Bloglander

City Council President Ben Stuckart was supposed to be the best chance Democrats had in years to topple Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

At least, that was the idea behind the Stranger profile "Meet the Man Who Could Turn Eastern Washington Blue," that Stuckart still has pinned at the top of his campaign page.

But just below that is the lengthy statement that Stuckart posted to Facebook announcing his withdrawal.

"Today I am announcing the end of my Congressional campaign in order to focus on family health issues that have arisen over the last few weeks," Stuckart wrote. "In my heart, I believed that I could represent the citizens of Spokane as Council President, run a people-first campaign against a member of Congressional leadership, and meet my obligations to my extended family. I now know that I simply cannot adequately fulfill my duties to each without a detriment to the whole."

Stuckart doesn't want to go into details on the record in order to protect their privacy, but in an interview with the Inlander, he describes dealing with serious family health issues, first with his mother and then — just recently — with his brother.

He says he got a call from his brother Thursday, detailing a serious setback. But as of Friday, Stuckart's heart still seemed in the race, at least publicly.

"Ever heard of America Rising?" Stuckart tweeted on Friday. "They're a GOP PAC to research and attack Dems. They've started filing pub records requests on me. Bring it on."

But he says he and his wife had a long conversation about the future of his campaign at their property in North Idaho on Sunday. He says he blurted out to his wife that he thought he should withdraw from the race.

"The campaign was only going to get busier," Stuckart says. "The health issues in my families are only going to get more intense. I’m not able to fully focus right now. That’s only going to get worse."

And family, ultimately, came first.

"I hope what I’m able to do with my mental focus is just focus on the family and the city for the next 12 months and not let any other thing take precedence," Stuckart says. "Presently, I’m running for 'good brother' and 'good son'."

The destruction of the Under the Freeway skatepark in downtown Spokane two years ago came attached to something like a promise: Yes, the city had decided to destroy UTF instead of its initial plan to upgrade it, but it would build a new skatepark to replace it.

“We’re committed to this project,” then-Parks Department spokeswoman Monique Cotton told the Spokesman-Review in June of 2015. “The hope is that we’ll be able to have some design work and some construction by the summer of 2016.”

Two years later, that construction hasn't begun. For that matter, the Parks Department hasn't decided on a location, identified a funding source to construct the full park, or laid out a timeline for the skatepark. The skatepark proposal isn't dead. But for nearly a year, it's been largely dormant.

Josh Yandell, owner of Pistole Boardshop and a frequent advocate for a new skatepark, is tired of feeling jerked around.

"They’ve teased us so bad," Yandell says. "It’s extremely frustrating. It’s absolutely ridiculous. They told us, 'Oh, we’re going to be working on your new park... there’s no plan for it."

Chris Wright, president of the Spokane Park Board, says the skatepark question hasn't come up as an object of discussion for the board this year.

"The short answer is it just wasn’t a priority for the board," says Wright.

Way back in 2012, the city was looking at renovating the UTF skatepark — it even handed skatepark consulting team Grindline Skateparks more than $30,000 to design an upgrade. And $300,000, left over from the 2007 park bond, had been preserved from the park bond.

But the space had also become a spot that attracted vandalism and drug deals. The skaters, to be clear, weren't to blame. Yandell talks about fights breaking out between skaters and troublemakers. He says that a friend has shown him photos of people shooting up heroin at the park — with a police car in the background.

Ultimately, the Park Board wasn't interested in sinking more money into the troubled UTF area.

ON INLANDER.COM

MUSIC: The Shins are coming to Spokane in September to play at the Knitting Factory; tickets go on sale Friday.


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