The sky’s the limit for downtown buildings

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 extend the interim moratorium on height limits downtown, which is government jargon to say — developers can continue to build really tall buildings downtown, if they want to.
At the Public Safety & Community Health Committee meeting, the city council members will also discuss a new ordinance designed to penalize the owners of “chronic nuisance properties” who fail to properly handle, well, chronic nuisances.
Spokane Police Department wants to spend an additional $45,000 on Cellebrite, the software that was used to secretly extract data from protesters’ phones, and they’ll be asking the council for permission at that same Public Safety & Community Health Committee meeting.
Spokane County is facing a $30 million structural budget deficit — that could mean higher taxes in our futures.
Spokane Valley is talking about the Urban Growth Area, the boundary restricting costly suburban sprawl. But there’s always a balance to be struck: housing restrictions in the past have helped drive up housing costs and increase homelessness.

Spokane City Council Agenda Review

Up for a vote next week:

A contract to address a lack of culturally responsive treatment services for the opioid crisis — i.e. services specifically tailored to meet the unique needs of marginalized communities. The city council could contract with four organizations: Center for Growth and Empowerment through Compassionate Addiction Treatment, The Native Project, Nuestras Raices and Washington State University with Spokane Tribal Network. The total cost of these services is under $500,000, which was already approved in the 2026 budget.
An ordinance that would create a process for vacant and underutilized commercial spaces to be temporarily activated. That means spaces like, say, the former Rite Aid downtown, could be more easily transformed for temporary commercial events like, say, the Punk Rock Flea Market.
Our Urbanism columnist Lauren Pangborn is set to be appointed to the Spokane Plan Commission.
An emergency ordinance to ensure tenant protections for those impacted by the wildfires. Read the details here.

Up for a vote in two weeks:

A procedural ordinance to modernize how the city’s financial funds are referenced in municipal code by removing budget codes that are no longer active, updating references in the fund structure and codifying funds that should have already been codified.

Even if these items are a week or two out, if you’re passionate about them, you can testify at the Wednesday city council meetings.

Agenda here when available.
Tuesday, August 25 at 11 am
Council Chambers
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane

Spokane City Council

🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

It’s a slower night at Spokane City Council but there are a few interesting items up for a vote, including:

A contract to give Liberty Lake-based Frank Family Investments an 8-year Multifamily Housing tax exemption for the creation of 200 housing units in the Kendall Yards neighborhood.
An ordinance to allow existing funds to be used to expand access to cooling, heating and weatherization services to individuals who meet the criteria established by the HEART Fund.
An ordinance that would get rid of a city requirement for charitable organizations to obtain a free “charitable solicitation” license. Because this duplicates state requirements, Spokane could cut this requirement at the city level.
An extension on the interim zoning ordinance that temporarily removed height limits on new buildings downtown, making it so tall building construction downtown is allowed for at least another six months. This extension is set to expire March 24, 2027, after which there may be permanent code changes that nix the height restrictions.

And a reminder — with the new format of council meetings, you can also sign up to testify on items that are one or two weeks out from a vote, which we preview in our Agenda Review section.

Agenda here
Wednesday, September 2 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, September 3 at 11 am
Council Chambers
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Public Safety & Community Health Committee

🌶️🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Consequences for chronic nuisances

Last week, The Spokesman reported that city officials had declared the 7-Eleven downtown a “chronic nuisance” back in July, and were still struggling with the property.

“This business is making a profit off vulnerable people, and at a minimum, should use a portion of that profit to secure the property and prevent these recurring problems,” Brown told The Spokesman. “They are using our police department as their own personal security service, which takes away critical capacity to respond to other emergent needs.”

The city was aware of 125 reports involving drugs and loitering in the two months before it was declared a chronic nuisance, and the intersection of Second and Division that it’s on has long been a target of politicians wanting to crack down on visible homelessness.

Now, City Council Member Paul Dillon has proposed an ordinance that enhances the penalties for property owners of plats deemed chronic nuisances — designed to “give such property owners additional incentives to address the problems that their property is creating.” It would give the city the power to impose fines, charge abatement expenses, order landlords to pay relocation assistance to impacted tenants and in extreme circumstances, order the property into receivership, where a neutral third party is appointed to take control of it.

