Happy Halloween!
Here’s wishing everyone a safe and happy Halloween!
Once you’ve loaded up on candy, please leave a comment and let us know the best places to trick-or-treat in Emerson-Garfield!
Materials for Tonight’s Meetings
The agendas for tonight’s Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Council and planning stakeholder meetings are available for download. Save paper and grab your copy here:
Remember: the meetings start at 6pm (planning) and 7pm (neighborhood council) at the Corbin Senior Center.
As much as we wish everything was always sunshine and rainbows in the world of Spokane neighborhoods, there are some pressing issues to consider on both of these agendas. Many of those issues stem from decisions made by various departments within the city bureaucracy.
Traffic Calming on Mansfield & Montgomery
Earlier this year our neighborhood submitted a request for traffic-calming measures to the city. The request was for curb bump-outs along the 1100 to 1400 blocks of W Mansfield Ave. They were intended to slow speeders and discourage drivers from using it as a cut-through between N. Monroe and NW Blvd.
City engineers recently investigated the request (we think that’s when the electronic speed limit signs appeared) and they discovered that the problem included W Montgomery Ave as well. If anything, Montgomery had a bigger problem than Mansfield. A traffic light at the intersection of Montgomery and Monroe means that people hotfoot it for a block or two when the light is green. Trinity Catholic School is along that road, too, which makes inattentive speeders doubly dangerous.
Instead of curb bump-outs, the engineers proposed something more effective: traffic circles (aka “roundabouts”). They will address Montgomery Ave immediately and Mansfield will follow later, although it might require another application process next year to ensure that the project remains a top priority. Their preliminary plan for a total of six roundabouts — with trees and flowers, no less — is depicted below.
Over the next few weeks, the City of Spokane will be sending out letters to residents and businesses in the Montgomery area. If you’re in support of the project — and why wouldn’t you be when it means less transient traffic, fewer accidents, and fewer speeders? — you should promptly sign this letter and return it to the city. A group of volunteer residents will also doorbell with signature sheets to ensure that everyone understands the positive impact the project will have. We’ll need signatures from 50% +1 of properties for approval.
It’s important to note that this is not being funded by tax dollars. It comes from Photo Red funds. Photo Red funds come from people who are fined for running red lights. This money is pooled and then allocated to implement these types of traffic-calming projects. In other words, red-light runners are paying for you to be safer and your property values to go up.
More info will be posted as it becomes available. If you’re interested in helping to gather the required signatures, please get in touch. It will only take an afternoon at the most.
Status of N. Monroe Revitalization
About two weeks ago, we made a request to have a written status update on North Monroe Revitalization, which, according to previous reports, was scheduled to break ground shortly.
On September 7, we received (via our appointed city rep, Tirrell Black) the following statement from Andrew Worlock, who is helping to oversee the N. Monroe revitalization project at the city level:
We are working on finalizing the contract with Studio Cascade. We have re-scoped the consultant’s work plan to provide a greater emphasis on economic development and identifying the public actions (infrastructure, etc) that are needed to stimulate private investment within and along the corridor. The approach uses a more refined focus given to three nodes along the corridor: a northern node, a “mid” node and a southern or “Northbank” node. We think this will mesh well with the neighborhood planning efforts of the EG Neighborhood as well as the other planning efforts (Kendall Yards, Spokane County) ongoing along the corridor. We hope to have the consultant under contract early this fall.
We’ll present this statement and discuss its impact at the neighborhood council meeting this week, which takes place on Wednesday, 7pm at the Corbin Senior Center.
Now, Where Do We Go from Here?
Thanks to everyone who took the time to follow the story about The Hoods and our response to it, we’ve had hundreds of new visitors to this site over the past 48 hours. We hope that it won’t be a one-off and that many of you will return to stay abreast of much less incendiary news about neighborhood developments and events.
Whether you agree with our point about The Hoods or not, we want to invite everyone with a stake in Emerson-Garfield to participate in our ongoing efforts to improve the neighborhood from the bottom up. Contrary to stereotype, Emerson-Garfield’s neighborhood council and planning committee aren’t a cabal of grumpy old men griping about kids on their lawn — the groups are diverse, they’re vibrant, they’re active, and they’re always looking for ways to become more of all those things.
Some of the biggest challenges we’ve historically faced are ignorance and apathy, but The Hoods has shown that people can become informed very quickly if the incentive is there, and that those people are anything but apathetic about their neighborhood.
So, where do we go from here?
Don’t limit your concern to a single of outburst of controversy. Don’t limit your comments to a single blog post. Don’t sour on an issue because of criticism. Instead, show up to neighborhood council and planning meetings. Speak your mind. Offer your input. Make suggestions for improvement. Help with the legwork. Because neither the individual councils nor The Hoods are the sole arbiters of what our neighborhoods are or what they can be. That takes all of us working in concert.
Here in Emerson-Garfield, there are two meetings this week that would welcome new faces, new voices, and new ideas:
- Neighborhood Planning, 6pm on Wednesday at Corbin Senior Center. This is an initiative that is working toward a documented vision that could guide the neighborhood for the next decade and beyond.
- Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Council, 7pm on Wednesday at Corbin Senior Center. This focuses on practical issues and improvements such as crime updates, new playground equipment in the parks, and event planning.
If you’re fired up and live, work, or own property anywhere in Emerson-Garfield, we hope to see you at one or both of these meetings.