Welcome to CIVICS, where we break down the week’s municipal meetings throughout the Inland Northwest, so you can get involved and speak out about the issues you care about.

Some things that stick out to us this week include:

Spokane City Council could approve a $120,000 contract for local Latine and immigrant-serving nonprofit Mujeres in Action to provide SPD with cultural competency training and language access services on domestic violence and sexual assault calls.
The Finance and Administration Committee will review an audit report on how much the county is charging the city of Spokane for jail services. Spoiler alert: it comes with recommendations for more transparency.
Public works officials with the county and the city will deliver status updates about the state-mandated PFAS cleanup at Spokane International Airport. See the city’s presentation here and the county’s here.
The BOCC is hosting a public hearing about charging requesters for redacted body camera footage — which provides crucial evidence for holding police accountable for abuses of power.

Important meetings this week:

Spokane City

Spokane City Council

🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

Cultural competency and language access at SPD

The council is set to award a $120,000 contract to Mujeres in Action (MiA), a Latine advocacy nonprofit, to create a pilot program with the Spokane Police Department (SPD). The contract was planned for in SPD’s budget, and the agenda item is sponsored by Council Members Michael Cathcart and Kitty Klitzke.

According to the contract, MiA would work to train SPD officers in cultural competency so they can better serve Latine and immigrant communities. MiA, which focuses much of its work on supporting domestic violence and sexual assault survivors, could join SPD on DV or sexual assault calls where survivors have limited English-proficiency. They’re also planning to host collaborative meetings and facilitate community feedback on SPD that could result in recommendations for internal SPD policy changes.

Arts Commission changes

Also up for a vote tonight is an ordinance that would slightly amend the structure of the Arts Commission. The ordinance would codify the addition of a council liaison position on the commission, codify a requirement of an annual work plan from the commission and add a new requirement that the body have two commissioners from each city council district. The ordinance is sponsored by Council Members Sarah Dixit and Paul Dillon.

Agenda here
Monday, March 23 at 6 pm
Council Chambers
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane City Council Study Sessions

Agenda here when available.
Thursday, March 26 at 11 am
Council Chambers
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Finance and Administration Committee

🌶️🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers

PFAS cleanup update from airport

Officials from Spokane’s public works department will deliver a presentation on their progress complying with a state-mandated environmental cleanup of forever chemicals on the West Plains. The effort is intended to address the contamination caused by firefighting compounds used on both the SIA and Fairchild Air Force Base campuses. Specifically, the presentation will describe the plan SIA, Spokane County and the city of Spokane submitted to the Department of Ecology. Ecology must approve the plan before it can be implemented. See more details on the presentation in the Spokane County section of CIVICS.

Jail cost audit

Over the last year, the city of Spokane has wrestled with rising costs at the Spokane County jail. The facility is operated by the county and contracted by the city to provide a certain amount of beds for people arrested in the city. According to reporting from Spokane Public Radio, the city’s costs have risen significantly in the last few years. In 2021, the city paid about $4 million for roughly 10% of the county’s jail beds, while in 2024, the bill jumped to about $7.5 million for 14% of beds. It was a roughly 78% cost jump for the city, while Spokane County’s costs rose only 10%.

The city’s rising bill — combined with concerns over cost transparency from the county — spurred city management to request an audit from the Internal Audit Office. The auditor is going to present a full report at today’s committee meeting, but here are few highlights:

Both the city and the county have, at times, failed to uphold their end of the interlocal agreement governing jail costs.
Required quarterly oversight meetings were not held.
The county’s cost model doesn’t account for differences in stay length or service intensity, which means the city could be seeing higher costs for short-term bookings.

The auditor’s office recommends that the city start enforcing the contract terms and reestablish the quarterly oversight meetings. They also recommend the city renegotiate the cost model to “a more equitable model that reflects usage intensity,” and request more detailed reports from the county. The full 32-page report can be found starting on page 30 of the committee agenda.

Mayor Lisa Brown also submitted a letter outlining steps she has asked city staff to take in response to the audit findings, including:

Establishing an internal Jail Oversight Committee to review the city’s contract, review the county’s quarterly reports and evaluate the consistency of the county’s cost schedule.
Requesting view-only access to how many people booked on misdemeanors from the city are actually being held in the county jail.
Requesting a seat on all county Request for Proposal committees related to the jail to help decide which contractors service the jail
Requesting a seat on the Medicaid Transformation Project team to expand reentry services for incarcerated people.
Presenting the audit finding reports to the Safe & Healthy Task Force, the group working to make recommendations ahead of potentially running a tax on the ballot to fund a new jail, which failed last time.

New Biennium Budget priorities

This December, council will vote on a new biennium budget that will last for two years (because that’s how the whole “biennium” thing works). They’re starting to talk about funding priorities now, and have to take final action on outlining their priorities by the end of June. Tune in today if you want to hear their first discussion on the funding priorities.

