North Notes
Spokane-North Rotary Club
September 23, 2024
Calendar:
Sept. 30: Noon meeting at the Bark. Speaker: Michael Baumgartner, 5th District Congressional candidate.
Oct. 7: Noon meeting at the Bark. Club President’s quarterly update.
Oct. 14: No meeting. (Indigenous People’s Day holiday.)
Tours and activities:
Club activities chair Laura Zahn said upcoming events:
Saturday, Sept. 28, 8:30 a.m. to Noon: Habitat for Humanity build in Deer Park. The club wants to fill 20 slots, but as of Sept. 23, Zahn said “a few more have signed up, but we need more.” Please respond to Laura soon if you are able to attend.
Saturday, Oct. 12, 2 p.m., Free Rein tour in Spokane Valley.
Announcements:
Club President Nancy Hanson said next month’s board meeting will be Sept.25.
John Mailliard, club Rotary Foundation chair, said the Fall Assembly, Oct. 19 at 9 a.m. at 115 S. University in the Valley. He said that at least one more member is needed to attend the District Foundation Committee at 9:30 a.m., on Saturday, Oct. 19, in the Spokane Valley to qualify for possible district grants.
Happy Bucks:
Bill Simer was happy for a pleasant train ride at Ione, Wash.
Nancy Hanson was $5 happy for the WSU win over San Jose State.
Janine McCorkle was happy for the Coug win, and also for the Mariners and University of Illinois (her alma mater) win.
Melinda Keberle was happy that son Landen’s sack on the second-to-last play secured a Lewis and Clark football win over Ridgeline.
Sheila Fritz, after winning the weekly ticket drawing for the second week in a row, donated $10 for “being happy to be here.”
Avid fly-fisher Amy Jo Carlson was happy for a “Sisters on the Fly” outing and for a new member of that group caught her first fish. Amy Jo gave her the fly to celebrate.
West Plains shootout (continued)
Contrasts abound in one of the hottest local races this fall -- the Spokane County Commission District 5, where Molly Marshall and Al French compete for the vast western section of the county.
French discussed issues at the club’s Sept. 23 luncheon. Marshall spoke last week. French, 73, is a longtime Spokane city councilman and Spokane commissioner. Marshall, 55, active in Latah Valley area committees, is in her first race. In the August primary French had 15,480 votes (51.2 percent) and Marshall had 14,744 votes (48.8 percent).
Before discussing politics, French introduced his wife, Rosalie, who has just finished an eight-month battle with leukemia. He said though the survival rate for her illness is just 20 percent, a bone-marrow replacement procedure at the Fred Hutchinson Center in Seattle, was successful. He said no good match was found in the nation, but tissue from a 35-year-old woman in Berlin, Germany, provided the solution.
French said “I always wanted to be an architect.” After high school in Las Vegas, he said his college choices were Arizona State and Idaho. Learning that costs in 1972 were $3,900 per semester at ASU and $258 per semester at Idaho, he said picking the Vandals was easy.
His political activities, he said, started when neighbors in northwest Spokane, worried about gang activities, asked him to “build a cop shop.” French said that led to expanding day care centers, then a spot on the city plan commission and then a city council seat from 2002 to 2009.
French was elected to the Spokane County Commission in 2011 and has been served there since. With Spokane County growth, he said, the State Legislature mandated expanding the commission to five from three. “Since two count districts typically vote Democrat and two are Republican, the 5th District is the swing seat,” he said.
French proudly cites his role in the growth in the West Plains district – 6,500 new jobs providing $3 billion. A key he said is having sites “shovel ready.”
He said Amazon’s huge warehouse operation was built in five months, rather than the 20 months expected and plans for Caterpillar’s 600,000 square-foot facility were approved in just 12 days, when a Hayden Lake alternative was in play.
Next on tap is a site for an 82-acre site on Spokane International Airport land at Craig and McFarlane for an Ohio-based company with three subsidiaries and 300-plus new jobs. French said the county has approved the project and only city approval remains.
French said the county’s motto is “be good servants and provide good services.”
About homelessness, he said the issue “is driving by policy as much as anything. With no incentive to change, you need a pathway to be stable. I don’t want them in jails. I want treatment and housing. I want compassion,” French said.
He said Spokane’s jail, built in 1982, is “functionally obsolete.” French said the jail is “unsafe and has twice the load it’s designed for.” While one ballot measure failed last year, he said another issue likely will be raised next year. A key for success, he added, is having other entities tell voters where the required money not as part of a jail facility will go, such as more police.
Perhaps the hottest issue in the West Plains area is the issue of PFAs – polyfluoroalkyl substances – used for decades as a firefighting foam, mostly at Fairchild Air Force Base. He said PFAs “have been around since 1938, including Teflon products.”
French says getting clean water to the wells in the area might include piping water from the Spokane River to pipes near the base. Marshall favors filtration systems for the wells used there now. All alternatives will be expensive. French said well filtration costs would be $40,000 to $50,000 per well plus perhaps $5,000 a year for new filters.
Asked about problems with Scraps’ animal control, French said “we need to get people from the public involved, including the Humane Society.” He added he has bred basset hounds.
While French has said this race may be his last election, while it’s the first for Marshall. Voters in the 5th District will decide Nov. 5.
Bulletin editors: Chuck Rehberg and Sandy Fink. Photo by Nancy Hanson.