Welcome to CIVICS, where we break down the week’s municipal meetings throughout the Inland Northwest, so you can keep track of and fight for the issues you care about.
Here are highlights of what’s coming up:
- Block parties could get a whole lot easier (and cheaper) if the Spokane City Council passes the ordinance establishing a summer block party program at tonight’s meeting.
- The Public Infrastructure, Environment, and Sustainability Committee is getting a presentation on a potential new regional task force to solve the homelessness and opioid crises.
- The Bicycle Advisory Board is taking their meeting on the road with a biking meeting!
- A flock of Flock security cameras could be installed all across Spokane County.
- Will the Country Homes potholes finally be fixed?!
Important meetings this week:
- Spokane City Council
- Public Infrastructure, Environment, and Sustainability Committee (PIES)
- Spokane Public Library Board of Trustees
- Spokane Ombuds Commission
- Bicycle Advisory Board
- Board of Spokane County Commissioners — Briefing and Legislative Sessions
- Spokane Valley City Council
- Liberty Lake City Council
Bike with RANGE!
Thursday, May 22nd at 5:30 pm – City Hall
Join urbanism columnist Lauren Pangborn, city hall reporter extraordinaire Erin Sellers and (some of) the rest of the RANGE team at Spokane City Hall for a nine mile, party-pace ride to check out south bank bike infrastructure east of downtown – we all know about the Centennial Trail on the north bank, but there are some little-known south bank gems getting city and state investment. The ride should take about 90 minutes max and we’ll end at Brick West Brewing Co for some socializing.
Spokane City Council
🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
Settlement, fighting suits
Council could approve two consent agenda contracts to continue fighting unlawful death suits against the city: another $100,000 to fight a suit from the family of Robert Bradley, who was shot and killed by Spokane police, bringing the total to $600,000, and another $50,000 in a suit from the estate of Clovy Jamarillo, bringing that total of $200,000. Later in the meeting, the city is set to approve a $90,000 settlement with Kelli True, for “an incident that occurred on November 13, 2024.”
Five year plan
We covered discussion of Spokane’s plan for homelessness in an earlier edition of CIVICS and tonight, council could vote to show their support for the Spokane Regional Continuum of Care’s 2025-2030 5-year Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness. It’s an absolute mouthful, but essentially, it’s a guiding document to align Spokane’s approach to the homelessness crisis and ensure it follows guidance from Washington State Department of Commerce and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The plan can be found in full detail starting on page 486.
Play streets + block parties
Tonight could be the night that council makes it easier for you to have block parties this summer. The ordinance would establish a program, running June through Halloween, that would streamline the processes to close non-arterial streets and create car-free spaces to have community activities. One note: it would still require a special event permit to do the street closure, but those fees will be waived for free events that don’t include an intersection and don’t close down more than a block.
Next week’s sneak peek:
This week is relatively chill, and there’s no meeting next week because of Memorial Day, but the week after is going to be jam-packed with important items. Here’s a little preview:
- A slate of special budget ordinances for police and fire, including replacing Spokane Police Department’s armored vehicle and increasing a CARES team position from part-time to full-time in the Fire Department.
- A $400,000 settlement with one of the women who was sexually assaulted by Spokane Police Officer Nathan Nash, who was found guilty in 2022 of raping multiple women while on duty in 2019.
- Honorarily naming the Post Street Bridge the “Friends of the Falls Memorial Bridge.” More context on that here.
- First reads on several of Mayor Lisa Brown’s ordinances, which could ban "aggressive solicitation” like panhandling and criminalize homelessness across the city regardless of shelter bed availability. It would also make legal consequences easier to avoid — complying with orders to move or taking offers of shelter or treatment means a person won’t be cited.
- A first read on an interim ordinance that would allow “small-scale commercial establishments,” in residential developments: think neighborhood cafes on the bottom floor of new apartment complexes.
- A first read on the ordinance to ban cryptocurrency kiosks within the city of Spokane.
- Individual council members can decide during the “special considerations” section of the meeting if they want to sign on to a letter expressing support for the new permanent siting of the American Indian Community Center in Highbridge Park, funded by a state grant and individual donations. The community center has had to move 11 times since its establishment and this permanent home would empower them to continue “providing a wide variety of social services including food distribution, employment and training opportunities, rental assistance, child welfare services, alcohol and drug assessments and mental health programs,” according to the letter.
