Voters should approve with enthusiasm both the parks and streets bond refinancing proposals that the city of Spokane has placed on the November ballot. 

In short, the proposals will retire debt and enable the city to make improvements during the next 20 years without raising taxes, rather than just chip away at its existing bond debt that, at the current pace, won’t be paid off for another 16 years. For the city, this is far superior to doing nothing now, then coming back to voters with a new proposal a few years down the road that would heap new debt on top of existing commitments.

The most exciting and culturally significant element of the entire plan is the envisioned $60 million investment in Riverfront Park. The 40-year-old centerpiece to downtown Spokane is showing its age, and the Spokane Parks Board has spent a considerable amount of time coming up with a strategy that would reinvigorate this community asset. The plan maintains the integrity of the park while making some of its most high profile assets more relevant. 

Some of the park-improvement elements, among many, involve developing a north-south promenade from downtown to the north bank, creating a new use for the U.S. Pavilion, and moving the Ice Palace ice rink to what’s called Gondola Meadow, just off Spokane Falls Boulevard.

Our neighbors in Coeur d’Alene have brought new life to their lake-fronting McEuen Park with $20 million in improvements, replacing a large surface parking lot and sports fields with a variety of new features and attractions. It’s time for Spokane to make a similar—but larger and higher profile—improvement to benefit its core.

The streets piece, meanwhile, is less glamorous but equally as important. Voters approved a street bond in 2004 that enabled the city to make $117 million in improvements. The city largely has completed all of the projects slated to be financed by that bond—and has delivered on the promises it made 10 years ago. 

Street improvements, however, must be ongoing, and any lapse in work stands to exacerbate problems down the road. Spokane has learned this lesson the hard way in the past. 

The refinancing package would generate $5 million annually for street upgrades. The city’s plan is to couple that money with utility funds and state and federal matching funds to invest an estimated $25 million into its roads each year for the next 20 years. At the end of that 20 years, as currently envisioned, the street bonds would be retired. 

Combined, taxpayers within the city currently pay 91 cents for every $1,000 of assessed property value on parks and streets. That amount doesn’t change through these proposals. 

What does change is the city’s ability to invest in its infrastructure, investments that some people would benefit from daily—and that the community as a whole would benefit from for many years into the future. This is a strategy that is worthy of your yes vote.