On Tuesday morning, federal Judge Edward Shea postponed the River Park Square parking garage trial that had been set to begin on Monday. The night before, the Spokane City Council had agreed to issue new debt to buy out all holders of bonds related to the RPS garage — including those bondholders they were scheduled to face in court on Monday. Shea told lawyers in a conference call that he would reschedule the trial for either June or September — if indeed a trial were still required. Full Story

Here's a quick look at the various defendants in the pending litigation Full Story

It was strangely quiet at City Hall Monday night, prior to the Spokane City Council meeting. In the "good old" River Park Square days, when critics and supporters filled the chambers, the half hour before the meeting was the best time to get the scoop. It was practically a social event, often lasting until well past 11 pm. Full Story

More than seven years ago, the City of Spokane used an emergency ordinance to join the River Park Square public private partnership in order to "save downtown," as public officials put it at the time. Now a new set of public officials may act on the same emergency basis to get the city out of the partnership. Full Story

I. From a Tiny Spark -- For the past seven years, two towers have loomed large over Spokane. In their shadows, war has been waged — a political civil war. At Riverside and Monroe sits the Spokesman-Review's Red Tower, headquarters to the media and real estate holdings of Spokane's Cowles family. At First and Wall, Metropolitan Mortgage's White Tower rises, housing the Sandifur family's sprawling operation. Both structures are highly symbolic. Full Story

Back in 2000, candidate John Powers struck a chord with a frustrated electorate: He could untangle the River Park Square mess, he said on the campaign trail, through mediation. It seemed so obvious; why hadn't anybody thought of it before? Trouble was that when 2003 rolled around and it was time to get reelected, he hadn't delivered on what was taken by many as a campaign promise. Full Story

Over the next several weeks, our two mayoral finalists must make clear their positions on the River Park Square garage case. Jim West tells us that after the election he will reexamine the city's legal strategy. This amounts to a non-position position. If, after almost eight years of public acrimony, hundreds of news stories and the discovery process all but completed, West hasn't learned enough about the case to take a clear position, he shouldn't be elected mayor. And if he just wants to keep his opinions to himself for now, he'll only feed the suspicion that, if elected, he will somehow engineer a Cowles-friendly settlement via the mediation process. It is true that, come January, such a last-minute solution is the Cowles' only off-ramp before a jury gets to make the call — when anything can happen. West needs to answer this question. Full Story

If every court case is a work in progress, questions posed in depositions can offer a glimpse at where an attorney is taking his or her case. In the deposition of Betsy Cowles taken last month, Gary Ceriani, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the federal case about the failing River Park Square parking garage, may have tipped his hand a bit. In earlier depositions, the document known as the Zimmer appraisal came up a couple times. But in Cowles' depo, Ceriani spent a lot of time on that document, suggesting he may rely on it to make his case. Full Story

If the saga of River Park Square and its troubled parking garage were a TV series, Betsy Cowles would be the star. But as the story winds down to its courtroom conclusion, it's still unclear whether she's the hero or the villain. Full Story

In the calculus determining the success or failure of the River Park Square redevelopment project, the stakes have always been higher than just the mall for the Cowles family. After all, their most prized possession, the Spokesman-Review, became a part of the picture early in the process. Their coverage of the issue when it mattered most — between mid-1996 and early 1997 — was soft, leading to a loss of credibility with at least some readers. When the deal needed scrutiny from a watchdog, it got a cheerleader, from the Editorial page at least. Later, after the city joined the project, the Review published some in-depth coverage, but by then the troubled deal was done. Full Story

Somebody knows something. How do you find out what they know? In everyday life, you just ask 'em. But in the world of federal litigation, as in the case surrounding the River Park Square parking garage, you really, really ask 'em. Called the deposition phase, it has been underway since last summer, and it'll probably wrap up by late spring or early summer of this year. Full Story

Along with questions about the Official Statement used to sell the Full Story

One of the more unexpected events in the long saga of the River Park Square redevelopment project happened just before Thanksgiving, when the mall's manager of many years, Bob Robideaux, wound up leaving his post over a dispute with his boss, the mall's owner, Betsy Cowles. Full Story

