Jazzed for Justice, Hamilton Studio, May 9, 2013

A lot of the time, when our institutions fail us, their failures are accompanied by a more widespread public failure: the failure to care enough, the failure to insist on being better.
In a democracy, this can have devastating consequences. Because it’s hard to actually make things better – it’s easy to get outraged, and then to spend that outrage very quickly – to post something, tweet something, to write a letter. To write a column. But that initial expenditure of outrage is often followed by … nothing. Or, even worse, by a sense of accomplishment and a desire to move on.

Shawn Vestal at Jazzed for Justice

We’re very, very good at outrage. And very, very bad at follow-through.

That’s why we need the people and organizations who are dedicated to the long view. Who are willing to do the work that remains, once everyone’s done shouting. I can think of no better recent example of this than the Center for Justice’s work on the Otto Zehm case – work that has been steady and steadfast as the public’s interest waxed and waned, and as our institutions fumbled and flailed. It’s work that is bearing fruit for the community, even now.

Shouldn’t we all be more outraged by this? I wanted to pose this question as a columnist, and I was, in part, posing it to myself. Shouldn’t I have been more outraged by this?

When I refer to the failure to care – or the failure to care enough – I don’t mean only to point the finger at others. I was working the night Zehm was beaten in that Zip Trip. I was the Saturday reporter, and I remember heading over to the scene, at an editor’s behest, with the same kind of attitude I might have had toward any weekend news that breaking relatively late in the shift: Which is to say, less enthusiasm, less energy and less give-a-damn than I should have. That night, I stood outside the police tape and took down what Jim Nicks had to say, and asked a few questions, and returned to the office and filed a short item.

I have often thought about that night since then – about how detached I was able to feel from the events that happened just inside that store. About how concerned I was over getting to whatever Saturday night fun I had planned, and how little I understood or tried to discover what had happened in there.

Several years passed before I had any further professional attachment to the story. I followed it in the news coverage, and found myself periodically outraged anew. And yet, I had fallen into the same attitude that I suspect many of us shared, from time to time, in the Zehm case. A sense of weariness from the barrage of headlines. A desire to wrap it up, to find closure, to heal, which was probably more of a desire that the whole thing simply go away.

in representing Zehm’s estate, the Center represented all of us – all of our interest in a better police department, in accountable public institutions, and a more just community.

When I became a columnist at the newspaper, the federal case against Karl Thompson was proceeding to trial. I decided to become more deeply informed about the case, and as I read through mountains of court records, I became ashamed of the way I had come to feel about this case. About my sense of fatigue over it. Everywhere I turned – on seemingly every page filed in the criminal and civil cases – was another cause for deep, grave concern over the functioning of our local government.

Shouldn’t we all be more outraged by this? I wanted to pose this question as a columnist, and I was, in part, posing it to myself. Shouldn’t I have been more outraged by this?
I think I should have. And I think all of us should have. And to the degree that we were, it has helped to drive some change, I believe. And yet, all that being said, outrage is fleeting and fickle. It does not do, finally, what needs to be done. The largest part of changing things for the better comes from those who work within the system – the slow, compromised, limited system – with patience and tenacity.

The Center for Justice was involved with this case almost immediately, and its efforts spanned six years. The Center sued the city on behalf of Otto Zehm’s estate in 2009 and settled it last year. Among the settlement’s achievements is the Zehm memorial – a physical insistence that his memory not be subsumed in a rush to move forward.
Also, though, in representing Zehm’s estate, the Center represented all of us – all of our interest in a better police department, in accountable public institutions, and a more just community. A lot of us talked about it. The Center did the work.

Two citizen initiatives headed toward a city-wide ballot this fall are highly vulnerable to legal challenges according to a memo released late Monday by the City of Spokane.

Envision Spokane supporters marching in January.

The memo, entitled “Legal Validity of Proposed Initiative Measures and Possible Courses of Action” is authored by Michael K. Ryan of the law firm K&L Gates. It was directed to City Attorney Nancy Isserlis and Assistant City Attorney Mike Piccolo who advises the Spokane City Council.

The memo addresses both Envision Spokane’s latest version of a Community Bill of Rights and an initiative advanced by the Spokane Moves to Amend (SMAC) that would ban corporations from spending money to try to influence local elections in Spokane. In Ryan’s view, both initiatives can be successfully challenged because they attempt to usurp powers that are already reserved to local and state legislative bodies,  the federal government or both.

The Community Bill of Rights has four provisions to it:

a) It would create rights of “neighborhood residents” in the process of making zoning changes to accommodate development.

b) It would create “fundamental and inalienable rights” for the Spokane River and Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer.

c) It would require more rights for workers in Spokane, including making collective bargaining compulsory for unionized workplaces.

d) It would strip “personhood” from corporations, thus removing from corporations the full rights granted to individual citizens.

