4/6/2006 McCaslin Declares County Empolyees' Behavior "Troublesome" and "Suspicious" Senator Bob McCaslin declares the behavior of Spokane County Employees at a recent Bigelow Gulch Road Expansion meeting “troublesome” and “concerning and suspicious to say the least.” In response to a letter from Prairie Protection Association Chair Marilyn Highberg, McCaslin said, “I firmly believe public meetings are just that, public, and should be open to everyone, including someone wishing to record it. The reaction of the county employees/officials to being recorded is concerning and suspicious to say the least.” He continued, “I do know that there are serious north/south traffic congestion problems that the county hopes to help alleviate through this project. From what I've been told, a lot of hard work and time has gone into the planning and design of the project. That's what makes the behavior of the county folks at the public meeting so troublesome.” Apparently whoever spoke with the Senator admitted there was more to the project than making Bigelow Gulch a safer county road. The State Senator from Washington’s 4th Legislative District also joined his constituents in calling for a full Environmental Impact Study of the massive building project. “I am also in agreement with you in that a thorough Environmental Impact Study (EIS) should be completed before this or any other public works project should be implemented.” Senator, thanks for your support for fair and honest process.
3/20/2006 Video Photographers Told to Stop Recording Open House; Law MisquotedJim Camden Spokane County sheriff's deputies have twice confronted people videotaping public meetings in the last month, prompting a local video producer to contend county officials are trying to discourage his involvement in the government process. At a public meeting last month on the proposed widening of Bigelow Gulch Road, county employees incorrectly used a state law to argue that their comments on the project could not be recorded. An armed deputy ordered video photographer Don Hamilton, a resident of the area and opponent of the widening, to stop recording their conversations. The deputy later changed his mind after a private attorney said he was misquoting the law. At a meeting of the Spokane County commissioners last week, another armed deputy demanded to see Hamilton's credentials after he had just videotaped the commissioner's morning briefing. "This, to me, clearly has a chilling effect," said Hamilton, a longtime professional photographer and producer of commercials for business and political clients. County officials deny that there's an attempt to discourage Hamilton or anyone else from recording or participating in public meetings where public projects are being discussed. The inquiry at the courthouse was just a spot check of an unrecognized credential, a sheriff's official said. They do concede that deputies and county Engineering Department staff were wrong last month when they said Hamilton and his nephew Matt Vielle couldn't record comments by county workers made at an open house for the proposed Bigelow Gulch expansion. "I think maybe that was a misunderstanding," County Engineer Ross Kelley said this week. Kelley said he and members of his staff, who were at the Feb. 16 open house held by the county to discuss the project, relied on the advice of a deputy, who had contacted a Sheriff's Department supervisor after Hamilton and Vielle arrived at the open house. The deputy was at the meeting to discuss traffic problems on a roadway he patrols, not to provide security, he added. Video recorded by Hamilton and Vielle shows that, at various times, county engineering employees and a deputy tell the camera operator not to record conversations. "You can do video, but you have to have permission to do audio. That's state law," Kelley says at one point on the video. "I don't give you my permission to record me," Bill Hemmings, the county's program development engineer, says at another point. Hemmings eventually left rather than be recorded. Deputy Greg Lance also tells Hamilton not to record anything a county employee says without permission, or anything he says, because "I don't want you to record me." Such recording would violate the state's "two-party consent" law, Lance said. Hamilton continues to record, and Lance later relents when private attorney Tom Keefe, a friend of Hamilton's who accompanied him to the open house, says that's not what the law covers. Eventually Lance tells employees they don't have to talk, but what they say can be recorded. County prosecutors, who provide legal advice for the Engineering Department and all other county offices, agreed last week that Keefe was right, and the deputy was wrong. The department had not asked them for advice, which was not unusual for a night meeting, prosecutors said. Someone taping a private conversation would have to have permission of everyone involved, said Deputy Prosecutor Kevin Corsmo. "A public hearing can't be considered a private conversation," he said. Kelley said his employees were merely trying to prevent what they considered private conversations between staff and people who lived near the project from being recorded without their consent. County employees were concerned because they didn't recognize Vielle. "We know Don (Hamilton), we know what he's doing," Kelley said. "It's not our policy, when we're at an open