a bill of rights, and now more time and money fighting it, the residents and leaders of this community were focusing on continuing to move forward in the POSITIVE direction we’re already headed.
I am a young, smart, environmentally- and socially-conscious business professional and mother who was born and raised in Spokane. I feel compelled to fight for myself, my family and my city by voting NO TO PROP 4.
I am disappointed with how many smart young people in Spokane have been duped by the smoke and mirrors of this ludicrous legislation.
Let’s clear up a few things “Pro-Spo”:
1) “Health care” in general is not what the Prop. 4 amendment is aiming for. The Community Bill of Rights would merely require the City within 18 months to engage local private entities in planning for a fee-for-service PREVENTIVE health care program. Since the services offered are only preventive in nature, and the clients are paying in to the program, taxes will not be raised or required to implement the amendment. If there is a cost for staff time to coordinate, it would probably be recouped by preventing emergency room visits and other health crises among the population.
2) Minimum wage is not included in the Community Bill of Rights. That is sheer misinformation. Read the document before you repeat the soundbites put out by the well funded opponents.
3) Most of the rights in Prop. 4 could only be enforced on private actors, not the City. For the three rights that the City would be responsible for, if the City upholds it’s obligations to not violate the rights of the community, then they are off the hook and no lawsuits could be filed.
4) Not sure how the cost of doing business would be higher here with Prop. 4. Maybe you think large scale employers would loose cost-containment power by not being able to threaten people for unionizing?
5) “Neighborhood councils vetoing everything proposed by the City” wouldn’t be allowed either. That is just a false scare tactic being trumped up by opponents. Objections could only be voted on if there was a clear violation of either the Comp. Plan or the Neighborhood Plan. This will allow people to be able to protect their property values and will create an incentive to be active within their neighborhood organization.
I am also a young, smart, environmentally- and socially-conscious business professional who was born and raised in Spokane. I feel compelled to educate my fellow citizens, and ultimately come together around innovative solutions to maintain and improve Spokane’s quality of life. There are things that I would do differently, but overall I think it is worth voting YES TO PROP 4.
My responses to your comments:
Point 1) The bill of rights states: “For residents otherwise unable to access [preventative health care], the City shall guarantee such access by coordinating with area healthcare providers to create affordable fee-for-service programs within eighteen (18) months following adoption of this Charter provision.” How can you think that won’t require significant staff time? And I don’t think that you really believe that it will be recouped by fewer emergency room visits. I can tell you that my extended family has had as much preventative health care as anyone could and we’ve had family members in the ER for a number of different injuries and sudden onset health issues. If there would be fewer visits, I highly doubt that it would be enough to make a dent in the cost of the staff time it will take to implement such a program.
Points 2 & 4) As for your second point, you’re right. I was misinformed. And it’s worse than I thought. It says “prevailing wage.” Having to pay prevailing wage (which is the median pay for the area in a given field) for construction projects will significantly increase costs, not only for the construction companies, but also for any business that is having a building constructed. I’m all for people being paid what they’re worth, but I don’t think that you should get middle of the range payment regardless of your skill and work ethic.
Point 3) I believe 4th duty that would be imposed upon the City of Spokane would be “providing legal defense for actions of neighborhood councils in vetoing land development projects.” Which would mean that the City would foot the bill for all the impending lawsuits from businesses whose projects are vetoed.
Point 5) And that leads me into your 5th point. Neighborhoods can veto development plans with as little as 15% of the people who voted in the previous election within the neighborhood limits. 15%! So if your neighborhood has 100 voting residents, you better hope that 15 of them don’t disagree with the other 85 or those 15 could cause a development project to be vetoed.
Three final things:
1) The bill of rights says “The City shall ensure the availability of low-income housing stock sufficient to meet the needs of the low-income housing community.” If the housing doesn’t exist now, I’m curious where all this low-income housing is supposed to come from. Is the City supposed to build low-income housing? If that’s the case, you better hope that less than 15% of the residents of the neighborhood the City wants to build said housing in is supportive of the project, or it could be vetoed.