Chronic nuisance would be defined as a property where nuisance activity is observed three or more times during a 60-day period, or seven or more times during a 12-month period, or a property where drug-related activity has been identified two or more times pursuant to a valid search warrant or any abandoned property where nuisance activity exists.

If passed in a few weeks, the ordinance would be effective starting January 1, 2027.

More money for Cellebrite

The city could spend an additional unplanned $45,000 on Cellebrite “due to an unanticipated increase in contract renewal cost.” Cellebrite is a software that helps cops 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. The funding comes from the Forfeitures & Contributions chunk of the police budget.

Getting grants

The city received — and needs to accept — a bunch of grants, including:

A $200,000 grant from the WA State Department of Commerce to fund a partnership project with the YWCA. This annual award, renewed through 2030, will pay for intimate partner violence threat assessment training and software and staff overtime to address domestic violence.
A $10,000 grant from Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund (which, disclosure: also supports RANGE) to support the city’s therapeutic court programs, providing basic need supplies for court participants, like hygiene products, clothing, shoes, snacks, water, backpacks and warming and cooling specific items.
A $209,679 grant from WA Traffic Safety Commission to train SPD officers in identifying and successfully investigating impaired drivers. The funding will go to ensuring all SPD officers below the rank of Sergeant receive training.

Agenda here
Tuesday, September 1 at 12 pm
Council Chambers
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Board of Spokane County Commissioners Briefing Session

🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

The County Commission will get over 2.5 hours of briefings on issues they’ll later vote on, including a public works building that was paved over to cap environmental contaminants, a revenue-sharing plan between the state and Waste Management, and an agreement for the sheriff’s department to get reimbursed by the US Capitol Police for unspecified services. But that’s all prelude for discussion of the Sword of Damocles hanging over the County’s head: a $30 million structural budget gap. The choice is stark: Cut spending or raise taxes.

Agenda here
Tuesday, September 1 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

First, back in 1992, the state let counties charge a 1% tax on rental cars to help fund sports stadiums or other athletic facilities. But this year, the state legislature decided that perhaps criminal justice was just as important as tossing around the ol’ pigskin: so now, the county can use those funds, if they so choose, for criminal justice purposes. The county commission will vote on whether to change the county’s law language to do just that.

Next, Spokane County has been suing the state Department of Ecology over the regulation of toxic PCBs (or “polychlorinated biphenyls,” as the kids call them). The commission will be asked to potentially settle the case.

All this, plus: a whopping $1,000 traffic safety award from the Washington Association of Sheriffs, an $80,000 contract for ballistic vests for the Sheriff's department and the approval of a state government affairs consultant.

Agenda here
Tuesday, September 1 at 2 pm
Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane Valley City Council (special meeting)

🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

Okay, no regular 6 pm meeting today – but there will be a 5 pm Very Special Meeting on the Valley’s UGA plan. The UGA (or “Ugh-Uh,” as it isn’t pronounced) is short for the “Urban Growth Area,” the boundaries where state law allows dense development to spread in Spokane County. Make the UGA too wide, and you get budget-busting sprawl and potentially put more homes in the path of wildfires. But make it too tight, and you choke off the supply of housing, sending housing costs soaring and increasing homelessness. So the long-term stakes are surprisingly high.

Agenda here
Tuesday, September 1 at 5 pm
10210 E Sprague Ave, Spokane Valley
Virtual attendance here.

Liberty Lake City Council

🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

A member of the Liberty Lake Community Engagement Commission is facing removal, a consequence for playing hooky for four meetings. The president of Visit Spokane is giving their 2025 Economic Impact Report — which says that 2025 saw a slight uptick in visitors to Spokane County compared with 2024. And with hopes to increase that economic impact further, the council plans to vote on investing $11,000 in their annual contribution to Greater Spokane Incorporated, the regional chamber of commerce. Finally, they’re looking at approving a $40,000 agreement with the state Department of Natural Resources for three years of streetscape maintenance… conducted by prisoners.