meeting, to not talk to people." Hamilton points out, however, that he also was told by county staff, including Lance, not to record what they were saying. Hamilton said he wanted to record county employees' answers to questions to make sure they weren't saying different things to different people. The reaction from county engineering staff at the open house was "bizarre," he said, as was an encounter he had after videotaping the county commissioner's Tuesday morning briefing session. After the meeting, a deputy and a sheriff's supervisor approached him in the commissioners' lobby and asked to see his press credential. That conversation also was recorded by Hamilton's camera. "I just want to make sure what kind of press pass you have, where that was issued from," a deputy says. "Did we run a security check on you?" asks the supervisor, Jail Commander Jerry Brady, who had attended the briefing. After Hamilton shows him his press credential, which is issued by the America Society of Motion Picture photographers, and assures them that he went through the courthouse's security screening, they tell him there's no problem. Brady said later that he had called the deputy to check on Hamilton's credential, which he didn't recognize when he saw it on the photographer's pocket. His only concern, Brady said, was that a courthouse security guard might have improperly waved Hamilton through without checking his gear. The county issues its own press credentials, which allow reporters and photographers to bypass the screening station, if they've had background checks. That's the security check he was asking Hamilton about, Brady said. Hamilton said this week he has no problem with the way he was treated by deputies, who all exhibited "a high level of professionalism." But he has trouble understanding why any county employees would object to being on the record for the things they say or do at public meetings. Todd Mielke, chairman of the board of commissioners, said he recognized Hamilton at the briefing session and didn't think there was anything unusual about him taping the meeting. He didn't know until a reporter told him that deputies had checked his credentials after the meeting. There's no barrier to anyone recording a commissioner's meeting, and no need to show credentials, Mielke said. He also didn't know that county employees had improperly invoked the "two-party consent" law to avoid being recorded at the open house, but attributed it to a "disconnect" in communications that would be corrected. County employees apparently guessed at the law, and guessed wrong, he said. "When we have a public meeting, the public is welcome to come to it," he said. "We'll make sure there is great clarity . . . what is a public meeting." 3/21/2006 Closed-minded The Spokesman-Review Our View: County employees show bias toward secrecy March 21, 2006 If Spokane County Commissioner Todd Mielke is to be taken at his word – that the county embraces open government – then he and his fellow commissioners need to do a better job of getting that word out to county employees. That would include sheriff's deputies. When a citizen showed up with a video camera at a recent public meeting about widening Bigelow Gulch Road, a deputy and County Engineer Ross Kelley told him he couldn't tape conversations. At an open public meeting. Kelley and the deputy, who had consulted with a supervisor in the Sheriff's Department, were wrong. The "two-party consent" law that prevents you from recording a conversation without the other person's permission does not apply to public meetings. Kelley and the deputy didn't let a little thing like their lack of knowledge stop them from insisting that photographer Don Hamilton turn off the audio, however. Only when a private attorney explained that they were off base did they relent. Kelley thinks it was a "misunderstanding." It is troubling enough that public officials – one of whom has a uniform, badge and gun – would be so quick to bring the authority of government to bear on the basis of their own misinformation. It is worse that county employees, who presumably were present to meet openly with concerned citizens, were heard on tape saying they didn't want their words recorded. But what is most troubling of all is the prevailing county attitude implied by these events. In any representative government, officials ought to plead for citizen participation in settings for decision-making and information about public policy matters. The default position should be one of openness. At last month's Bigelow Gulch Road meeting, however, officials started with the assumption that they should and could prevent interested citizens from making a record of the public's business. They did this based on inadequate knowledge that they didn't confirm before acting. It's worth noting that in another recent incident, a deputy approached Hamilton to quiz him about his credentials when he was trying to tape a county commissioners' briefing – also a public meeting. Such a pattern suggests a bias toward secrecy and raises a disturbing question: Have similar tactics been used to discourage other citizens from recording open meetings? According to Mielke, no one needs credentials to attend or record a commissioners' meeting. Open meetings are open, he insists. That's comforting, but it won't mean anything unless the message is communicated clearly and forcefully to all county employees.
