It felt like a historical moment with over half of the 120 volunteers meeting at the north shelter of Riverfront Park on bikes. The idea is based off ciclovías – Spanish for “cycle way” or “bike path”- an event in Bogotá, Columbia where 70 miles of streets close for automobiles and open for people powered transit on Sundays from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Similar events occured in Portland – called “Sunday Parkways” – and San Francisco. I was fortunate enough to participate in the San Francisco event when the city shut down a 4.5 mile portion of their streets from Bayview to Chinatown—mainly Embarcadero— for four hours to make way for bicyclists and cultural activities.

For Spokane’s part, this Sunday, July 11th, from 9 am-1pm the people-powered movement takes over Howard Street for the 1.5 mile stretch between Riverfront Park and Corbin Park. There will be healthy food, Zumba exercise dance, hula hooping, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, jump rope, and a bike decorating contest judged by Mayor Mary Verner, Councilman Richard Rush, and Councilman Bob Apple.

View Summer Parkways in a larger map

Organizers attended Neighborhood Council meetings and went door-to-door to let residents know of the street closure and were greeted with enthusiasm. Hopefully, Summer Parkways will become a more permanent fixture in Spokane and lead organizer Bill Bender of Spokefest fame wants it on as many Sundays as possible like Bogotá. Even though we can’t conceivably close more than 70 miles of streets, how far have we come that we are modeling an event after Bogotá’s attempts at a post-automobile city? Will our urban planners take note? Perhaps next year, organizers can shut down a major arterial like 2nd avenue for a path between Browne’s Addition and East Central so participants understand the importance of connectivity.

The free event repeats itself August 22nd.

Photo by Mark Anthony

I knew I had a unique perspective on the panel as a younger lady, but the more interesting contrast came from my experience as a nonprofit professional. There were a few questions about setting personal boundaries in the online arena. In the nonprofit world, people tend relate to their work more intimately which can make it easier to share things of genuine interest. Still some asked about a nonprofit “secret to success.” The panel agreed that by-and-large the social media strategies that work for nonprofits are the same as they are for individuals and businesses.

Aside from all the minutia and specifics, I was surprised at the number of people in the audience who were still struggling to “get their heads in the game.” To these kind people, Chris had the following to say:

Unlike Chris I tend to baby people and reassure them that they will get the hang of things eventually. Chris’s approach is much better. People need to quit making a science out of it and roll up their sleeves and start posting!  Another lesson that hit home was the importance  and power of video. The Spovangelist currently has an empty YouTube page. You can expect that to start filling up with film clips very soon.

“Check out my turnips! I grew these!”

The last take home message for me was being more fearless about the frivolous. Everyone has had to ask themselves “To post, or not to post?” Most people don’t want to hear about what you ate for dinner that night. So when it came to my prize turnips I was definitely leaning towards keeping these beauties to myself. Thanks to Chris for popping my turnip!

Hoopfest by Jack High

Even local authors Jess Walter and Sherman Alexie are fans, taking their love of hoops to new literary, ahem, heights:

We play basketball
because we want to
separate love from
hate, and because we
know how to keep score

Sherman Alexie, Why We Play Basketball.

But this weekend, separating love and hate during Hoopfest wasn’t as effortless as in years past. Spokane Police were mandated a DUI quota by contacting three motorists per hour this weekend as part of extra impaired driving patrols. One Geiger inmate escaped from a Hoopfest work crew.

The talk of the tournament was about a shooting between rival gangs. Three victims unrelated to the incident were injured, fortunately all with non-life threatening injuries to the foot and shin. (One of the assailants was responsible for a gang-related stabbing outside Club Uno last fall and was scheduled for trial September 20th.)

“We have a gang problem in Spokane. We have related crimes and they are continuing to be more violent. So when you have Hoopfest, and all those variables, it’s a recipe for disaster.”

Jennifer DeRuwe, Spokane Police Department Spokesperson

Do you feel last weekend’s incidents at Hoopfest will dissuade people from participating  despite their love for the game? It is estimated that Hoopfest contributes about $30 million dollars of economic impact to our community. What will be the cost of this shooting? What can be done to prevent 19 and 20 year old young men from firing into a crowd?