- Also during Special Consideration, council can decide if they want to approve a joint letter in support of the creation of a "Safe & Healthy Spokane Task Force.” (more info on that below.)
Agenda here
Monday, May 19, at 6 pm
808 W. Spokane Falls Boulevard, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Public Infrastructure, Environment, and Sustainability Committee
🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
Presentation: ‘Safe & Healthy Spokane Task Force’
Collaboration on the homelessness and opioid crises in our region could get even more organized as Spokane city, Spokane Valley and Spokane County consider creating a regional task force. If approved, that task force would submit a comprehensive plan to electeds for review with “actionable, cost effective strategies to make our community safer and healthier,” and could result in a countywide ballot measure in 2026 to “fund Action Plan strategies and facility improvements.”
Here’s what the task force — which “consists of a diverse array of experts, leaders, and individuals with lived experience in areas including behavioral health, law enforcement, the courts, emergency response, healthcare, business, philanthropy, labor, workforce, and advocacy,” — is supposed to do:
- Complete a needs assessment that identifies strengths, gaps and areas for scaling successful programs and builds upon recent justice and behavioral health mapping efforts
- Update previous studies and recommendations in light of the current opioid crisis, incorporating best practices from other communities
- Engage broad public input to ensure the voices and priorities of the people are heard
- Recommend specialized strategies, services and facilities after in depth exploration of specific areas including prevention and diversion; pre/post-incarceration interventions; coordinated case management; efficient intake, booking and case processing; crisis response; therapeutic courts; re-entry approaches; workforce needs; data; and the facilities needed to promote a safe and healthy Spokane
- Ensure transparency and accountability in all its operations by meeting in public, providing regular progress reports, maintaining a public facing website
- Leverage funding by identifying ways to maximize effective use of taxpayer dollars and integrate existing public and private resources wherever possible. Based upon the Task Force’s recommendations, a County-wide ballot measure could be considered in 2026 to fund action plan strategies and facility improvements, as needed.
A couple considerations after reading Deputy City Administrator Maggie Yates’ agenda submission: Will that new ballot measure just end up being jail tax round two, after the last countywide jail tax ballot measure failed in 2023? How will this be different from the Regional Homelessness Authority plans, which proposed jail as a major solution and died out after Mayor Lisa Brown took office and issue with the funding mechanism? Will this be enough of a regional collaboration for Gavin Cooley to be able to stop walking at 5 am every morning?
Agenda here
Monday, May 19 at 12 pm
Council Chambers in the Lower Level of City Hall.
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Public Library Board of Trustees
📚📚📚📚/5 books
Summer reading
The sun’s coming back and so is the Spokane Public Library’s Summer Reading Club!! It’s listed as “new business,” on their meeting agenda for this week, and they just sent out an email with an overview. If you’re thinking, “silly RANGE, Summer Reading is for kids,” WRONG. In Spokane, it’s for adults too, and you can even win prizes for doing it! Learn more here.
Agenda here
Tuesday, May 20 at 4:30 pm
Shadle Park Library
2111 W. Wellesley Ave, Spokane, Washington, 99205
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Ombuds Commission
?/5 peppers
The Spokane Office of the Police Ombuds is having a special out-in-community meeting this week, at the West Central Community Center. There’s literally nothing else in the agenda, but maybe this is a chance for West Central folks to learn more about the OPO?
Agenda here
Tuesday, May 20 at 5:30 pm
West Central Community Center
1603 North Belt Street Spokane WA 99205
See the most recent meeting here.
Bicycle Advisory Board
🚲🚲🚲🚲🚲/5 bikes
Bikes for sure
It’s Bike Everywhere Month, and the Bicycle Advisory Board is getting in on the fun with a special biking meeting tomorrow. They’ll start at 5 pm at City Hall, outside of the Chase Gallery, take a 6 pm midpoint stop (if you want to jump in late) at Hemlock & Dalton, and finish at 7 pm at David’s Pizza. Their full route can be found on page 3 of their agenda.
Niche, perhaps in-house joke, but as the Slackbot created by our urbanism columnist and BAB board chair Lauren Pangborn would say:
Agenda here
Tuesday, May 20 at 5 pm
City Council Briefing Center
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Board of Spokane County Commissioners Briefing Session
🌶️/5 peppers
$14M in state funding for homelessness services
Spokane County has been awarded more than $14 million in a grant from the Washington Department Commerce to reduce homelessness, $3.4 million of which will be given to the City of Spokane. There’s not much detail in the presentation documents in the agenda, but the bulk of the money, about $8.4 million, will be dedicated to “homelessness prevention,” meaning paying rent and administering programs that keep people who struggle paying rent in their homes.