3/23/2006 Published in the Spokesman-Review Just Another Silencing Tactic Residents have been uniformly shut out despite their many efforts to be informed. Even as the Argonne intersection was under construction, engineers said, "We can't tell you anything, it's not designed." Their "open houses" disguised as public meetings diffused dissent and "managed" frustrated citizens. We're treated like children whose parents know what's best. Seven years ago, when a proposal to widen and straighten the road was presented, many didn't want changes, fearing negative impact on our historical Orchard Prairie. But most could understand dangerous aspects of the road. Wider shoulders and a center turn lane were logical. Residents suggested reducing the speed limit. That has never been tried. Nor has widening the existing shoulders. Those simple changes may have saved lives. Yet, in the guise of improving safety on a county road, the engineers are determined to build a high-volume superhighway, one piece at a time, and not tell the truth about it to locals. Lorna St. John
3/24/2006 Bigelow Gulch Chaos Reason to Fear Camera Guest Opinion Don Hamilton Let me first get the low comedy and cheap shots out of the way by answering a question friends keep asking since my video showdown with Spokane County deputies made news. Yes, from firsthand experience, I can report that there is a difference between security in the Soviet-era Kremlin and today's Spokane County Courthouse. At the Kremlin, once you pass through the metal detector and your camera's been X-rayed, the head of the KGB doesn't roust you about your credentials while you're trying to photograph the Politburo. Ha. Ha. I'm a funny guy. In my business I often use humor to make a point, but I've blundered onto a serious piece of turf here. Let's start with Mr. Ross Kelley the Road Builder. Kelley is a traffic engineer. Kelley has a bold plan to build a super highway along the Bigelow Gulch Road. He sees it as a swell way to provide a temporary solution to the lack of a north-south freeway. His plan is to build it in small increments – see the "intersection improvement" at Bigelow and Argonne – without a full and frank discussion of what the project actually is. In the words of Mark Twain, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." Kelley's ignorance of the law governing public meetings is vividly captured on videotape for all to see. It seems to my neighbors and me that he's also ignorant of the laws designed to protect the environment, wildlife and people that lie in the path of his bulldozers, including the good people of Orchard Prairie. Kelley believes the "open house" is superior to the "town hall" style meeting. He argues that some people are shy and don't want to ask questions in an open forum. His open houses are noisy, chaotic events in which citizens are shuttled from easel to easel to be handled one-on-one by a crew of employees that have demonstrated their open contempt for any public comment that might slow their manifest destiny of pavement. With 20 conversations going on simultaneously, it's impossible to know what all is being said, and almost impossible to get any of it on the record. It sure works for Kelley. I have, however, gotten some of it on tape. I have at least one county employee offering different answers to the same question asked by different citizens. It's like a game of Three Card Monte. To one citizen it's, "We'll start construction when we get the money." To another it's, "We'll start construction when the Environmental Assessment is complete." To one citizen it's, "Nothing is designed, these are all preliminary concepts." To another it's, "We'll be bidding some of this work this spring." And always they say, "There will be many more meetings, you'll have plenty of opportunity to offer input." My neighbors and I have no confidence that the process of designing and building the Bigelow "Turnpike" is competent and above board. Kelley says that he understands all the complicated laws involved with this project. He's "crossing all the t's and dotting all the i's." I want a second legal opinion. Kelley has been quite free with his philosophy of social engineering and the virtue and inevitability of high capacity highways to everywhere. He lives to build roads. I distrust his motives. Meanwhile, back at the Kremlin, or in Tiananmen Square under martial law. In my youth I thought it was great sport to push the photojournalist envelope in certifiably totalitarian states. I've been detained by Communist Chinese authorities for shooting without the permission of the regime. You expect that in the People's Republic of China or the U.S.S.R. I was crazy to mess around with them. I went down to the county courthouse to tape the briefing session because I heard that the current Spokane County Commission prefers to conduct most of its business out of sight, in a technically open meeting that is held in a closet with no public cameras installed. I heard that later in the day they go before the public for a very short session in which the work of the briefing is quickly made policy. I don't know about the afternoon session and I don't plan to find out. I'll think long and hard before I take my cameras back to the courthouse. I'm getting too old for this.
