Whom Does He Represent?
There is an old adage that goes, “When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is to quit digging.” The burning of fossil fuels is one such hole. It is worth our while as citizens to notice those who quietly insist on continuing to dig.
Al French, an architect and real estate developer supported by real estate interests and developers, has served as one of three Spokane County Commissioners since 2010. In his three four year terms in office he has become the most powerful elected official serving in Spokane County. Despite that position of power Mr. French seems to prefer working quietly out of the limelight as he pulls the levers of government in favor of the interests that support him. This year, as Spokane County moves to a five commissioner system Mr. French faces a new challenge: prior to this year the three county commissioners only needed to survive the top two primary within their district of residence to go on to a county-wide general election in November. This year all five commissioner seats will be filled through primary and general election contests decided by the voters solely within the candidates’ district of residence. Mr. French’s lives in new District 5—and he has a very credible challenger, Maggie Yates.
Mr. French did not take conversion to the new structure of county government lightly: he quietly mounted a legal challenge to the new system, a challenge that went all the way to the Washington State Supreme Court. He and his fellow plaintiffs lost. Most county voters probably didn’t notice.
Al French played a major role in the massive flap over the firing of the Spokane Regional Board of Health’s public health officer, Dr. Bob Lutz, but French was careful to avoid the limelight. At the conclusion of the meeting at which the Lutz firing was orchestrated for public consumption, Mr. French, obviously well-prepared, immediately put forward his favored compliant replacement for Dr. Lutz. No fanfare, no demonstrating against public health measures, just quiet pulling of levers behind the scenes to oust a physician health officer no doubt considered by some to be insufficiently business friendly.
Nor will you find any bald statements about climate denial by Mr. French, but it should be no surprise that Mr. French quietly appears among those pulling the levers in support of those builders, developers, and real estate people who, finding themselves in the climate change hole, want to keep digging.
A lot of government happens out of the limelight with little notice by the voting public. Such was the minor flap fluffed up in the media over natural gas hookups. Natural gas may be “cleaner” to burn than, for example, oil or coal, but it is still a greenhouse gas. Incremental movement to wean us off burning natural gas is an environmental good. A perfectly logical, low impact way to “quit digging” in the global warming hole is to stop outfitting new buildings with natural gas hookups and gas appliances in favor of electricity-based heat pumps and household appliances.
Citizens concerned about impending climate change disaster—a majority of the populace—would agree (if they had a voice) to quit digging in this climate change hole by limiting new natural gas hookups. It makes perfect sense as a regulatory nudge in the right direction. Such a regulation would eliminate the cost of extending natural gas infrastructure—but it would require accommodation in the building industry to the idea and cost of outfitting new construction with heat pump technology.
Here’s where the local City and County of Spokane story thickens—mostly out of the public eye. This eminently reasonable idea of limiting new installations of natural gas infrastructure was floated among the proposals made in an action plan draft released in 2021 by the City’s volunteer Sustainability Action Subcommittee. The Subcommittee had worked for two years to update the City of Spokane’s 2009 Sustainability Action Plan, something many of us were unaware even existed.
Alarm bells must have started ringing in the local builder/developer community. This Sustainability stuff is fine when it is just words to sooth environmentalists, but this might actually affect how we do things! This could cut into our profits!
Instead of arguing this proposed regulation limiting new natural gas hookups on its merits in open forum (where they would likely lose) the builder/developer community mounted a disingenuous astroturf campaign to cut off municipal action. Municipal “Proposition 1” would have modified the City charter. Here’s the clever wording:
Shall the Spokane City Charter be amended to adopt the Spokane Cleaner Energy Protection Act – preventing the City from adopting any code, ordinance, or regulation that would prohibit the use of hydroelectric power or natural gas?
The effort was backed by a political action committee, “Spokane Citizens for Cleaner Energy” that was almost entirely bankrolled by the Spokane Good Government Alliance PAC. The major contributors to the Alliance include hotelier Walt Worthy, Washington Trust Bank, and building industry organizations. The whole thing was cloaked as a “citizen’s initiative” to foster the illusion that the Proposition was really about encouraging the use of “clean energy” by implying climate equivalence between hydroelectric power and natural gas. Gross, sickening doublespeak.
In addition, Proposition 1 propaganda ginned up fear and loathing among the voters by suggesting that the City Council might require residents to endure the cost and nuisance of changing out gas burning appliances and gas heating for electric heat pumps in existing structures; that Prop. 1 was necessary to prevent such intrusion. Pure hype.
Proposition 1 was struck down by Spokane Superior Court Judge Charnelle Bjelkengren before it reached the ballot . The Proposition was disallowed on technical grounds that a proposition cannot be used to modify municipal code. By that time, however, the builder/developer investment in Prop. 1 had already paid dividends: before it was passed by the Spokane City Council, the proposal to ban new natural gas hookups in the City going forward was stripped from the Sustainability Action Plan.
But the chess game played around the prohibition of new natural gas hookups still wasn’t over. Roughly six months later, on April 22 of 2022 an article appeared in the Spokesman entitled, “Washington council significantly restricts use of natural gas heating in new commercial buildings”. Specifically, the “council” in the article is the State Building Code Council (SBCC). The SBCC is composed of 15 members, including our very own Spokane County Commissioner, developer Al French, one of three who voted against the Code change:
On an 11-3 vote Friday, the council approved the commercial energy code, which goes into effect on July 1, 2023. The vote followed a nearly seven-hour meeting marked with delays caused by a few members of the public who were attempting to disrupt the virtual meeting by screaming, shouting expletives, using a racist slur and interrupting speakers. The meeting also was extended as a result of several procedural delays and lengthy debates on how the revisions would impact construction.
Board member and Spokane County Commissioner Al French opposed the heat pump provisions and made a number of motions to defer the code’s adoption to a future meeting, citing different procedural issues. In voting against the code, French said it should ultimately be up to the Legislature to set the code.
One can only imagine who was behind “a few members of the public who were attempting to disrupt the virtual meeting by screaming, shouting expletives, using a racist slur and interrupting speakers.”
Al French, like Cathy McMorris Rodgers, would never say, straight up, that they believe that global warming is a hoax. That would be far too honest and direct. It might cost them votes from their base. Instead, they work behind the scenes, dragging their feet, opposing common sense efforts to curtail carbon emissions on committees, councils, and in slimy, deceptive efforts like Proposition 1. The business/building community that support French and McMorris Rodgers attack anything that might, even at a stretch, affect business profits—climate be damned.
These multistep processes are the way government works. The major work of addressing climate change is accomplished in many small battles, most of them only at the periphery of the voters’ awareness, like the recent vote of the State Building Code Council. It’s time for us voters to pay more attention and vote these disingenuous foot draggers out of office.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry