Spokane's Measure 1

This Tuesday April 17th the 266,100 registered voters in Spokane County will vote in a special election.In this special election only 1 county wide issue will appear on the ballot,but that issue would launch another major construction project for Spokane that has the potential to bring in new jobs and new events to the facilities of the Spokane Public Facilities District. The district is asking voters under measure 1 to extend the current tax levels they receive from sales tax and the hotel/motel tax for another 10 years to help pay for 2 major projects which in turn will allow the Public Facilities District to be more competitive for shows,concerts and conventions against cities like Seattle.

The first project would be to "finish the Spokane Convention Center". A few years back the Convention Center underwent a major expansion but due to funding at the time of construction the entire project was never fully built out.This phase of the expansion would include more meeting space to bring more meetings to Spokane as well an addition to the exhibit hall space.The Convention Center work would also highlight the Spokane River and include upgrades to the Centennial Trail which is much needed as one of the busiest stretches of the trail is the portion that goes right behind the Convention Center and The INB Performing Arts Center .

The second project would be to add 700 new seats to the Spokane Arena.The new seats would go on the upper levels of the Arena in space that is blocked off and was also not completed at the time of the last expansion.The Spokane Public Facilities District claims the additional seating will help attract new and bigger performers to the Arena but also secures that Spokane will remain illegible to host future NCAA championship games since the NCAA has declared Spokane Arena to be insufficient for the needs of their Championship Games.

For Election Results on April 17th and after please visit http://vote.wa.gov/results/current/spokane/