Small Town News

Communication needed on Pine Lodge

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In Our Opinion

There's an old saying usually attributed to late U.S. Navy rear admiral Grace Hopper that "It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission."

It would seem officials at Spokane County and the city of Spokane take this approach as part of their protocol when it comes to communicating with other governmental entities in the area. That's the only reason we can come up with to explain why neither the county nor the city sought to contact officials at Medical Lake first about their intentions to ask the state about using Pine Lodge Correctional Center for Women should the state close the facility.

Yes, the center is the property of the state. But the facility sits in Medical Lake, and it is Medical Lake that provides services, such as utilities.

One would think that alone would be reason enough to call Medical Lake Mayor John Higgins and City Administrator Doug Ross first before contacting state officials to express an interest in obtaining the facility for their own purposes. And even if that wasn't enough, common courtesy should lead them to ask, "I wonder how Medical Lake feels about this. Let's call and talk to them first."

That didn't happen, and instead they went over Medical Lake's head straight to the state. Spokane County has eyes on Pine Lodge as an easy way out of providing a site for their jail expansion project. The city of Spokane would like to use the site for criminal justice programs that might include work-release incarceration.

Medical Lake has plenty of reasons why they would want neither. Pine Lodge currently only houses women, and both the county and city's proposals would bring in men, studies of which have shown a tendency to bring in more outside trouble.

Residents at the Jan. 30 Medical Lake town hall meeting told legislators that since Pine Lodge became an all-female facility in 2004 there has been less fear about potential escapes, and more comfort with the facility's clientele. Women don't tend to verbally harass female passersby, as residents said some male inmates working at the city's recycling center used to do.

And besides, with Eastern State Hospital, West-lake, Lakeland Village and Martin Hall, Medical Lake already has its fair share of essential public facilities. If anything it might be time to lessen the load, and let other areas in the county do their fair share to provide for these types of facilities - and we don't mean having them dumped somewhere else on the West Plains.

All of this could have been discussed between Medical Lake and the city of Spokane and Spokane County outside of the limelight had both larger jurisdictions used some polite common sense. Instead, we have animus and anger poisoning the waters of cooperation.



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© 2010 Cheney Free Press Cheney, Washington. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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