The Council had a light legislative agenda last night; just one action taken to consolidate a clerk position at a community center. But the non-legislative agenda was quite full. Not only did we get a nice performance by the Spokane Youth Orchestra along with a proclamation, but there were also mayoral proclamations on preventing tooth decay in children, celebrating a season of non-violent action, and one regarding the local Coaches Vs. Cancer fundraising event which was received by Marcy Few.

Following the proclamations the council received two administrative reports. The first was from Toby Stewart and Barb Beddard on the recent 2010 figure skating championships. Amazingly, this event broke all attendance records despite a deep recession and many are calling it the best event in the history of the competition. Our second report came from the Brandon Betty and the Downtown Spokane Partnership on the progress being made on the Spokane’s U-District, including some of the opportunities and challenges of developing the south U-District area. I was happy to hear that the proposed bike and pedestrian bridge at Sherman St. in progressing the planning and engineering stage. The entire U-District is a tremendous asset to the city and I’m sure the Council will be looking for every opportunity to advance this economic development issue.