3/29/2006 Published in the Spokesman-Review Gulch Project Overdone This first phase of the north-south freeway is due to be completed in 2009 and will dump traffic at the western edge of Bigelow at Francis and Freya. Bigelow will be used to move traffic east through the Gulch across Pleasant Prairie to Sullivan and I-90. The county engineers propose a road five lanes wide with 8-foot shoulders and frontage roads similar to Highway 395, which goes to the Tri-Cities. Bigelow Gulch will be an extension of the north-south freeway for perhaps 20 years until funding is available to complete the freeway. We continue to ask that the original suggestions to make Bigelow safer, with fewer curves, widened lanes (two), with a center turn lane, wide shoulders and a reduced speed limit be considered. Destroying the historical Orchard Prairie community, first homesteaded in 1879 and with a school established in 1894 still in operation, to respond to a temporary need is grossly shortsighted. Marilyn Highberg
3/9/2006 Dividing highway Wider county road opposed Amy Cannata Area residents fear more traffic, increased pressure on developmentA plan to turn a major county road into something closer to a divided highway is raising hackles on Orchard Prairie, a place better known for its grange, small country school and homemakers' club than political activism. Spokane County officials want to widen Bigelow Gulch Road from two lanes to four with a center turn lane and straighten its curves. The improvements will make it safer and accommodate greater traffic demand, said Spokane County Engineer Ross Kelley. But the $40 million project will negatively affect the people who live there and must put up with traffic noise and other impacts, said Orchard Prairie resident Don Hamilton. "They really do have a small community, but to the road builders we're just one more obstacle to be dealt with," Hamilton said. Bigelow Gulch Road has long been used as a shortcut between Spokane's North Side and the Spokane Valley. It now carries about 18,000 vehicles a day. More than 26,000 daily trips are expected by 2025. That's due in part to the North Spokane Corridor which, once it is completed between Wandermere and Francis Avenue, will dump traffic directly onto Bigelow Gulch. Most say that something must be done to improve the road, but many residents say the current plan is overkill. All of a sudden it's a highway," said Prairie Protection Association Chairwoman Marilyn Highberg, who has lived there for almost 40 years. Highberg and Hamilton contend the last plans they saw, back in 1999, showed a three-lane road with wider shoulders, not a five-lane road with some frontage roads. But county engineers say that even in 1999 they were talking about at least a four-lane road. "These people are just not remembering," said Bill Hemmings, the county's program development engineer. Spokesman-Review articles from that time also mention planning for a four-lane Bigelow Gulch. "We're just trying to make it safe up there. There have been two injury accidents there in the past week," Hemmings said. Most accidents should be blamed on the drivers, not the roadway, said Spokane County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Dave Reagan. "If you drive the speed limit and reduce your speed when conditions aren't optimal, it's safe," he said of Bigelow Gulch. During open houses held last month, engineers and residents clashed. At one point a sheriff's deputy was called to intervene. Such open houses only hinder criticism because individuals can't hear the questions and comments of others, said Hamilton, who added he would prefer a more formal public hearing. He will get his wish. Neighbors last week met with Spokane County Commissioner Todd Mielke, who said he would get them another meeting as well as extend the comment period on an environmental assessment of the project by another 30 days. Orchard Prairie School District Assistant Superintendent Bob McMillan said he originally feared that the changes could cost the school district more money for its school bus route, but he now thinks the route can be modified without costing more. Charlotte Mangan's biggest fear is for the deer and elk that live on the prairie. Increased traffic and a wider roadway could mean their demise, Mangan said. Others fear that a better roadway will only mean more pressure to change land-use rules to allow for more development on the prairie. Highberg now wonders what can be done. "It does seem that we''re in a no-win situation. It's kind of late." "There are going to be safety improvements made to Bigelow Gulch. That's for sure," said Mielke. "The question is, will there be modifications made to address citizen concerns."
