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 has the budget on the brain as the deadline to pass the biennial budget is fast approaching. This week, they’ll hear public testimony on the budget, and vote on an ordinance to establish an equitable budgeting process.
- And it’s not only the council — the Spokane County Commission is grappling with a gap in its budget and will hear a presentation on that gap on Tuesday.
- The commission will also hear a budget presentation for Spokane Airports, which will illustrate a 19% reduction in that budget.
- Both the county commission and the city of Liberty Lake will be considering an increase in property taxes.
- The Spokane Valley City Council will host an irregular meeting to train on emergency management protocols for the body starting at 8:30 am Tuesday.
- At the Public Safety and Community Health Committee, the council will once again discuss upping the amount they’re sending to Israeli tech firm Cellebrite to license a software used to hack phones.
Remember to vote!
Vote. Please!! By ballot box now! Find resources and info here and tell your friends. Democracy is cool and we should all participate!
Spokane City Council Agenda Review
Every Tuesday, the council meets to finalize the Wednesday agenda, which now includes items that are coming up in the next two weeks, giving you more of a chance to comment on things before they’re up for a vote.
Up for a vote next week:
- The council could increase legal bills in three lawsuits:
- Sending an additional $100,000 to Seattle-based legal group Summit Law Group — bringing the total to $1,250,000 — to fight claims from the firefighters who said their rights were violated by the city’s enforcement of the state COVID-19 vaccination mandate.
- Sending another $150,000 to the same Summit Law Group for outside legal counsel in labor negotiations and HR advice — think collective bargaining with city unions, dealing with grievances and advising on unfair labor practices complaints. This brings the total contract amount to $700,000, though that dates back to 2022.
- Sending another $150,000 to Missouri-based law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner to fight a lawsuit from Jewels Helping Hands and ACLU Washington alleging the city violated the rights of unhoused people, bringing the total spent on this case to $400,000.
- The city could also accept a $1.25 million from the federal government that it plans on giving to Frontier Behavior Health for an expansion of Spokane’s emergency responder program that sends mobile response teams of service providers out to mental health emergency calls.
- The council could pass a resolution supporting the Division Street Transit Oriented Development plan, which is the goal to develop density around the new high performance transit line planned for Division.
- A resolution to set the city’s legislative agenda for 2027, which tells their lobbyists what to prioritize fighting for during the next state legislative session. Fire recovery, preserving the Thorpe Land Trust, a bill to allow cities to tax only the value of land — rather than factoring in the value of structures on the land — vehicle tab cost increases for large trucks and expanding domestic partnership eligibility are the top priorities on the list.
Up for a vote in two weeks:
- A proposal to designate the Greater Spokane Low Income Housing Consortium a “land bank,” in an effort to increase affordable housing in Spokane
- A $65,000 settlement for a woman who was injured after tripping on a sidewalk in disrepair
- Officially allocating that aforementioned $1.25 million grant to Frontier for the mental health emergency response teams
Agenda here
Tuesday, November 3 at 11 am
Council Chambers
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane.
Spokane City Council
🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers
Budget hearing
If you have opinions on what the city should spend its money on, this is the meeting for you. The council will take commentary on the city budget at a hearing that is listed as final, but will likely be continued out for two weeks to give people more time to comment before the body knuckles down and actually passes a budget. It’s going to be a tight year with cuts likely, so if you have programs you want to make sure are prioritized, now is the time to tell your local government!
Bridge rehab
The Latah Bridge (aka High Bridge and Sunset Bridge) was built in the early 1900s — making it more than 110 years old. Its condition has deteriorated significantly, the city agenda reads, and will take millions to fix. Thanks to a large federal grant, the city is preparing to contract with Horrocks, LLC, paying roughly $3 million for 60% of the design of the bridge. The design process will take roughly two years, ending in fall of 2028. It’s still unclear from the agenda what exactly 60% of the design entails, and what 40% will be left undesigned (or was previously designed?).
Equitable budgeting, at long last
After a series of deferrals, the ordinance to establish equitable budgeting practices at the city will be up for a vote. It now includes an amendment filed last week by the bill’s sponsor, Council Member Sarah Dixit, that would add key performance indicators, clarify compliance requirements, target savings from certain departments and make technical corrections.
Agenda here
Wednesday, November 4 at 6 pm
Council Chambers
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Public Safety & Community Health Committee (special meeting)
🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
Normally, this meeting would be on Tuesday. That was cancelled and instead they’ll hold a special meeting Thursday at 10 am.
Cellebrite software renewal
Due to an “unanticipated increase in contract renewal cost and additional annual payment being requested earlier than anticipated,” the city of Spokane could pay an extra $203,638 to the Israeli firm Cellebrite for a software that lets the police hack phones — like in the Spokane 3 case, where the FBI secretly extracted data from at least 13 phones originally seized by the Spokane Police Department (SPD). It will be paid for with funds from SPD’s assets and forfeitures account.
