Opinion - Ladies on the Bridge

So there she was on the television screen that Friday night. Sen. Patty Murray was being “interviewed” about the $35 million in stimulus funds which had been added to the pot for Spokane’s North-South Freeway project, probably the state’s longest still-in-the-works freeway project.

The television reporters didn’t have much trouble tracking down their “news” story; Sen. Murray, and Gov. Christine Gregoire announced the day before they would be up on the Farwell Road overpass at 10 a.m. the next day for an “appearance”. It really wasn’t a news event because the $35 million award had already been announced.

Absent was Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers who represents the 5th district, the same piece of geography which contains the freeway project. McMorris Rodgers did not attend because she wasn’t invited, because she voted against the stimulus package, and because Democrats don’t like to share television appearance time with Republicans in an election year.

The $35 million for the freeway project, according to the Spokesman Review, was one of three grants awarded in the state from a special $1.5 billion pot set aside by Sen. Murray as chair of the Senate Transportation Appropriations Committee, in the overall $787 billion recovery act fund.

In addition to advancing the long-awaited freeway project, the funds are expected to generate up to 106 construction jobs for the coming summer.

Not mentioned on the television appearance shot or the Spokesman Review was a commentary piece in the Inlander the previous week by John Covert, a Spokane resident and president of Citizens for Sensible Transportation.

He contends the Spokane project was poorly conceived and its $3 billion total cost takes funds away from places where it could be better used. Covert points out a Department of Transportation congestion report last year pegged the average daily loss of weekday hours in the Puget Sound region was 125,000. In Spokane, it’s 200 hours a day.

The same day Sen. Murray and Gov. Gregoire appeared on the bridge in front of the television cameras, Rep. McMorris Rodgers was the topic of a page 6 report in the Spokesman about her rejection of the stimulus bill. She was reported to be in Olympia where she cautioned legislators against using stimulus funds to plug holes in the state operating budget.

“The federal government is broke,” McMorris Rodgers reportedly said. She noted borrowing more funds for the stimulus programs amounted to “kicking the ball down the road” by increasing the already too heavy U.S. debt load.

Later in the article she explained she did endorse the Spokane NS Freeway grant application and hailed its $35 million award to advance the project. Her spokesman, Todd Weiner, explained the representative sees no contradiction in backing construction projects for stimulus funds now that they’ve been approved.

The Spokesman finally reported on the bridge appearance three days later with a photo of Sen. Murray and Gov. Gregoire extolling the grant for the freeway project. Mike Prager in his Getting There column said Gov. Gregoire explained Rep. McMorris Rodgers absence on the bridge stemmed from her “no” vote on the stimulus package.

“We never thought to ask her since she voted ‘no,’” the governor reportedly said.

The whole episode provides voters a political sketch to sort out in this election year. Sen. Murray came through with $35 million which will add construction work next summer. But the overall cost of that $35 million will be a lot higher down the road and taxpayers will eventually have to pay.

Rep. McMorris Rodgers earns credit for pointing this out, but she loses credit for hailing the grant award after voting against the measure which provided the funds.

And despite that “media moment” up on the bridge, the North-South freeway still has five unfinished miles on the south end of the project, between Hillyard and I-90. It will still be years before motorists from this part of the state will be able to take an exit off I-90 and roll north past Spokane without hitting a stoplight.

Jerry Jones,

Editor