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:
- A sneaky consolidation of power in Liberty Lake could lead to book bannings and an iron grip over the city’s Library Board of Trustees.
- Pending today’s briefing session, there might be a vote to renew the Salvation Army’s contract to continue operating TRAC for the next four months.
- Possible new bike lanes coming with new street tops.
Important meetings this week:
- Spokane City Council
- Finance and Administration Committee
- Spokane Valley City Council
- Liberty Lake City Council
- Spokane Public Library Board of Trustees
- Bicycle Advisory Board
Holiday week changes
For the holiday week, here’s some Spokane city and county closures and changes you may need to know about:
- Spokane City Hall, libraries, municipal court, Community Justice Center, My Spokane 311, Development Services Center and other city facilities will be closed Thursday and Friday. Spokane County offices and departments will also be closed.
- Trash pickup for Thursday and Friday will be one day late, so Thursday rounds will happen on Friday, Nov. 24, and Friday rounds on Saturday, Nov. 25. Also, the last week for green trash pickup is the following week!
- If you’re planning to make a run to the dump for a fall clean out, the Waste-to-Energy Facility recycling and disposal site will be closed on Thursday and open during regular operating hours for the rest of the week.
Multilingual tenant clinic
The Tenants Union of Washington State began holding free multilingual English and Spanish language tenant clinics last week. At these clinics, counselors answer questions and help tenants navigate their housing rights. These clinics will happen every Monday from 10 am to noon on the second floor of the Saranac Building, in the small conference room.
Mondays from 10 am - noon
2nd floor conference room, Saranac Building
25 W. Main Ave
Spokane City Council
Potential vote to renew Salvation Army’s contract
Last week, we published a story on the city retracting an RFP they had put out for a new operator of the Trent Resource and Assistance Center (TRAC) after Jewels Helping Hands had been chosen by the recommending committee. Instead, despite constant issues with conditions, no running water available for residents and budget overruns, it’s likely that they’re going to vote to renew the Salvation Army’s contract for four months, at a higher rate than would have been allowed by the RFP, because now there’s no time left to do a safe and responsible transition between providers.
While the contract renewal is not listed on the agenda for tonight’s meeting, or on the advance agenda for next week’s meeting, due to the time-sensitive nature of it and the discussions we heard during the council’s study session last week, it’s likely that during their briefing session today, city council will vote to suspend the rules and add it to their agenda tonight last minute, and possibly even vote on it tonight.
New contract for Spokane Police Lieutenants & Captains
The city council will vote to suspend council rules and add the collective bargaining agreement with the Spokane Police Lieutenants and Captains Association for 2023-2026. The agreement looks very similar to the agreement negotiated between the Spokane Police Guild and the city earlier this year. We covered that contract in a previous edition of CIVICS, because it came with some changes as to how the Office of the Police Ombudsman (OPO) functions, namely taking away the OPO’s ability to make a publicly available closing report on an investigation if they decided not to forward it to Internal Affairs. The new contract is long, but if you’re interested in reading the whole thing, it starts on page 204 of this week’s agenda.
Gasmasks and jumpsuits
It’s a big week for the police, and a bad one for anyone who thinks our liberal city council is actually defunding the police. In the consent agenda, there are contracts to spend $150,000 on jumpsuits and $250,000 on gas masks for 2024 alone. According to the agenda item submitted by the police department and sponsored by Council Members Lori Kinnear and Jonathan Bingle, “the coming year will be an election year and has the potential to be tense and tumultuous possibly requiring the use of the masks.” The agenda item also cited encounters with powdered fentanyl and the need to wear masks while deploying chemical agents to take suspects into custody.
More studying on a bikeway a few years in the making
In the consent agenda, there is an item to approve a $179,000 contract with a design group to conduct a study for a bikeway route selection and conceptual design for east-west bike route. The contract for the study lasts through the end of 2025.
There’s some important back story on this bike story: back in 2019, when construction started on Sprague Avenue between Division Street and Scott Street, state legislature stipulated that a study must be conducted to construct an east-west trail. The first study was completed in August of 2020, with a design concept and initial cost estimates, but it was judged infeasible because of the “constraints of structures and terrain in the project area, and the logistical infeasibility of obtaining the required public right-of-way from leaseholders and property owners.” Instead, they decided to provide an alternate route on Pacific Avenue, but there wasn’t a ton of movement on the project. Senator Andy Billig recently inquired about the state of the project and so now, three years after the first study was completed, city council is finally moving forward … and going back to the drawing board for a second study, pushing the time frame for any future bike path out past 2025. Sorry to our avid bike fans.
$4.5 million for housing and shelter services
A special budget ordinance is on the agenda to accept over $4.5 million dollars of revenue from the U.S. Department of Housing and Development as part of the HOME- American Rescue Plan program. The majority of the funds, $4.2 million dollars, will be used to pay for contractual services with other organizations to deliver housing and shelter services to the community. A $260,298 chunk will be used to pay the salaries and benefits for city employees running the programs, and the last $160,390 portion will pay for supplies, services and any equipment necessary to administer the program. Folks fleeing domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and trafficking situations, unhoused people and those at rick of becoming unhoused will qualify for assistance under the program, which can provide rental assistance, development of affordable housing, support services and the acquisition and development non-congregate shelter units, which are locations that offer some level of privacy, like hotels and dormitories.
