The Blvd. | To be condemned?

The Blvd. | To be condemned?

I read a Myspace comment posted Nov 15 2007 3:31 PM on http://www.myspace.com/hailthegunfire by Ryan Levey [ERC] that said:

"Alright, so here's the deal with The Blvd, the Spokane Convention Center is trying to get the building condemned so they can build an expansion over on that side of the street.

"So The Blvd is being taken to court. This process takes several months, so we only have to worry in the long run. It's not even a for sure thing yet. But knowing the luck of the music scene, it'll go down just like Fat Tuesday's. And The Big Dipper. And The Detour. And every other venue we can get going for us."

I couldn't quite understand how The Blvd as a business could be "taken to court" over a property issue such as this. After some searching around, I found an article, which I've linked to below, that explains what has been going on. All my research came from this article. I couldn't however, find out what is going on now; as far as a master plan. It sounds like a waiting game.

Pretty much, the Spokane Public Facilities District, who owns things such as the Convention Center and the INB Performing Arts Center (Opera House) and the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena would like the property for expansion. It has been said that the SPFD is claiming that the owner of the property and the single building at 333 W. Spokane Falls Blvd., is refusing to sell his property to them.

The Executive Director of the SPFD was quoted in an article by Richard Ripley in the Spokane Journal of Business issue dated March 08, 2007, as saying "...property is needed to do something for the public good, and someone is not willing to accept market value for their property.”

The SPFD did infact ask the city to condemn the property [1] for "the good of the public" which it makes this an eminent domain issue. Read the definition of eminent domain at Wikipedia.org.

The owner, Glen Cloninger, says he just wants market value for his property and is not refusing to sell.

I'm Indecisive | To Northwest or not.

One of my main objectives with The Meeting has always been to be current and up-to-date. I figure that out-of-date info is as useful to you and I as the QVC Channel. If you don't know what the QVC Channel is, then I've made my point. Google it.

You may know that I originally started the site in Spokane as a musicians information site. I later introduced the weekly calendar which, consuming most my time, caused the rest of the site to stagnate; the one thing I set out against. Fast forward a few years to about a year ago and I was calling it quits.

Or so I thought.

Currently, The Meeting Northwest is lined up to be a Pacific northwest directory of music related -ness. What the hell does that mean? To be honest, I'm not sure. I have purchased the domain themeetingnw.com and rewrote the links on the site so that every click goes where you'd expect it to. You can check it out here. Awesome!? No, terrible. This opens up the door to the next step. To generate content. I knew it would happen but I didn't know it would be so much of a pain.

Remember, I am still not sure as to what content I would ultimately like to include. Not a fact I would call a step in the right direction. Furthermore, info still needs to be gathered, sorted and verified. Only then, according to my current plan, could it be uploaded to the site for your enjoyment. Also, I would need a system for re-verification of any posted info that would certainly change over time.

In short, I'm overwhelmed.

So...I've decided that instead of tinkering with incomplete info, I will once again resurrect the Spokane section to its fullest extent. This way, I can focus on perfecting my style and organization before taking on more than I can handle. I at least want to get to a point where I can explain what drives me. There is music out there to be heard. I'm going to make it easier for you to find it.

Summary. The Northwest idea has proven difficult and I'm going to take a break. During this break, I will be informing the good people of Spokane as to which performers/groups/bands they can see on any given night. Until I stop.

Ok. Thanks.

Robert Hammett - themeetingnw@gmail.com rob@themeetingnw.com

The Meeting Northwest
http://www.myspace.com/themeetingnw

Themeetingnw.com News

11/04/2007 - Oregon links now up and running correctly. There's still no info but you can get around now to...no info. Happy clicking.

Washington is still messed up pretty bad. Should have that tomorrow or so.

11/03/2007 - Added the news section on the main page. I'll be posting here the same news and info that I'll post there. That way, when you go check out the site, some of it will look familiar.

Continuing work on relinking menus after the change to themeetingnw.com. All my html links point to themeetingspokane.com which no longer takes you anywhere. If you're interested in Spokane info, it's all still working, just moved. (The previous statement is no longer true. We've since removed spokane.html; clicking on the link 'Spokane' above will now direct you to our home page.)

Idaho links should all be working correctly.

You may notice some "issues" with the site until further notice. That's a joke. I'm looking forward to only having "issues". As of now, I have big ass problems.

More later,

Robert Hammett

themeetingnw.com