After decades of discussions and proposals, nothing happened until last summer when a ribbon cutting ceremony for the first drivable link of the North Spokane Corridor confused drivers. Was the North-South Corridor (NSC) finally here? Currently, the finished stretch between Francis/Freya and Farwell Road is used by roughly 4,000 vehicles a day, equivalent to only a third of the traffic on the busiest portion of Garland Avenue, one of the city’s designated “centers and corridors.”

Do the benefits justify the cost? According to the most recent figures available from the Washington Department of Transportation, the NSC has an estimated price tag of $1.6 billion over a 20-year build out plan. With estimated risk and inflation variables included, the cost could reach $3.0 billion for just 10.5 miles. The money, however, simply isn’t there. This is the very definition of an “unfunded mandate,” the same complaintive catch-all that is often applied to more energy efficient modes of transit. To residents in East Central, the freeway is real enough. The Spokesman-Review did a good job reporting on the community displacement where freeway lanes will triple at the NSC’s “trumpet”:

Still, the loss of more than 400 homes will put a crunch on affordable housing in the community even if the state succeeds in finding new residences for individuals displaced by the freeway, said Chris Venne, development finance manager at Community Frameworks, a nonprofit organization that develops low-income housing.

“We’re having a hard time keeping up with the need for affordable housing without losing units,” Venne said. “It would take significant production of new housing units to make up the shortfall.”

East Central neighbors now complain that vacant homes haven’t been secured adequately and have attracted squatters – another hallmark of “progress.” But sprawl is really what we’re upgrading to. Urban planner Bill Grimes examined the effects I-90 had on developments in the Spokane Valley, believing the rural communities in the north would see auto-centric development like what’s currently viewable in Post Falls and the Rathdrum Prairie. On this front, there was strangely zero dialogue about the NSC impact on growth management; our elected officials simply rolled over for the freeway and let it eat the land.

Citizens for Sensible Transportation are fighting an uphill battle in federal court to stop construction of the NSC, alleging that a $35 million TIGER grant to help build the freeway should not have been awarded without proper environmental testing.

Other opponents assert the project is a monument to bloat. The NSC is designed to handle 150,000 vehicles a day. The vehicle flow on Interstate 90, where the ramps will eventually connect to the North Spokane Corridor, currently averages 95,000 vehicles a day. After an estimate of north-south traffic, an architect asserted 50,400 vehicles a day for the NSC, or just over one-third of its design capacity.

Building a freeway as a curative to congestion is like feeding Twinkies to a diabetic. Their appetite may be quelled in the short-term, but over the long haul the symptoms get much worse. Focusing on the case for pulling freight off Division rather than supporting initiatives to make us commute more efficiently is working backwards. Where’s the dialogue on light rail which concentrates development, leading to the growth of urban centers around main stops?

Several years ago, Washington State University’s Social and Economic Sciences Research Center conducted a survey showing 73 percent of Spokane residents favored construction of light rail with estimated costs at $600 million, one fifth of the cost of the NSC. Consider this while the NSC pollutes, divides neighborhoods and bypasses local business, all for the purpose of accelerating truck traffic through Castlegar.

Here’s to looking at the future.

There’s an essay that covers similar terrain by Alex Steffen and Sarah Rich from Worldchange. Way back in 2007, when polls showed that most Americans believe climate change is real, they argued the Earth Day celebration should have been the last. The timing was right, they said, and concluded, what we need is a dramatic break with the past.

Earth Day accomplished its mission; the environment is now near the top of the global agenda. By making this Earth Day our last, we can signal that the time for mere awareness is over, and the time for real transformation has arrived.

But don’t say that to the Lilac City! For the 40th Earth Day, local organizers seem equally as informed by P.T. Barnum as they were by Bill McKibben in putting together the most audacious Earth Day Spokane has ever seen. The event runs from 11am to midnight on Maine Avenue between Division and Browne Street (with echoes of the Sustainable Uprising event last September.) There are funky children’s activities like sidewalk chalk art to raise awareness on stormwater runoff and the WSU Raptor Club displaying rescued live birds. Films at the Magic Lantern like The Story Of Stuff and Vanishing of the Bees, the latter has never been screened in the United States.