2) Part of the 9th amendment states: “Any person seeking to enforce the rights of ecosystems, may enforce these rights. Enforcement actions shall be filed as civil actions in a court of competent jurisdiction, against any person, government, or entity violating these rights…” While I absolutely agree that entities abusing our environment and ecosystems should be held accountable for their actions, it seems a bit crazy to me that someone would be able sue the City, an organization or an individual on behalf of the river, a patch of trees, etc.
3) The bill of rights says the City will be required to provide “sufficient funding to neighborhood councils for the creation, adoption, and enforcement of neighborhood plans” and yet there is no mention as to a dollar amount for such funding. It’s illogical and irresponsible to suggest something like this with NO indication of the amount of how the amount would be determined.
I must admit that when I first heard about this citizens’ bill of rights, I was excited about the prospect of something so innovative. But upon further reading, I was extremely disappointed to discover how truly deceptive the language is in the bill of rights. I do think that a bill of rights for the citizens of Spokane is something I could vote for in the future, if it was developed in a socially-, fiscally-, environmentally-responsible way with language that is concise and transparent, and if it accounted for all details and outcomes.
I appreciate being able to debate this with you, and I appreciate the fact that, because of this debate, I went back and re-read the proposition’s fine print. Despite your arguments in support of such a flawed proposal, I strongly feel the need to protect myself, my family and the city I love and I will VOTE NO ON PROP 4.
The fiscal and legal implications of the the Community Bill of Frights for the City, and the economic implications for businesses in the City (and their employees and customers), provide ample grounds for emphatically rejecting this inane measure. But an even more compelling reason is the moral
one.
The Bill of Frights declares that persons have “rights” to “affordable” health care, housing, energy, to be paid a certain wage, and various other goodies on every leftist’s wish list. The trouble here, of course, is that all these goodies must be provided by other persons — health care providers, builders, energy producers, employers, *et al*. So a claim to a “right” to such things entails a claim to the services of other people — to their time, talents, energy, and the fruits of their labor. But someone who claims a right to others’ time, talents, and to the fruits of their labor is declaring those others to be his slaves.
No one can have a “right” to goods and services others must provide or produce. The notion turns the very concept of rights on its head: *rights* is the concept which protects each person in the possession, use and enjoyment of that which is his own — his time, his talents, his person, and the products of his labor, i.e., to those things he has acquired without inflicting loss or injury on others. It is the concept which forbids thieves from stealing your property, and other predators and pillagers from maiming, raping, enslaving, and murdering you.
Governments have, of course, concocted many fiat rights (“frights”) over the years — “rights” spun from whole cloth to placate various interest groups to which politicians have promised free lunches in exchange for their votes and campaign contributions. These frights are conceptually fraudulent and, because satisfying them entails the violation of bonafide rights, are morally repugnant.
The vote on Prop 4 will certainly indicate the extent to which Spokane’s voters understand the concept of rights, and the maturity of their moral instincts. It will also reveal the extent to which this city’s residents have abandoned the ideal of a free society in favor of the ideal of the free lunch. I await the outcome with interest.
I received a nice email on why Prop 4 is important to the local economy over the weekend. After reading it I scrolled down to the unsubscribe button and noticed the “email marketing brought to you by Constant Contact”. Even though I see Prop 4 as an attack on Liberty, it’s contradictions like this that tell me all I really need to know about Envision Spokane.
What is the local alternative to the services provided by Constant Contact? I’d be curious to know for rolling out a Shrinking Violets newsletter.
This could be an interesting exercise in semantics. I use Marjoni Marketing for my businesses email newsletter. There are myriad reasons why I decided on this company, none of which need to be discussed here. What is important is how will mutually beneficial co-operation between individuals exchanging goods and services be effected by Prop 4?
[...] There are so many layers and possible directions for talking about the Community Bill of Rights that no one forum can encompass all the opinions, points and perspectives that concerned citizens care to offer. The issues are so stirring that they have even begun to surface on other Spovangelist threads that have nothing to do with Prop. 4. [...]
Mr. Chairman,
No need to be so begrudging, thanks for the recommendation. I’ve contacted them about e-newsletters and look forward to weighing the options. They have a sweet website.
[...] do we compulsively jump to Spokane’s defense at the slightest slight? What compels people to declare their love for our little city? Is Spokane truly lovable, potholes, poverty and [...]