I am very pleased that Jon Snyder will be in the November run-off for a seat as one of my district's City Council positions. And I hope he wins. I believe he will present views not seen before on the Council and this will be for the good.

Some overall thoughts on the Council: The district system should be tossed. The districts are just too big. In general, the difference of interests (that which is in their interest not what they are interested in) are just as great within the districts as they are among the districts. When we look at the City Council, ideally , we should see a cross section of the city. This is because Spokane is not a community in the sense of a collection of people with shared ideals and certain other mutual behaviors. It is a hodgepodge of competing interests. And we need representatives of these interests on the Council negotiating and bartering out their needs. And by a representative I mean a sample of that group, not simply an agent for the group. To get to this point, a first step might be to enlarge the Council. Also, the recent increase in salaries will be helpful in broadening the spectrum of interests.