In the summer of 1999, when the River Park Square Mall was about to open, the developer ran into a big misunderstanding with AMC Theaters, the project's prize tenant along with Nordstrom. Not surprisingly, the problem centered on parking: AMC thought its new landlord was asking it to fund more via validation than what the theater had committed to. Full Story

In the past year, the dynamic of the River Park Square litigation has changed significantly. And like so many other problems facing us today, you might as well blame it on Enron. Full Story

There's one character in the saga of River Park Square and its troubled parking garage whose public persona stays well below the level most other players have experienced. Everybody knows (more than they probably would like) about Betsy Cowles and Steve Eugster, John Powers and even the Walker parking consulting firm. But you could argue that Spokane attorney Roy Koegen equals them all for his role in the deal five years ago — and still today. But he rarely gets mentioned in press reports, and he has managed to stay out of the heaviest litigation that has exploded over the past two years. Full Story

Mediation, not litigation! It might as well be a battle cry in the legal fight over the River Park Square parking garage. In recent weeks, more have joined the chorus in calling for all parties to sit down and work something out before it gets worked out for them by a jury. Steve Eugster has come onboard, as has the Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce. Public opinion polls have shown that the citizens see it as a good way out, too. And both the city and the mall's developer, Spokane's Cowles family, have long said they would like to talk. The planets seem to be coming into alignment, but still mediation remains talk — and talk is cheap. Full Story

There's one character in the saga of River Park Square and its troubled parking garage whose public persona stays well below the level most other players have experienced. Everybody knows (more than they probably would like) about Betsy Cowles and Steve Eugster, John Powers and even the Walker parking consulting firm. But you could argue that Spokane attorney Roy Koegen equals them all for his role in the deal five years ago — and still today. But he rarely gets mentioned in press reports, and he has managed to stay out of the heaviest litigation that has exploded over the past two years. Full Story

At the risk of violating local custom, let's give credit where credit is due. The Spokesman-Review is the first of the parties involved in the whole ridiculous River Park Square feud to examine its own actions publically. Challenged over its fairness in the issue, the Review voluntarily assembled a "Credibility Roundtable" and invited its critics to blast away. Full Story

Early-1990s The decline of downtown Spokane becomes obvious after J.C. Penney leaves and the Crescent closes. With the Bon Marche and River Park Square stagnating, it appears that if action is not taken soon, Spokane's downtown would go the way of Tacoma's and become just an office center, with retail fleeing to the suburbs. This prospect scares the city, which stands to lose millions in tax revenue, and the property owners, who stand to lose millions in property value. Something needs to be done, and, leaders of the effort say, it will take an effort similar to the one that landed Expo '74 for the city two decades earlier. Rebuilding River Park Square is viewed as the best vehicle to save downtown, as the owners, the Cowles family, are Spokane residents and Nordstrom, the mall's anchor tenant, is the nation's leading retailer, meaning it could attract other tenants under the right circumstances. Full Story

You're at a party, and all the cool people are standing by the bar, deep in conversation. You sidle up and start to listen in — there's talk of bonds, some kind of foundation and somebody even drops Betsy Cowles' name. Wow, this is some high-falutin' party! Then somebody brings up HUD, and you see your opening: "Oh, that's a great movie — I just love Paul Newman." Blank stares melt into laughter, then catcalls as you run away in shame — "Hey, loser, come back when you understand the River Park Square garage dispute!" Full Story

The Ordinance -- Adopted by the city council on an emergency basis on Jan. 27, 1997, this document guides the city's participation in the downtown redevelopment project. Most agree that the city contracted to pledge its parking meter fund — usually around $1.6 million per year — to help the garage deal in times of need. But now that time of need is here, and no one can agree on what the ordinance says. Full Story