Performances by such disparate acts the Lilac City Roller Girls and Jupiter Effect. Speeches by Mayor Mary Verner, City Councilman Jon Snyder, and Commissioner Bonnie Mager. Since we’re starting early, footage of the event will appear on a jumbotron at the national mall in Washington, D.C. One hundred organizations total are participating, representing that environmental change begins with personal responsibility, leading by example, and becoming involved in the decision making process for regulatory policies like transportation and land use.

In a sense, yes, everyday should be Earth Day but throughout transitional American towns like Spokane, a celebration is absolutely critical, a time for connectivity amongst a variety of community organizations; a time to educate. You can’t undermine the importance of awareness, no matter how incremental.

• RSVP for the Earth Day Tree Planting and Prep Party when four new trees will be planted on Main Avenue.
• RSVP for Earth Day on Facebook.
• Sign a national petition that will be presented on April 25th at the National Mall to push for climate legislation.

Spokane’s P-Jammers at the last MLK Jr. Day march.

The P-Jammers (or PJAMRS, standing for the Peace and Justice Activist Musical Rascals of Spokane) are a rag tag bunch of folks that love to get out and be the life of any social or economic justice party. They often accompany events organized by the Peace and Justice Action League, and can also be heard at a smattering of other relevant political gatherings.

In no small part due to our vigorous sports culture and our position as  a hub to hundreds of small rural towns, marching bands are actually still a pretty big deal around Spokane. But they tend to be of a stiflingly traditional nature that emphasizes militaristic uniformity to the detriment of personal creativity and expression. Not so with the P-Jammers! This funky bunch fashions itself after the Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band, and members often make their own uniforms by hand out of reused materials.

While I might cringe a bit at some of the comments made by the crazier bards in this video, you’ve got to hand it to them for entertainment value. When people talk about a city being “vibrant,” for me this is the pinnacle of good old fashioned public fun.

Apparently these Honk! Fests aren’t unique to Seattle, they take place in a small number of cities all around the country. Not to wax nostalgic about Portland or anything, but in the brief time I lived there I encountered several Honk! style groups. There was the No War Drum Corps, a percussion booster band that often plays for the Rose City Rollers, and the unforgettably talented March Fourth, to name a few.

If we ever made a cultural asset map in Spokane and came up with indicators to measure our local creative health, I think the number and vitality of Honk! bands could be used as one of the canaries in our culture mine. They require a high degree of coordination dedication and guts, and thus would do well in reflecting our creative surplus. So cheers to the day when our people can go to Seattle to represent without the inevitable comment, “I didn’t know you had [insert cultural/social whatever it is] in Spokane!”

• Apologies for not mentioning the recent Musical Freedom Rally in Riverfront Park. Apparently it was a big success.

It’s official, it’s a mania. What started as an earnest effort on behalf of the City and some key partners has finally hit the mass consciousness of everyday citizens in a mad dash to impress before Friday’s finish line.  What is going on here? In case you live under a rock, Google is planning to install a large experimental high-speed fiber optic network and is pitting cities across the country against each other to try to attract their investment.

(Look past the wretched font choice, we’re good for you!)

Much remains unclear about how exactly this decision will be made. Most Federal grants include a detailed scoring system so that applicants have an idea how important their “project narrative” is compared to the way they spend money in the budget, for example. We’ll leave it up to the consultants to do the digging and speculation, but one thing should be obvious. The sole purpose of any company is to make money, and therefore factors like infrastructure, cost of resources and consumers’ ability to pay for service seem like they would be at the top of the list.

When was the last time you saw them all smiling at the same time?

Given these are all things that are completely beyond the control of everyday people, all the hijiinks to “get Google’s attention” seem all the more precious and embarrassing.

Another clip to add to the “So Cheesy It Hurts” collection.