New rescue tech available for sheriff’s office
The Spokane County Sheriff has an opportunity to improve its search and rescue technology for free. The office’s Regional Air Support Unit has negotiated an agreement with a company called RECCO to use its “helicopter detector” — deployed from the bottom of search helicopters — and “handheld detector” — which is carried by on-the-ground search crews. The contract would allow the sheriff’s office to use the technology for two years to find people lost in remote parts of Spokane County. RECCO agreed to train sheriff staff on how to use the technology and replace the units if they break. They work by detecting passive signal-emitting devices manufactured by RECCO that can be sewn into hiking, climbing, skiing and other outdoor gear.
Agenda here
Tuesday, May 20 at 9 am
Public Works Building Lower Level, Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane, WA 99260
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Board of Spokane County Commissioners Legislative Session
🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
Potential Flock camera locations up for vote
Flock Safety, a Georgia company that makes surveillance cameras, will likely be given the right-of-way to install security cameras at 26 locations throughout Spokane County. Flock’s technology gathers spatial and temporal data across cities, counties, neighborhood, college campuses and other communities to provide a “holistic” analysis of criminal activity. The city and county already use this company’s “covert cameras,” (which activists in other cities have had planted outside their homes) and license plate readers, which the ACLU has called “Orwellian,” for the extensive amount of data they capture, which can be used to build predictive profiles of a person’s frequent travel patterns. Local advocates in Spokane have been pushing at the Spokane city level to pause the installation of FLOCK cameras.
Here is a map of the locations proposed, and below is a list of the street corners:
- Appleway Avenue and Wellesley Avenue
- Bigelow Gulch Road and Havana Street
- Brooks Road and Highway 2
- Deno Road, between Trails Road and Hayford Road
- Dishman Mica Road, west of State Route 27
- Farwell Road and Pittsburg Street
- Gilbert Road and Trent Avenue
- Government Way and Houston Rd
- Government Way and Greenwood Road
- Graves Road and Highway 395
- Grove Road, between 40th Avenue and Thorpe Road
- Half Moon Road and Highway 395
- Harvard Road, between Spokane River and Euclid Avenue
- Hawthorne Road and Colfax Road
- Hawthorne Road and Parksmith Drive
- Malloy Prairie, south of I-90
- Market Street and Francis Avenue
- Market Street and Freya Street
- Market Street and Parksmith Drive
- South side of Rutter Parkway
- Seven Mile Road, west of Highway 291
- Spotted Road and Highway 395
- Upriver Drive and Argonne Road
- Upriver Drive, west of Wellesley Avenue
- Westmoreland Road and Highway 2
Union agreement up for approval
The BOCC is set to mint its collective bargaining agreement with the government employees union, Local 1553-S, a $1.5 million agreement that establishes pay rates, holiday, benefits and hours for the next year for Spokane County Workers.
Liberty Lake requests $500k reimbursement for improving Cataldo Ave
The BOCC is set to approve a $589,251.57 reimbursement request from the city of Liberty Lake to replenish funding for an extension of Cataldo Avenue, along I-90.
Opening bid for $1.2M to Country Homes Blvd.
Could the potholes on Country Homes finally be fixed?! The board will likely open a bid for more than $1.2 million in Capital Facilities funding for sewer replacement and road reconstruction on Country Homes Boulevard, mostly from North Cedar Street to Excell Road.
Agenda here
Tuesday, May 20 at 2 pm
Public Works Building Lower Level, Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane, WA 99260
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Valley City Council
🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
$2M roundabout construction would be largest SpoVal project ever
The city wants to add a nearly $2 million roundabout to a $347,139.23 road improvement project that would be built by the contractor HDR Engineering, Inc. The roundabout would be near the BNSF railroad at the intersection of Empire Way and Trent Avenue. The agenda item says the amendment to the original project makes it the largest construction effort in the history of the City of Spokane Valley, which was incorporated in 2003.
Agenda here
Tuesday, May 20 at 6 pm
City Hall
10210 E Sprague Ave
Spokane Valley, Washington 99206
Virtual attendance here.
Liberty Lake City Council
🫑/5 peppers
Agenda here
Tuesday, May 21 at 7 pm
22710 E Country Vista Drive, Liberty Lake,
WA 99019The meeting is also live streamed here.