Agenda here
Monday, March 23 at 12 pm
Council Chambers
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane Housing Authority Board

🫑/5 peppers

Agenda here
Monday, March 23 at 3:30 pm
Meeting Room at 25 W. Nora Ave, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane Plan Commission

🫑/5 peppers

Agenda here
Wednesday, March 25 at 2 pm
Council Briefing Center
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Board of Spokane County Commissioners Briefing Session

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

PFAS cleanup update from airport

Officials from the county’s public works department will deliver a presentation on their progress complying with a state-mandated environmental cleanup. The effort is intended to address forever chemicals contamination on the West Plains caused by firefighting compounds used on both the SIA and Fairchild Air Force Base campuses. Specifically, the presentation will describe the plan SIA, Spokane County and the city of Spokane submitted to the Department of Ecology. Ecology must approve the plan before it can be implemented.

The presentation will detail three proposals in the plan:

The first proposal seeks access to the city of Spokane’s Garden Springs clean water station, to deliver pitcher filters to people whose wells are contaminated and to use a state grant to start installing “point of use” filters in the homes of people whose wells are contaminated. Even folks whose wells are not currently contaminated will be eligible to receive free water.
The second proposal tries to establish a uniform procedure for testing drinking water wells.
The last proposal seeks to create a communications framework to nurture relationships with owners of contaminated wells.

Though some at SIA continue to blame Fairchild for most of the contamination, it is complying with an order from the state Department of Ecology to clean up the contamination and provide clean water to people who have drinking water wells in the groundwater. The cleanup is a years-long project. The city of Spokane and Spokane County, which own SIA on a joint basis, are also legally liable for the contamination.

About $1M extra needed for mental health facility

The county’s Department of Regional Law & Justice is building a care facility, but its construction will cost nearly $1 million more than originally budgeted. The new proposed $14,160,495 budget was largely driven by new building requirements, rising construction costs and changes to the project design.

Agenda here
Tuesday, March 24 at 9 am
Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Board of Spokane County Commissioners Legislative Session

🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

Public hearing for body cam fees

The BOCC will host a public hearing about the sheriff’s proposal to charge the public when they request body-worn camera footage that requires redactions according to a formal fee schedule.

That kind of footage is subject to public records laws in Washington and is instrumental in holding police accountable for their work in the field. But the footage can be redacted for a number of reasons, and it takes a lot of time and labor for records custodians to review it for redactions.

According to a presentation document, police can redact body camera footage that shows:

Area of a medical facility, counseling or therapeutic program office where a patient is registered to receive treatment, receiving treatment, waiting for treatment, or being transported during treatment
Protected health information
Images of minors
Images that are highly offensive to a reasonable person, such as images of deceased or seriously injured persons
Communications from a victim or witness of an incident involving domestic violence or sexual assault
Identifiable location information of a community-based domestic violence program
Persons with apparent mental illness in crisis or who are detained for a mental health evaluation

$4M for consulting re: MeadowWood, Liberty Lake gold courses

The Department of Parks, Recreation & Golf is asking the BOCC to approve Turner & Townsend, a large project management consultancy, to serve MeadowWood and Liberty Lake golf courses. The $4 million that might be spent on the contract would come from the Spokane County golf fund.

$1.4M on the table for Staley Road project

The board is set to approve about $1.4 million in spending to improve Staley Road between Monroe and Dalton roads. The project wants to replace guardrails, regrade the road and install new signs and pavement markings. About $1.2 million of the cost would come from state funding; the remainder would be paid for by the county.

Agenda here
Tuesday, March 24 at 2 pm
Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane County Planning Commission

🌶️/5 peppers

Comprehensive plan workshops

The commission will host workshops on two elements of the comprehensive plan: cultural resources and capital facilities. There are no other details in the agenda.

Agenda here
Thursday, March 26 at 9 am
Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane Airport Board

🫑/5 peppers

Agenda here.
Thursday, March 26 at 9 am
9211 W. McFarlane Road, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane Regional Health District Board

🌶️/5 peppers

Program updates

There’s not a lot of specific information, we wanted to note a couple important presentations on the agenda.

SRHD’s Treatment Services Director Misty Challenor will deliver an update about her program, which has been in the board’s crosshairs in recent years but, in a reversal, was instead was eyed for expansion last year
Mark Springer, the program manager for Communicable Disease Investigation and Prevention, will update the board on tuberculosis treatment in Spokane County

Agenda here
Thursday, March 26 at 12:30 pm
Auditorium, First Floor
1101 West College Avenue, Spokane

Mead School District Board of Directors

🌶️/5 peppers

Changes to bullying policy/procedure

The board will hold a second reading of changes to the district’s Prohibition of Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying policy and procedure.

If adopted with the revisions, the policy and procedure would now only address “student on student issues,” according to the agenda materials. For instance, one of the revisions redefines who an “aggressor” is, limiting it only to a student.

Other revisions include requiring the Compliance Officer to also receive and keep copies of informal complaints and requiring staff members who receive written reports of a possible policy violation to “promptly notify” the Compliance Officer.

You can view the full revisions on the documents attached to the agenda.