The Spokane Alliance’s five month campaign to avoid 40% cuts in public transit services and win other system improvements ended with a remarkable 69 – 31% county-wide vote to provide local funding for public transportation.  Over 200 leaders from Alliance member institutions participated in a series of negotiations with the Transit Authority and conducted a massive door-knocking and phone-banking voter education and turnout effort.  The mobilization effort not only contributed to the 69% voter approval in the May special election, it also resulted in an increase in turnout of 11,713 voters over those who voted 48 – 52 % against a similar measure in regular primary election in Sept. 2002.

Here are some of the things the Spokesman Review had to say about the campaign:

Fate of STA tax riding on public faith (5/16/04)
“The Spokane Alliance has been the backbone of the grass-roots effort,” Antonellis said.
The Alliance is a group of churches and unions with common goals, representing thousands of local residents. Alliance leaders have organized much of the campaign phone-banking and door-belling efforts.
That group wasn't fully developed a year and one-half ago, when voters turned down the last STA tax attempt.
A key difference between the Spokane Alliance and traditional campaign groups is that it won't disappear after the election. The organization will be around working on other issues and watching STA, said Austin DePaolo, Alliance, leader and executive director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center.
The STA Board has taken notice of the Spokane Alliance, even adopting last month some of the group's recommendations for how to make the board and staff more accessible to the public.

And from an editorial following the election:

STA tax victory a pleasant surprise (5/20/04)

Wow!
A transit measure getting seven out of every 10 votes? In a county that booed a similar tax increase 18 months ago? For an agency that pitifully backtracked from a claim that service would have to be drastically cut last summer?
To repeat, wow! ….
The Spokane Alliance, a broad-based collection of religious and labor groups, was instrumental in persuading a hesitant STA board to go back to the voters.… The Alliance went door-to-door -- following up with phone calls -- and worked street corners and community events to get the word out.
Alliance members also rode buses, talked with riders and encouraged them to register to vote….
A mere 18 months ago, 34,644 voters rejected a tax increase to preserve bus service. Thus far, with some absentee ballots to be counted and a higher turnout overall, fewer than 21,000 voters said no. That's a remarkable transformation, and the key players deserve congratulations and thanks.
A community's health can be measured by its ability to bring disparate factions together to preserve vital functions. On Tuesday, Spokane County showed that it still has a big enough heart to turn “boos” into “wows.”

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