You can read Ryan’s May 9th memo here.

—Tim Connor for the Center for Justice

Jen Uchida emailed me back in February telling me that her and her fiance  (Jen a Colorado native and Michael a Spokane native) were coming to Spokane to visit his family and run Bloomsday and she was wondering if there were any Spokane River clean up events going on that weekend.  When I couldn’t come up with one or find any volunteer opportunities, Jen just simply said that they would go out and clean up some stretch of the River on their own and asked me for some guidance on where to go.

Here is their story and some photos below.  My hope is that their story inspires you as it inspired me.  I’m not saying you should always seek out your local Waterkeeper or other environmental groups when you go on a trip and do some volunteering, but I’m not saying you shouldn’t do that either.  Jen and Michael didn’t do what they did so I would put them on the Riverkeeper website, but a story as cool as this definitely deserved to be here.  So thank you Jen and Michael for being Riverkeepers for a day.  And best of luck to you with your upcoming marriage.

Jen  and Michael’s story:

Saturday, May 4 was a beautiful morning. The air was crisp and held a faint pleasant fragrance that only a morning in the Pacific Northwest can hold. My fiancé and I parked at Mission Park, armed with working gloves and 5 heavy duty trash bags. As we headed South on the Centennial Trail, we began to scan the ground for trash to pick up. We were out there picking up trash for a few reasons but the main one may seem a bit out of the ordinary: we are getting married on June 1! From the beginning, we knew we wanted to minimize the impact of our special day on our special environment. We chose to send electronic save-the-dates, invitations made of seed paper, and even our venue prides themselves on their eco-friendly business practices. In lieu of providing our guests with wedding favors, we decided to volunteer our time to various environmental organizations. As residents of Maryland, we were already familiar with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation volunteer events and we wanted to extend our reach to include the states that we consider “home”: Colorado for me, and Washington for Mike. During our visit to the Spokane River, we made three trips out and back to the park and managed to completely fill our 5 trash bags. We even hauled out some lumber and sheets of metal that wouldn’t fit in the bags. It broke our hearts to leave behind trash that we just couldn’t carry but found comfort knowing that the river was just a *little* bit cleaner.

A ROW watercraft on the Spokane.

We’re thrilled to announce that Spokane Riverkeeper is once again partnering with ROW Adventures for an unforgettable trip down the Spokane River.

Our annual Spokane River float will place you right in the action as we’ll raft right through Riverside State Park, the legendary Bowl and Pitcher rapids and the mischievous Devil’s Toenail.  This is a professionally-guided trip and ALL gear and instructions will be provided.  This is a Tuesday, but we will be meeting at 4:30 p.m. so it’ a perfect excuse to duck out of work a little early.

This trip costs $70 which includes the gear and transportation to and from downtown Spokane.  ROW Adventures has generously offered to donate a major portion of the trip price back to Spokane Riverkeeper.  If you’d like to join us, please fill out this form below and we will get back to you with payment information and more details ASAP.

We have a limited number of seats on this trip so sign up today.   And if you can’t make it, please consider sharing this opportunity with your friends, family and colleagues.  We’re planning on great weather, and we can’t wait to have you join us.  It’s going to be a blast!

A little about the float itself:

Duration: 4 hours

Intensity: Class II-III

Minimum Age: 10

No rafting experience required

Dress to get wet, though dry suits will be provided

• The Economist, yes THE Economist, recently published a very in-depth and favorable look at the coal export issue in the northwest.  Moral of the story > those pushing to export coal out of Bellingham and run 18 coal trains a day through Spokane have run in to quite the opposition – both on the ground and based in reality. Have a read for yourself HERE.

• Bill McKibben continues his hot streak (bad pun, sorry) with another amazing climate change article in the newest issue of Rolling Stone.  McKibben penned the intro piece for Rolling Stone’s “Fossil Fuel Resistance” series which picked out a dozen or so of the current, young leaders in the climate change battle. McKibben’s piece is both inspirational and frustrating but weighs more on the former as he describes a movement that is starting to resemble an organized and effective vehicle of change.  Read McKibben’s piece HERE and read the rest of Rolling Stone’s “Fossil Fuel Resistance” series HERE.

And finally, something closer to home.

• The Spokesman-Review had a wonderful article about the USGS gauge station that documents Spokane River flow.  I know what you’re thinking, “really, a wonderful article on a gauge station? Impossible”  Here’s the thing.  The gauge station just turned 100 years old. Pretty cool in and of itself.  But I really like how the writer, Scott Maben, used the occasion to talk about all of the cool data and stories that the  number that come out of that gauge station tell.  I will certainly think differently about the numbers I see when I check the Spokane River flows on my river flow iPhone app every morning. Seriously though, that is part of my daily routine.  Read the article HERE.