Region 1 Office Groundbreaking Ceremony
Eastern Washington Regional office, Spokane Valley
Comments by Jeffrey Koenings, Ph.D., WDFW Director
July 27, 2004

The start of this construction project has been a long time in coming - over a decade since the department identified the need for more space - so I'm glad to be able to kick this ground breaking ceremony off today.

This is going to be a two-story 14,600 square-foot office, both to better accommodate up to 50 employees and to provide safe, efficient work site, and professional customer service to our public. It will replace a 50-year-old, 2,900-square foot building that our staff long ago outgrew. As a picture is worth a thousand words, any visit to our existing office would convince any skeptics of the need for this building.

The existing office is the size of a single-family home, and a single family home cannot accommodate 50 people. Simply put, as families grow, so does the need for more space. This region covers far eastern Washington from the Canadian border to Oregon: a vast distance that is covered by the 120 professionals in this region. The anchor for their work is right here in Spokane Valley.

The office building will be the cornerstone of a complex that needs to include a small shop, a science laboratory building, and a warehouse all within a secured compound. These additions will house some of the tools necessary for professional fish and wildlife management. We hope to be working on phase II of this project next year, given a legislative capital fund allocation to complete the job.

Any project of this importance requires a champion, and that champion here is Senator Bob McCaslin. Thanks to Senator McCaslin - who I'll introduce in just a few minutes - and his colleagues in the Washington Legislature, the department received $3.9 million in capital bond funds for phase I to cover site selection, land acquisition, architectural design, and construction of the office.

That's a wise investment in the business of fish and wildlife management, because our staff helps secure the future of the resource behind the really big business of fishing, hunting, and wildlife viewing in Washington. The spending on all the goods and services and travel involved in those recreational pursuits is about $2.2 BILLION each year. That's BILLION with a "B"! Moreover, for every $1 of general fund support for the department's budget, the activities we manage with those dollars return $3 to the general fund.

The piece of that economic pie is substantial here in Spokane County, where the rate of participation in fishing, hunting and wildlife viewing is known to be higher than overall state averages. And this new office complex - which will better serve our customers, the public, and our employees - is a real investment in the future of that economic engine.

It's also great to be spending some state capital dollars here in eastern Washington during tough economic times. This project should not only make a few ripples in the local economy anyway, but I also see the longer term investment of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife as a new, vibrant partner in the Spokane Valley business community.

I'd like to acknowledge the leadership of District 4 Senator Bob McCaslin in the legislative funding of this project and ask him to say a few words.

While in session, the Senate is at times reluctant to admit the presence of the House of Representatives and vice versa, I might add. But the House has members no less talented than those of the Senate, and one rising talent is 7th District Representative Cathy McMorris. You might say that Senator McCaslin and Rep. McMorris represent two of the "Big MACs" of state politics.

I'd like to recognize the leadership on this project of your local member of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission, Commissioner Fred Shiosaki of Spokane.

Thank you all for you support of this new regional office complex - we see here the start of phase I, the office! Phase II is still a vision to forward next biennium and we are asking for $1.8 million to complete the complex with laboratory space and other necessities to meet the covenant codes here in the business park.

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