Politics from the Palouse to Puget Sound

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Gee, No One Invited Whitman County?

There was a story in yesterday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News about the Moscow Congress, which is part of the process of rewriting the city’s comprehensive plan. Shockingly, no Whitman County residents participated.

I guarantee you that if there were any such gathering in Whitman County, Moscow residents would demand to attend. In fact, some quotes from the story demonstrated that attitude:
“We can’t talk about land use without including Pullman,” Moscow resident Bill McLaughlin said.

“We need to focus on the region when we think about economic development. The changing of the character is affected by what both communities do.”
No thanks, Bill. As it is, in today's Daily News, Mayor Moonbat, in discussing Moscow's new "sustainability" intern, said:
"Sustainability doesn't stop at jurisdictional boundaries; it exists within an ecosystem or a region."
"Sustainability" may not stop at the border, but your kingdowm does, Queen.

I may have been wrong about Bill Parks, however:
Moscow resident and Northwest River Supplies owner Bill Parks said the opposite of sprawl is “extremely high prices for housing.”

“Smart growth means high prices,” he said.
Absolutely true. And some Moscow residents do get it:
Moscow resident Laura Taylor said Moscow needs to make it easier for businesses to locate without putting a bunch of conditions on development.

“Both (Whitman and Latah) counties are starved for tax dollars,” she said. “We don’t have the option to manage growth that is going to occur outside of our boundaries.”

1 comment:

April E. Coggins said...

I didn't see the article, but the quotes are not surpising. Moscow sees Pulman and Whitman County not as a sovereign entity, but as a "little brother", never to be included in the important decisions. We are only included when we are needed for monetary support. (monetary supression of our area in deference to Moscow amounts to the same thing) All agenda setting and decision making is to be done in Moscow, they believe they know what is best. Not very different from Olympia and Seattle.