Individuals -- Mike Adolfae Spokane's director of Community Development. Adolfae oversees the city's use of funding from the federal department of Housing and Urban Development and was part of the team that put together the plan that used a HUD-guaranteed loan to help the downtown redevelopment project with a lower interest rate than would have otherwise been available. Full Story

The first step in solving the River Park Square parking garage controversy is to define the problem. It is clear we need a sound business solution for the River Park Square garage, but first we need a true understanding of why the project was built, and how the risks and benefits were shared. Any resolution must be crafted with the facts in mind about the promises made and benefits gained. Full Story

As I have said before, I want the River Park Square project to succeed. I do believe it does, and will continue to contribute to a downtown revival. I also take the position that this revival is critical to the social, cultural and economic success of not only the city but also our entire region. Moreover, while skeptical, I accept subsidization as a fact of American political life. Our "free-enterprising" Republican farmers, irrigators and barge operators no doubt will agree with me. Full Story

By now, everyone concerned with resolving the River Park Square dispute knows that I want to mediate. Mediation can be a tremendous help to parties who see the importance of settling a dispute, but who are having trouble getting there on their own. Full Story

Monday night's City Council meeting will likely go down as a handful of others have: as a turning point in the twisting saga of River Park Square and its troubled parking garage. At issue was whether to loan $800,000 to the Public Parking Development Authority (PDA), the entity charged with operating the garage — and the entity on the hook for its mounting bills. The loan would have allowed the PDA to make its Aug. 1 payment without tapping its reserve, which triggers a host of disclosure requirements that could draw even more attention to the failing garage and its financing. Full Story

In recent months, it was looking more and more like the dispute over the troubled public-private partnership related to the River Park Square parking garage was going to end up in court. Despite a variety of voices calling for settlement of the dispute, it appeared to be a legal quagmire no one could climb out of. But in the past few weeks, something changed. Overtures from council members Roberta Greene and Phyllis Holmes (the two remaining from the 1997 decision to endorse the plan) were successful, and the developer of the mall project finally came to the table with an open mind — and, more importantly, an at least partially open checkbook. Full Story

Curiouser and curiouser! cried Alice." Mayor John Powers must by now better understand why Alice was so confused. She had followed a rabbit down a dark hole, been shrunk in size and hadn't a clue where she was, nor where the rabbit was going. Full Story

Ever since it became painfully clear that the River Park Square parking garage would struggle mightily — even teeter on the brink of insolvency — people have wondered how the garage's reality could lag so far behind the expectations it was stamped with by Walker Parking Consultants of Indianapolis. Now the answers to some of those questions are coming into clearer focus, as new documents produced by Walker to the city have been revealed in a motion filed by Mayor John Powers' special counsel Laurel Siddoway in Superior Court earlier this week. Full Story

CFOG was wrong about John Powers. At least that's how it looks now that Powers has taken a hard line on the River Park Square parking garage mess. Contributors to the political action committee Citizens for Fair and Open Government, which claimed that Powers was an agent in a vast Cowles conspiracy during the strong mayor election last fall, should be surprised. They were perhaps expecting that the new mayor's first act would be to offer the Cowles family a blank check; instead, he has filed a new complaint that appears to raise the city's chances of wriggling out of the public-private partnership that turned sour almost immediately. Full Story

The saga of River Park Square's disastrous parking garage has always been much simpler to understand than it might appear. It's the same story that was clear for anyone to see as far back as October, 1996, when officials with the Sabey Corporation, then owners of NorthTown Mall, started pointing out what they saw as problems with a seemingly innocuous traffic study done by an outfit from Indianapolis by the name of Walker. It's as simple as this: The City Council got advice on whether to join a downtown redevelopment project; the advice suggested the project would fly; now, four years later, that advice turns out to have been bad. Full Story

The exclusive Inlander/KXLY poll on River Park Sqaure and its troubled parking garage reveals, among other things, that people tend to like the project but not the deal Full Story

In the aftermath of last Wednesday night's special City Council meeting, many are wondering when the lawsuits surrounding the River Park Square parking garage will start to fly. And while it's safe to say that the City Council's decision not to loan the garage any money puts the project closer to legal meltdown than before, negotiations are ongoing. In fact, such dire circumstances are seen by some as the best way to set the table for a settlement. Full Story

