~ 2025 ELECTION GUIDE ~
MOLLY QUINN/FOR THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
The vision behind $440M parks, schools bid Together Spokane backers pitch Expo ’74-scale refresh to reshape city’s future By Emry Dinman and Elena Perry
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
Voters in Spokane this November will be faced with many decisions, but perhaps the biggest question will be whether they are willing to pay taxes to fund $440 million in sweeping projects at the city’s schools and parks. There will be two separate items on the ballot, a parks levy and a school bond, but officials from both agencies have decided to wed the two in plans for how the money will be spent, dubbing the twin ballot measures “Together Spokane.” The proposal will touch every school and park in the city in ways small and large. All told, advocates claim the funding package would have as radical an effect on Spokane as did Expo ’74 more than 50 years ago. “The Spokane community back then dreamed big. We were the smallest
city to host Expo ever, and we still benefit from all of that work that happened a long time ago,” said Nikki Otero Lockwood, Spokane Public Schools board president. “So now it’s our turn. What do we want Spokane to look like in the future?” It is hard to summarize the hundreds of uses being proposed for this money. For schools, it involves two rebuilt elementary schools, partnerships with nonprofits that could boost public access, new turf fields and lighting scattered around the district, a new trades high school and at least one project at each of the district’s 58 schools. Park leaders promise three new parks in areas without much green space, three parks that will see major renovations, and systemwide investments in every park, including cleaner bathrooms and an enhanced security presence.
JESSE TINSLEY/THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
Spokane Public Schools Superintendent Adam Swinyard talks to members of the media on Aug. 19 about the Together Spokane initiative. If passed, Spokane parks and the public schools would take over the swimming pool at Spokane Community College and make it the city’s only indoor aquatics facility, allowing for swimming lessons and recreational activities through the winter. The SCC facility has been closed for a few years. While most of the projects are specific to either the bond or the levy and would proceed if only one
or the other succeeds this November, dozens could only exist as partnerships between the two entities.
In many cases, the school bond would pay to construct something like an all-weather field on the
Dwight Merkel Sports Complex while the parks See TOGETHER, 2