Local Election Alert!
We interrupt this campaign coverage to remind voters of an election right here in Spokane County. Measure 1 asks to extend the existing revenue stream for the Spokane Public Facilities District into the future.
The PFD has generally operated quietly and competently, managing the Spokane Arena, the convention center and even the INB Center. Enabled by a creative state law that allowed communities to fund their own facilities, it’s been an example of how innovative government can effectively serve the public good. In fact, when the INB Center was struggling under city management, the PFD took it over, preserving an important venue with little fanfare.
Now the agency wants to continue to build on the vision Spokane has endorsed in previous elections — add more convention space to attract more events, and add 750 seats to the Arena. And those additional seats are needed if Spokane wants to continue to bring NCAA regional basketball events to town — new rules have pushed up the required number of seats to host NCAA tournament events. The new seats would help draw even bigger concerts, too.
Changes to the convention center would improve the riverside experience, with new paths and landscaping between the convention halls and the Spokane River.
Bringing visitors to Spokane — whether basketball fans or conventioneers — is an often-invisible but important piece of the local economic puzzle.
They come enjoy our city and leave some of their cash in return. The PFD can continue to help drive that part of the local economy with a yes vote on Tuesday.
Minty Mitt
When Mitt Romney announced his candidacy for president just over a year ago, one surprising reaction was to his logo. Design professionals and pundits couldn’t help noticing its uncanny resemblance to a personal hygiene product. Yes, as Vanity Fair put it, the Romney logo “looks exactly like an Aquafresh logo.”
Not sure if I’d go as fair as “exactly,” but close enough. As it turns out, those little wavy toothpaste lines are known as “nurdles,” and America’s fluoride pushers protect the proprietary contours of theirs in court. In fact, in 2010 Aquafresh was sued over its nurdle by Colgate.
No word on an out-of-court Aquafresh/Romney settlement, but when you think about it, Mitt’s hairstyle does have a nurdle all its own, too.