If the controversy surrounding the River Park Square parking garage was a war, it would be the Cold War. Superpowers on either side of the issue have the ability to trigger mutually assured destruction, with downtown Spokane as ground zero. Now a dangerous game of brinkmanship is being played out as the two camps look for any opening in the stalemate that has defined city politics for the past three years. Full Story

"I think the council really has exercised honest and forthright due diligence." That's how, in January, 1997, then-Mayor Jack Geraghty described the events that led up to the city's decision to participate as a partner in the River Park Square project. Now, three years after that controversial decision and just seven months after the new mall opened, the degree and quality of that due diligence is being reexamined as a way to understand why the parking garage - the city's portion of the deal - is failing to meet expectations. Full Story

Fax machines around the city were buzzing on Friday after The Wall Street Journal published its highly anticipated report on Spokane's attempt to use a loan from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to leverage downtown revitalization. Supporters of the plan to secure Nordstrom as a downtown tenant into the next century were concerned that sensitive information from secret documents secured by the Journal would be revealed and poison the project. Opponents, who have sought a peek at those documents for years, were hoping to finally get their smoking gun to prove the city is being taken advantage of. By the end of the front page story, however, project supporters' fears weren't fully realized — as far as the release of sensitive information goes, it could have been worse, several people close to the project say privately. Full Story

The recent spectacle surrounding the public-private revitalization of downtown Spokane is cause for worry to anyone who cares about the future of the city's core. With a hole dug in the ground and entering the home stretch of the funding process, everyone surrounding the project is acting very strangely. Responding to news that Mayor John Talbott would take his concerns about the public financing to officials at the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, one city council member was quoted in the Spokesman-Review saying that questions like those Talbott is expected to ask could "jeopardize the project." Full Story

Visitors to downtown Spokane can't miss the fact that the River Park Square project appears to be moving ahead. The block that housed Rainier Bank, Payless, The Gap, Anderson and Emami and others over its brief 23 years has been brought to the ground. And the stretch of Post Street between Spokane Falls Blvd. and Main Street has been closed to auto traffic permanently. Full Story

Spokane City Council members are breathing easier since voting to back the public-private partnership with River Park Square's developers. It's hard to remember a council under more pressure than this one: if they didn't support it, they ran the risk of being blamed for the fall of Western civilization. So it's easy to understand how eager they were to put the ball back in the developers' court. What remains puzzling is how the handling of the project became a state of emergency in the first place. Full Story

In early October, the developers planning to renovate River Park Square — and in the process, they say, revitalize downtown Spokane — were only a few days and one public meeting away from the city joining them in a public-private partnership that would bring a new, larger Nordstrom store and retail complex to two square blocks of downtown. Since that time, however, the original partnership plan has been replaced by a new, relatively untested one. Full Story

Here comes the "public" part of that "public-private partnership" we've been hearing so much about since the plan for a new Nordstrom in downtown Spokane surfaced more than a year ago. Following a script written in San Francisco and Seattle, the city of Spokane is being asked by private developers to purchase the River Park Square parking garage for $29.8 million. Full Story

Despite a string of recent successes, backers of the new Riverpark Square mall project will need to clear some more hurdles before shoppers will be able to visit a brand new Nordstrom store in downtown Spokane. Foremost among those is getting the Seattle-based retailer to agree to participate in the deal, which has been specifically designed to fit its needs in regards to parking and square footage. The announcement of Nordstrom's intentions could come any day, says Nancy Goodspeed, spokeswoman for the project, adding that their participation is expected. Full Story

It's been strange in recent weeks to watch the public debate on the downtown Spokane redevelopment project, especially the mainstream media's lack of coverage on the topic. Most strange has been the fact that the Coeur d'Alene Press has run two front page stories on the project while the Spokesman-Review has left much of its coverage to the back pages of the regional section. What gives? Full Story