The Cowles Family and their newspaper, The Spokesman-Review, are congratulating themselves on an award the paper got a few days ago. As I recall it had to do with the "self-examination" the paper went through regarding its reporting of the Spokane River Park Square debacle.
I was not surprised. These days I am not surprised by any of great doings of the town worthies. Most of what we read about the worth of our worthies is utter sham, shamefulness glossed over with sham. It is propaganda to be fed to poor souls. In this case, the souls of Spokane's lumpen proletariat who pay most of the taxes imposed by the City. In this case the taxes which have been diverted to the Cowles Family and their hirelings and of course vast teams of lawyers.
The award was completely undeserved. Undeserved because the greatest single crime of River Park Square went completely unreported. It continues to go completely unreported today, even by the the likes of Cherie Rogers and those who tell of her story.
It even goes unreported by the person who did the report or the review for the Washington News Council (the so-called generous self-examination by the Spokesman-Review). This greated single crime of River Park Square and the failure to report it went unexamined by him even though he knew about it. (I told him on more than one occasion.)
What is the greatest single crime? It has to do with how the Cowles Family and the City got an investment grade rating for the Riverpark Square Bonds. The greatest single crime took place in San Francisco in the summer of 1998, late July and early August. The Cowles Family could not get the garage bonds on the bond market. They could not get an investment grade rating from one of the two national bond rating companies.
They tried to buy a rating from Moody's but Moody's did not think the bonds were investment grade. So what happened next? Certain representatives went to Standard & Poors to cajol them into giving the bonds an investment grade rating. And, they got it, but how?
They got it by changing the terms of the garage Fixed Facility Lease. This was the lease between the Cowles' Downtown Spokane Foundation and the Spokane Parking Public Development Authority (PDA). A lease had been prepared as part of the financing ordinance passed by the City Council in January 1997. The lease was clear that money the City might loan to the PDA would not be used to pay the bonds, to pay debt service on the bond. In late July 1998 these lease terms were unlawfully changed to provide that loans made by the City of Spokane to the PDA would first be used to pay debt service.
This change violated the River Park Square financing ordinance, Ord. C-31823. The ordinance specifically prohibited loan funds from being used to pay debt service.
With this change (which would not be approved by the PDA until September 18, 1998) Standard & Poors issued its investment grade rating about August 14, 1998 saying the bonds would be repaid from the parking fees and loans from the City of Spokane. The bonds then were underwritten and they went to market.
The investment grade rating would never have been given and the bonds would never have been sold but for this unlawful change to the Fixed Facility Lease between the Spokane Downtown Foundation and the Spokane Parking Public Development Authority.
The people of Spokane were taken on a great ride as a result of this unlawful activity. It is truly shameful the Spokesman Review should now be congratulated -- congratulated for purposely failing to report this greatest single crime of the River Park Square debacle.
It is even more shameful people acted with such disdain of the law and the people of Spokane in garnering millions for the Cowles Family.
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