Next up on the menu of publicity activities is a rally in Riverfront Park on Wednesday night at 5:30 in the Clock Tower Meadows. Now flash mobs are nothing new to our city, but don’t let the name fool you. These gatherings can take months of careful planning and promotion to pull off successfully. Without a robust communications infrastructure more often than not the effort will flop. But don’t get me wrong. Do I think you should get yourself on down to the park to see who else shows up? Absolutely. I will see you there.

• Become a fan of “Hey Google, Pick Spokane” on Facebook.

It was a shame that life seemed too full to be around the very people they shared most in common with, and so meetups at a bar became a regular ritual. At the very same time large numbers of environmental enthusiasts were gathering monthly for networking and causal conversation under the popular Greendrinks umbrella.

In a burst of uninspiration, the moniker Greener Drinks was born. Not meant to imply that the spin-off was “more green” than the mothership, “greener” was intended to denote a lack of worldly experience in terms of years.

The fledgling group was hoping to become an informal organization that could develop direct actions related to environmental outcomes that were fun and easy for large numbers of people to participate in directly. Then it was pointed out that unsuspecting bystanders were getting the two activities confused and so a name change was in order.

Enter Lilac Mob. After several rounds, dozens of emails and a Vimeo video, the name Lilac Mob was born. One direction for the group was to become a not entirely consumer-oriented version of Carrotmob in San Francisco.

Then one agriculturally-oriented organizer pointed out the existence of another group called Crop Mob.

Crop mob is primarily a group of young, landless, and wannabe farmers who come together to build and empower communities by working side by side.  Crop mob is also a group of experienced farmers and gardeners willing to share their knowledge with their peers and the next generation of agrarians. The membership is dynamic, changing and growing with each new mob event.

The direction of Spokane’s own Lilac Mob is uncertain, but the future is ultimately bright. If you would like to help contribute to the life of this group, the next meetup is tomorrow night at the Viking.

• RSVP on Facebook for the Lilac Mob meetup.

Can you name every mural in this video? Do you recognize all the different neighborhoods? I love how uniquely Spokane this is, yet the pavilion and clock tower are nowhere in sight.

How cool is it that this band held their last CD release party at a grange out in Colville? I want to go!

• Spokane “The Band”
• Ghost Mice by The Finger
• Riverfront Park by Ajax Starglider

Despite the descriptive title,  most people’s first reaction is “Trick or what?” The idea of adding political engagement into a holiday festivity is just not intuitive for most. Once people grasp the novelty and purpose of this approach, they tend to warm up to the idea. “Well that could be fun…” is a common second response.

Some would-be volunteers expressed concern about this activity being taken as a little too “tricky.” On the west side such worries don’t seem to crop up. Could this be a side-effect (no pun intended) of the visibility and spin lent by their media partners? Or does it say something deeper about Spokane’s ideological and social culture? The ever-astute Inlander was keen enough to comment:

“[Trick or Voters] will dress up in their most blood-curdling outfits and try to win people over by making them think they’re harmless trick-or-treaters. After the initial shock, most people will be relieved to find out that the adult-sized Batman standing on their stoop doesn’t want candy, just political chat.”

*Gasp!* To some Spokanites it seems that nothing could be more petrifying than “political chat.” We pride ourselves on having a “tight-knit community” where people deeply value their social and professional relationships, but sometimes this “tightness” becomes a bit strangling when people feel dread at the prospect of engagement for fear of ruffling a relationship – even one with a perfect stranger.

We’ve heard it said by several state-spanning political folks that Spokanites are less likely to divulge the direction of their vote when asked over the phone or in person than people on the west side. While we don’t have any hard evidence to substantiate this claim, there is a documented difference in views about the need to retain domestic partnerships between Washington’s western and eastern voters. According to the Washington Poll, while people in Puget sound are approving Referendum 71 by 25%, we in Eastern Washington are rejecting it by 3%. This is a difference we are not proud to boast.

Despite the attitude disparity, for every ten Trick or Voters in Seattle this year there was one brave volunteer right here in Spokane beating the pavement for Yes on 71 and No on 1033. Thanks to all the college students, parents and everyone else who turned up to turn out the vote!