By RYAN LANCASTER
Staff Reporter
The Airway Heights City Council was joined at their April 5 meeting by Spokane County Commissioner Bonnie Mager and county parks director Doug Chase to discuss a draft memorandum of understanding between the jurisdictions.
The proposed deal gives the city roughly 70 acres of undeveloped land in exchange for providing treated wastewater and sewer and water services to the Spokane County Raceway. The agreement also provides the city with first rights of refusal on nearly 30 additional acres, land the county isn't yet sure it will use for their racetrack, Mager said.
Airway Heights officials are interested in seeing a regional sports park developed on the land, which is next door to the county's off-road vehicle park, but Mayor Patrick Rushing wasn't entirely sold on the idea of acquiring the acreage without any guarantees of its development. “We need to have those who are committed to this say, ‘we want to expand, we know we're going to be utilizing this facility.' If not we're going to be sitting on a bunch of dirt and nothing to do with it.”
Councilman Matthew Pederson, who was mayor in 2008 when the city first engaged the county in discussions, said while it is unknown how quickly investors will come forward to develop the property, securing the land is a vital first step. “Over the last few years we've had a considerable amount of interest from potential user groups,” Pederson said. “I believe these partnerships will be developed once the property ownership issue is settled and this will facilitate development (of the sports complex).”
Rushing reiterated his doubts that verbal partnerships would translate to real development dollars. “I haven't seen anything in writing that says ‘we're just waiting for you to get the land before we develop it,'” he said. “We can have scheduled tournaments all we want but unless you have a field to put a tournament on you're not going to have a tournament.”
Mager suggested the city should work to strengthen partnerships in order to advance the plan, saying it was the best move for every party. “My hope would be that you all would see this as a benefit for Airway Heights as an investment in the raceway as well as an opportunity to acquire land for the future sports complex.”
The full board of county commissioners will discuss the proposal before the Airway Heights council is scheduled to vote on a final memorandum of understanding during their April 19 meeting.
In other council business, a public hearing was held concerning the first reading of an ordinance that proposes changes to the city municipal code regarding the storage of junk and junk vehicles. Officer Stephen Makar told council the nuisance ordinance hasn't seen revision for years and the changes will fix numerous small conflicts within the character and the makeup of the document.
Council then discussed at length whether to authorize employment of a search firm to gather candidates for the city's public works director position, which will be vacated by Bryan St. Clair at the end of this month when he takes a job with Spokane's Modern Electric.
City manager Albert Tripp asked for an amount not to exceed $18,000 to hire a search firm as “Plan B” if traditional avenues of soliciting applicants don't render a qualified replacement quickly. “As you're aware this is a pivotal position to the city and a lot of projects are going on,” he said. “It goes without saying that this position really needs to be filled.”
Councilman Kevin Richey joined Pederson in voting against the measure, which ultimately passed, on the grounds that the price tag was excessive and the city has had no good experiences with search firms in the past.
Council also approved a real estate exchange agreement that transfers 2.5 acres near 21st and Lawson streets for better use by the wastewater treatment facility and gave the nod to final plat approval for 38 single family lots and five duplex lots on 10.3 acres north of 12th Avenue near Craig Road.
Ryan Lancaster can be reached at [email protected].
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