by Robert Herold Citizens on the South Hill are outraged and dismayed by the city's traffic engineers, who, now flush with money the voters gave them in expectation of getting potholes fixed, are moving ahead with plans to destroy streetscapes through what amounts to an urban deforestation project. Word that Mayor Dennis Hession has decided to save "up to six trees" on Bernard — where the assault is to commence — is good news, but misses the bigger issue; that is, the strategic and principled application of the Comprehensive Plan throughout the city. His reluctance to break ranks with his traffic engineers mystifies especially his supporters. Choosing pavement over trees is symbolic of a greater worldview, and symbols should matter to Hession — especially this early in his tenure. At the same time, folks who live off Bigelow Gulch Road are stunned to learn that Spokane County traffic engineers are using a "safety problem" as an excuse to reroute, surreptitiously, the north-south freeway. Instead of coming down from Hillyard to I-90, it would turn east at Francis and absorb the Bigelow Gulch route, eventually ending at Sullivan where it would turn south again to I-90. All the while, of course, the politically charged term "north-south freeway" will never have to be mentioned, nor the rerouting debated, because, officially, the traffic engineers would only be addressing that "safety problem." A few years back, the engineers had proposed to remedy the problem by the simple addition of a turn lane and wider shoulders. Apparently this idea made too much sense. And speaking of flying under the radar, I bet that the good citizens who live in the Whitworth/Waikiki area don't know that these same county traffic engineers have in mind using the right of way near the wide power line route that runs through their neighborhood to construct the westerly continuation of the north-south freeway, which, because of Bigelow Gulch, will be summarily transformed into a semi-beltway. Today a slice of bucolic Americana; tomorrow a freeway will run through it. If you look out beyond Spokane, experiments conducted in Portland prove that almost all city streets are much wider than they need to be. And we already know this, or should. Take our own North Wall Street, for example. Designated as a minor arterial that's supposed to be 40 feet wide, it has effectively carried 10,000 cars a day for years — yet it's only 30 feet wide! So why all the unnecessarily wide roads? Simple. Engineers, who never saw a road that was wide enough, are supported by suburban land development interests who want more "flow." Flow is another word for getting residents of far-flung housing developments down to the freeway as quickly as possible, neighborhoods be damned. And not to worry: Annoying laws such as the Growth Management Act or the Comprehensive Plan don't seem to apply when our traffic engineers are on the job. Think skids and greasing. Elected "leadership," when urged to clamp down on out-of-control bureaucrats, points to the gobs of money that their busy beavers bring into government's coffers. Such praise makes about as much sense as complimenting a person for managing to get wet by diving into a fast-moving river. From the Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C., down to the local level, we have here a lavishly funded bureaucratic cabal dedicated to one thing: spending gobs of money building roads, the wider and straighter the better. The cabal lets the engineers in on what amounts to a scam that gives them what all lesser politicians want — the appearance of free cash. Thus engineers usually get their way, which is what HQ back in D.C. wants — more and faster flow, which, as we have come to understand, always results in the destruction of neighborhoods, downtowns and even entire communities, while encouraging expensive sprawl. Congress created this cabal when it passed the Highway Trust Fund act back in the 1950s. Instead of your tax dollars going to support the development of "transportation," money from this source could go only to build and repair roads. Thus America has such a cheesy rail system and such ugly and expensive sprawl. The Growth Management Act was passed to give the public relief from this cabal through the creation of local comprehensive plans, which were to provide communities with important political, aesthetic and moral texture. Counterattacking, the engineers have sought to marginalize the political process by falling back on their built-in autonomy to contrive a kind of bureaucratic shell game: unelected bureaucrats, with impunity, using safety as an excuse to construct a freeway; unelected bureaucrats using a pothole problem as an excuse to destroy streetscape by unilaterally cutting down all the trees; unelected bureaucrats unilaterally plotting to build a freeway next to a college and through one of more attractive neighborhoods in the area. Elected leadership, if it had the will, could rid us of this bureaucratic scam, if not the road-building cabal; but, alas, most often the people who can say "No" simply cower in the background. To keep the scam working, citizens are encouraged to spend time planning, writing and passing into law something like the comprehensive plan. But it's a cynical way to maintain a façade of actual planning when in fact it's kept in a state of perpetual irrelevance. These bogus planning efforts serve nicely as a kind of civic narcotic to keep the natives (that's us) from getting restless. Thus abandoned, citizens are forced to rely on the courts, which only underscores how the engineers have managed to marginalize the political process. Somehow it has come to this: The only way to enforce laws like growth management and comprehensive plans is to get a judge to remind our public officials that they were elected for that very reason.
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