This contract request from the police originally came before the council in early September — though it was only for an extra $45,000 then — and was deferred after public pushback. The new request, if approved, includes required reporting metrics for the police, like providing a public summary of those whose devices were cracked by the software that includes demographics like race, ethnicity, sex, and age of the device owner’s role in the case (victim, witness, or suspect).
The new agenda sheet also states that it is prohibited for Cellebrite to be used “for immigration enforcement or to monitor activity protected by the First Amendment.” There’s also a vibe-coded-looking presentation explaining how the software is currently used included after the agenda sheet for those who want to really dig in.
Wildfire planning
Winter is almost upon us, but the city is already thinking about the next fire season. The city council members will discuss a community wildfire protection plan to “to guide future planning efforts, support grant funding opportunities, and be updated periodically to reflect changing conditions, emerging best practices, and the implementation of efforts by the City of Spokane to reduce wildfire risk and strengthen its ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from future wildfire events.”
They’ll also talk about buying three new brush trucks — which are used to fight fires on the outskirts of town — to replace trucks that are so old they can legally drink.
Shoot for the STARS
The City of Spokane and the County of Spokane aren’t always at odds; sometimes they manage to make collaboration work. At the committee meeting this week, the city council will discuss a contract amendment to extend a joint agreement to fund and expand opioid treatment services from Spokane Treatment and Recovery Services (STARS) for another year. The city’s portion is paid for by opioid settlement dollars they route to the county for this partnership.
Agenda here
Thursday, November 5 at 10 am
Council Chambers
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Park Board
🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
It’s a special Park Board retreat at the Podium, including an all-access backstage tour of the Public Facilities District!
Also, the Spokane Park Board is looking at paying Mammoth Inc. $120,000 to book another year of live music and comedy events at the Riverfront Park Pavilion. Maybe this will give them a chance to consider the real issue: Yes, the 2024 Decemberists concert in the park was great, but did Colin Meloy really think he could get away with not doing the song about the whale?!
Agenda here
Friday, November 6 at 6:30 pm
Council Chambers
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
Board of Spokane County Commissioners Briefing Session
🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
Airport budget will be smaller next year
Spokane Airports officials will present their budget for the next year, which covers Spokane International Airport, the Airport Business Park, Felts Field and the Rail-Truck Transload Facility. The overall budget will be 19% smaller than last year’s, probably due to less spending on a suite of expansion projects that have dramatically transformed the SIA campus over the last several years.
There is no item in the budget to cover the massive environmental cleanup the state Department of Ecology requires the airport to carry out stemming from its forever chemicals contamination of the aquifers that feed drinking wells on the West Plains.
Agenda here
Tuesday, November 3 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
Budget reflects statewide problems for counties
The county is assessing its financial needs for next year’s budget — should it increase property taxes as homeowners feel the squeeze of a sclerotic economy at the same time that it cannot make ends meet? The budget is projected to shrink from $983 million to $955 million next year, so the county will receive a budget presentation analyzing whether it will need to hike taxes in the next year. In Washington, local governments cannot raise property taxes more than 1% every year.
The presentation bears a quote from a Lincoln County commissioner: “Although counties across Washington are still providing essential services and balancing their budgets, most are only doing so by reducing services, delaying maintenance and leaving critical positions unfilled. That approach does not – and cannot – maintain a consistent level of service.”
Agenda here
Tuesday, November 3 at 2 pm
Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Valley City Council
🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
Different time: Incident management training
Spokane Valley is in an emergency planning phase after the wildfires this past summer, and it’s scheduled an irregular session, starting at 8:30 am and ending by 3 pm, to refresh the City Council on protocols for incident response on Tuesday. Council Member Al Merkel said this presentation was not scheduled because of the concerns about potential incidents relating to the election but he anticipated that someone on the panel “will probably bring it up.” You can see the presentation here.
Agenda here
Tuesday, November 3 at 8:30 pm
10210 E Sprague Ave, Spokane Valley
Virtual attendance here.
Liberty Lake City Council
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
More $ for police software, property tax increases & signage
Meanwhile, in the sweet land of Liberty (Lake), the cops are bristling at continuing to pay for Cellebrite forensic software. Instead, they want to pay $20,000 more for a different software package from Magnet Forensics that would let them download more data from computer hard drives and cell phones during criminal investigations. But the real fireworks may be with the first reading over whether to take the extra 1% increase in property tax revenue allowed by Washington state. It’s only about $5 extra for a $500,000 house, but any tax increase at all is often considered forbidden for folks in the land of Liberty (Lake).
Finally, you asked for a sign? City staff wants council to approve a little over $12,500 to the Mountain Dog Sign Company for exterior signage at Liberty Lake City Hall, including a Liberty Lake City Hall the contract labels as a “‘2’ Depth Fabricated Aluminum - Flush Stud Mounted - Color Legacy Bronze Satin - Font Arboria Medium & Bold” sign. Do not Google, “Flush Stud Mounted.”
Agenda here
Tuesday, November 2 at 6 pm
22710 E Country Vista Drive, Liberty Lake
The meeting is also live streamed here.
