North Greenacres Neighborhood

Neighborhood Meeting - A Great Turn Out!

Jun 23, 2008

Greenacres Christian Church was filled to overflowing on Thursday, June 12th. Spokane Valley Park Director, Mike Stone did a wonderful job of bringing a map of the proposed School/Park plan and will be applying for another grant this summer to actually begin physical work on the park. It is located just south of Mission on Long and abuts Boone on its south end. It is 8 acres that is being planned with the 15 acres that belongs to Central Valley School District. Our neighborhood circulated another survey of what you would like to see in a park. Please fill one out that can be found on this website. Cut and paste it in your word program - fill it out and email to Mary Pollard.

We had Senator McCaslin and others that were running for 4th District Legislature as Representatives,Matt Shea, Tim Hattenberg, Ray Deonier, and Diana Wilhite for the seat vacated by Lynn Schindler who has retired. Larry Crouse is running again and Linda Thompson is running for the same seat.

The Land Use Petition Act mainly protects developers while homeowners unfamiliar with land use laws are expected to take any problem with a development to court within 21 days of discovering their is a problem with an approval or permitting during construction. Most agreed there needs to be more balance and Matt Shea suggested a template form should be made available to assist ordinary citizens to properly utilize this process. The complexities of having objections recognized by following the correct procedures would be daunting for the average citizen. He pointed out the problem with clarification of just what is a land use action. The legislature clearly need to reevaluate this law, more frequently referred to as LUPA.

County Commissioner Todd Mielke and Kim Thorburn and Brian Sayrs who is running against incumbent Mark Richards answered questions about the recent County purchase of the Raceway Park, adequacy of measures to protect the sole source aquifer, property taxes and other questions from the floor.

The Raceway Park while controversial was a very civil debate and helpful to those listening. Time will tell if the $4.3 million spent was a wise purchase.

Senator McCaslin was a rare treat to have at our meeting and we enjoyed his candor. He vehemently objected to the WASL test that is being utilized for standard evaluation fo students. It has evoked parent and teacher objections and the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Terry Bergeson noted with Judith Billings that it is not effectual during their last campaign.

The Growth Management Act needs some work from our legislature to create better address what it was intended and to allow more local control.

Please note on the discussion part of this site any ideas and thoughts you have. There will be an election in 2009 of some of our City Council seats .

Thanks to all that attended. A 91 year old, won the oldest gardener gift and it was a good night of discussion and meeting with those who would like to represent us. Hope to see you at our next meeting. Please take the time to attend our City Council Meetings occassionally that meet on Tuesdays at 6PM.