Lilacs or lemons for Spokane-CDA Living magazine?
You've probably seen the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene Living magazines on the rack at your favorite grocery stores. If you're able to find your way through the pages upon pages of advertisements, the magazine usually has some great articles about the area and its history. One recurring section is 'Lilacs and Lemons' - a rating system, if you will, on local issues, politicians and even businesses. If someone or something did very well, they get a lilac. Not so well? A lemon. What they did recently makes me want to give them a big fat lemon- with a cherry on top.
A top the 'Lilacs and Lemons' this latest issue is a pat on the back for Spokane's new Mayor Mary Verner. While applauding her efforts to fix the streets, the magazine also gives the Mayor a big thumbs up for her handling of the snow emergency back in January.
"She got a lot of criticism from the newspapers for not getting the streets plowed fast enough, which means her honeymoon period with the press is already over. If you ask me, she did just fine. As she correctly said, 'Folks, It's just snow,'" the column wrote, giving the Mayor a lilac for her effort.
She did just fine? While she has rebounded lately, by nearly all accounts the mayor and city hall did terribly handling the snow emergency. We didn't hear from her until nearly a week after the snow fell. And maybe the streets were plowed in front of the offices of 'Spokane-Coeur d'Alene Living,' but they weren't in the rest of the city. Why else would Spokane Public Schools have to cancel classes for four days? Perhaps the folks at Spokane-Coeur d'Alene living should read over the hundreds of emails we received from the people of Spokane, complaining about the snow plowing effort.
The magazine has the audacity to pat the mayor on the back and then sentences later give a lilac to another local TV station for telling neighbors to help their other neighbors dig out of the snow.
Does anyone else find this funny? On the one hand, the magazine rips the people of Spokane with 'folks, it's just snow,' and then in the next sentence basically says 'well thank goodness people helped other people out of the snow.'
Message to the mayor and Spokane-CDA Living- IT WASN'T JUST SNOW. If you've lived in this city long enough, you'd know this was a winter we'll be talking about for a long, long, long time. It wasn't just snow.
Sorry Spokane-CDA Living, this time you get a big lemon from me. But hey, it's just a lemon.
What do you think?
Comments
Well, it was "just snow", but there was a LOT of it. I listened to many weather reports at that time, including on KXLY, and everyone said it was record snowfall. One report said more snow hadn't fallen in one day since 1950. Our school district was closed for the first time in ten years. Snowplows were on "condition red" for nonstop plowing. Lots of people lost their power for extended periods of time. It was tough getting around for a while, but I understand the main roads have to be plowed repeatedly to keep them clear before they can get to us in the suburbs. It took a while for us to see the snowplows in our neighborhood, but I don't think Mayor Verner can be held responsible for an unusually large snowfall. Having gone through it, I think we'll ALL be especially enthusiastic about welcoming Spring this year! :-)
Posted by: Lynn | March 12, 2008 08:11 PM
I agree that it was'nt just snow, my kids were home on snow days for 3 days and I had to miss work to care for them. They should have done a much better job of removing the snow instead of coming up with excuses of why they can't or did'nt
Posted by: Susan | March 13, 2008 01:59 PM