Agenda here
Monday, November 20 at 6 pm
City Council Chambers – Lower Level of City Hall
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Finance and Administration Committee
City Priorities for 2024
It’s the last Finance and Administration Committee meeting of the year, so they’re already thinking ahead and planning for 2024. The committee will be reviewing and discussing the planned Spokane 2024 Legislative Priorities. Priorities in this draft include building a $2.5 million daycare for parents working non-traditional hours, changing the state’s hate crime law to include destruction of public property (stemming from a series of anti-LGBTQIA+ hate crimes earlier this year), and adding an option for some of the real estate excise tax to go towards supporting affordable housing and behavioral health for those experiencing homelessness. City council is set to give the final vote on these priorities on December 4.
Utility tax will go up to help budget deficit
City council will vote in the consent agenda to raise Spokane’s utility tax temporarily by 1%. This was part of Mayor Nadine Woodward’s proposed 2024 budget to fund some of the gap in the city’s budget. The city hopes this temporary tax increase will generate $2.4 million and replenish the city’s general fund. There is a provision in the ordinance for the tax rate to automatically revert back in 2025.
Agenda here
Monday, November 20 at 1:15 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.
This is the last Finance and Administration Committee meeting of the year, the next meeting will be held February 19, 2024.
Spokane Valley City Council
Same old, same old
Spokane Valley City Council continues to chug along with a bunch of agenda items we’ve already written about. There will be a second reading of the ordinance for the Transportation Benefits District, a third public hearing on the valley’s 2024 budget, a 2nd reading of an ordinance to amend the 2023 budget and a second reading to adopt the 2024 budget. In new business, there’s also a motion to consider amending and renewing a contract with the YMCA to continue operating the city pools, but for $6,000 more plus actual expenses.
Agenda here
Tuesday, November 21 at 6 pm
CenterPlace Great Room
2426 N Discovery Place, Spokane Valley, WA 99216
Virtual attendance here.
Liberty Lake City Council
Book bannings in the name of Liberty (Lake)
The Liberty Lake City Council is using a technicality of calendars to retry the ordinance that would give them the power to ban books and overrule library trustees. Our friend Jerry LeClaire put out a piece about this that you can read in depth here, and we’ll be in attendance at the meeting, but here’s the preview of what’s on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting.
In early 2023, after a citizen sought to get Gender Queer, one of the hot button books for conservative groups, banned from the local library, the city council voted to uphold the library board of trustees’ decision not to ban the book. That chapter ended, but the book didn’t close for government officials seeking to limit the public’s access to queer literature. Council Member Chris Cargill proposed Ordinance No. 119-C to give the council power to approve or reject policies made by the Liberty Lake Library Board. That passed, but was vetoed by the mayor, Cris Kaminskas.
Activists thought they could finally put this one back on the shelf, but the results of the elections left room on a technicality for a brief supermajority on the council between now and January, when Linda Ball, who would likely vote against the ordinance, gets sworn in. That’s where Ordinance No. 119-D, which is on the agenda for Tuesday, comes in. Activists fear that in the brief window while conservatives in favor of maintaining rigid control over the library board hold power, they’ll pass the ordinance, override any veto from the mayor with their supermajority, and codify their powers over the library before Ball takes office. Then, with a simple majority, they could vote down library policies that prevent books from getting banned, ushering in what may be a new age of censorship for Liberty Lake. The ordinance would also give city council the power to remove dissenting board members before their term is up, and appoint a city council member as an observer of all library board meetings.
This is a first-reading ordinance, but after speaking with Annie Kurtz, one of the city councillors, we've been made aware of the potential for the city council to vote to suspend the rules and hold both the first and second readings of the ordinance, followed by a vote, on Tuesday, the same day it was announced. Kurtz thinks it's likely the council will choose to that.
"I feel like they probably want to move fast," Kurtz said. "My gut says that they would try to do the second read."
Because of that aforementioned gap in timing, the conservative members of council still won’t have a supermajority until November 28, when Mike Kennedy, who would likely vote for the ordinance, is sworn in, but if the ordinance passes Tuesday and the mayor vetoed it later this week, they could immediately vote to override the veto at Kennedy's first meeting.
Agenda here
Tuesday, November 21 at 7 pm
22710 E Country Vista Drive, Liberty Lake, WA 99019
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Public Library Board of Trustees
Mystery facility improvements
This week the board will be reviewing a contract related to the UTGO Library Capital Bond Fund. It’s difficult to know exactly what the contract will be for, since we only have the agenda items and no further information to go off of. In the past, the library has used this same fund to pay for large-scale construction projects. In 2019 the fund was used to pay for a $10 million contract to renovate the Shadle library and a $21 million contract to renovate the Downtown branch.
Agenda here
Tuesday, November 21 at 4:30 pm
Shadle Park Library
2111 W. Wellesley Ave, Spokane, Washington, 99205
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Bicycle Advisory Board
New street tops = possible new bike lanes
The city is drafting its plans for resurfacing streets in the 2024 and 2025 construction seasons and the Bicycle Advisory Board is set to review possible bikeway options that would be incorporated with street re-striping. Some of the locations under consideration don’t have bike lanes but are in the city’s Bike Master Plan, like Lincoln Road - Division Street to Standard. Other locations, like Washington Street – 3rd Avenue to Spokane Falls Boulevard, would connect existing and planned bike lanes. See the plans starting on page seven of the agenda packet.
Agenda here
Tuesday, November 21 at 6 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
The Board of County Commissioners Legislative session and Briefing session meetings are both canceled this week.
View Past Agendas here
Public Works Building Lower Level, Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane, WA 99260
The meeting is also live streamed here.
This story has been reflected to add quotes from an additional source. An original version of this story said that the public would probably have multiple chances to comment. After speaking with a source on the Liberty Lake City Council, we have edited our story to reflect the likely possibility the ordinance will be voted on the same night it is introduced.
Additional reporting contributed by Aaron Hedge.
