Mobius suddenly abandons pursuit of Riverfront Park location for new science center.
After months of intense negotiations with the Spokane Park Board over the terms of developing a new $29.5 million science center on public property adjacent to Riverfront Park, the board of directors for Mobius Spokane today announced the organization is withdrawing from further negotiations with the city.
Rather than continuing to pursue the so-called “north bank” location, the board announced it “has decided that the best course of action is to identify a location with an existing building that can be retrofitted for the science center, thus enabling an opening in early 2011.”
Although the timing of today’s announcement is a surprise, it had become increasingly clear in recent weeks that negotiations between Mobius Spokane and the Park Board were near a breaking point. The tension involved both the terms of the draft lease agreements that had gone back and forth between the Park Board and the Mobius, and what was, at best, a misunderstanding between the two boards over who would have the last word on the agreement. Among the more controversial features of the lease was the lack of a requirement for Mobius to produce a business plan until after the lease was signed, a token $1 a year charge to Mobius to lease 5.7 acres of public property, and provisions in the lease that would allow subleasing by Mobius of portions of the property to commercial interests.
Critics of the plan have voiced several concerns, including whether potentially millions of dollars in annual operations deficits (science centers around the nation are heavily subsidized by state and federal taxpayers) would be foisted on city or county taxpayers.
As we reported a month ago, many if not most Park Board members thought the board had tendered a final offer to Mobius Spokane last summer. But unbeknownst to at least some Park Board members, negotiations had continued between assistant city attorney Pat Dalton (on behalf of the Park Board) and Mobius representatives. When a revised lease agreement came back to the Park Board in November, the turmoil it caused compelled Park Board President Gary Lawton to cancel discussion of the proposal before the full board and move it to a board subcommittee. And it was there, on November 17th, that the rupture between the two boards became public for the first time.
The effort to locate a science center in or near Riverfront Park has been a deeply contentious issue for more than a decade. In 1995, Spokane voters rejected a proposal that would have located a science center in the heart of Riverfront Park. But four years later voters approved by a wide margin the issuance of nearly $15 million in bonds to fund park improvements including upwards of $3.5 million to purchase the 5.7 acre north bank property for a possible new science center. Mobius Spokane came into the picture in 2005 when it merged with the Inland Northwest Science and Technology Center and began to advance the latest proposal. Mobius currently operates a children’s science museum in River Park Square.
One of the major elements of the Mobius/Park Board controversy has been secrecy. At the November 17th meeting, Park Board members inadvertently revealed that they had, in all likelihood, violated the state’s Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) by voting in executive session on whether to continue negotiations with Mobius. Contrary to a December 11th Spokesman-Review story, the closed session vote did not occur last August (when the board actually voted, publicly, to send a new draft agreement to Mobius). Rather, the executive session votes, according to documents obtained by the Center for Justice, appear to have taken place at an executive session meeting last April. As opposed to the latter, 11-1 public vote, the executive session votes were almost evenly divided, and apparently required a re-vote in order to get the deciding vote for proceeding with the Mobius negotiations.
Under the OPMA, all votes by public entities like the Park Board must be taken in open sessions.
After the November 17th subcommittee meeting, the Park Board assembled on December 10th and voted 6-5 to let Assistant City Attorney try to finalize a proposed lease revision with Mobius, and the revision was set to be returned next month.
Obviously, today’s announcement by Mobius ends the negotiations.
–Tim Connor
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