SPOKANE, Wash. — A Spokane business man funded and produced a video suggesting how to cure Spokane.
It makes it clear right away that it's not a video about homelessness, but about crime.
Larry Stone believes criminal activity is increasing and no one is doing anything about it, so he created "Curing Spokane."
His four solutions include building a larger Spokane County jail, more police walking the streets downtown, selling the STA Plaza and moving it underground and developing better urban parking.
The video claimed downtown Spokane business owners continue to deal with an influx of crime.
We can say for certain this is definitely the case. KREM has covered multiple stories of businesses cleaning up vandalism or break-ins to their building.
Josh Wade, the owner of Nectar told KREM in May that, "Whatever is happening, isn't working." This was after a homeless man ransacked the restroom of his downtown restaurant.
Even the Downtown Spokane Partnership is now giving downtown businesses rebates on security for things like surveillance and crime prevention.
The documentary also claimed, "many non-mandatory misdemeanor offenders are released within hours."
Spokane County spokesperson Jared Webley said this is true, and emphasizes this is a court mandate, not one from the jail.
To that end, the narration said this creates a revolving door at the jail, putting repeat offenders back on the street.
KREM has reported seeing the worst of this when the same suspect broke into the Left Bank Wine bar four times in one year.
Selling the STA Bus station and moving it underground is another suggestion. The documentary claims it is the site for the most police calls in the city.
We're still working to confirm the exact number of calls to this location with Spokane Police. But according to the Spokane County Regional Crime map, the STA Plaza is actually right outside the highest crime concentration area. To be clear though, this does not reflect the number of calls to the area.
As for needing better parking, most of Spokane can agree with this--even the city does.
In fact, it contracted a firm to carry out a parking study in February 2018 to find ways to improve downtown parking. The city council received proposed changes and are currently working on the final plan.
