New rules, new council date, new $100k for immigrants

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 a long night ahead of them. They’re scheduled to vote on a $100,000 contract to support immigrants and refugees, an ordinance to change council meetings from Mondays to Wednesdays starting later this year and potentially a slate of new rules, depending on what happens at Agenda Review.
Spokane City Council will be doing first readings on a few high-profile things too, including a kratom ban and an ordinance to bar ICE from using public property for any immigration enforcement activity without a judicial warrant.
The council’s Finance and Administration Committee is set to discuss an ordinance to help get more sidewalk cafes, parklets and streateries in the city, plus affordable housing spending, Mayor Lisa Brown’s ordinance to ban detention centers in Spokane and a consulting contract for analyzing the council staff structure.
The county health examiner will present numbers to the BOCC that show drug deaths in Spokane County are still very high but are leveling off.
The East Valley School District board is considering cutting affirmative action from its nondiscrimination policy. This cuts language that commits the district to make no difference in pay scale based on sex, for example.

Important meetings this week:

Spokane City Council

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Support for immigrants

Tonight, the council could approve a $100,000 contract with the Spokane Immigrant and Refugee Coalition (SIRC), which would put 92% of that funding towards direct emergency assistance for immigrants and refugees in need. SIRC is made up of a coalition of local nonprofits and organizing groups: Nuestras Raices Centro Comunitario, Mujeres In Action, Manzanita House, Refugee and Immigrant Connections Spokane, Fuse Washington, Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane, Creole Resources, Muslims for Collective Action and Asians for Collective Liberation. The fiscal sponsorship for the group is hosted under Muslims for Collective Action. For all the deets on the contract in Daisy Zavala Magaña’s first story, read here.

Council Rules

Council could adopt their new rule package tonight, and it’s going to be wildly complicated. There are a lot of amendments on the table and we won’t know which ones survive the amendment Hunger Games until after the 3:30 pm Agenda Review. Council has the option to suspend the rules to adopt the amendments, which means the rules would be voted on tonight, but if they don’t suspend the rules while adopting amendments, the vote will be automatically deferred until March 2.

Potentially the most controversial amendment on the table is a proposal from Council Members Zack Zappone and Kitty Klitzke, originally floated by freshman Council Member Kate Telis in a committee meeting, that would sharply reduce public testimony options. Currently, anyone can sign-up for a three-minute testimony slot for each legislative item up for a vote that night. The Zappone/Klitzke amendment would cut that down to each person getting five minutes total to testify on all legislative items.

They’ve argued that this would make meetings more accessible to the general public by keeping them shorter. Council Members Michael Cathcart and Sarah Dixit have argued that it instead limits the amount and quality of public input the body would get, with Cathcart pointing out the council often schedules meetings with multiple controversial or important legislative items up for a vote in one evening.

When reviewing old CIVICS sections for our website migration, we found a couple of meetings where a LOT was going on, like:

On October 14, 2024, when they were scheduled to vote on an ordinance to ban unregistered landlords from evicting tenants, a resolution in support of a sales tax measure on the ballot, another resolution in opposition to initiative on the ballot that would ban the state’s cap-and-trade program and ordinances to set new utility rates.
On June 16, 2025, they were scheduled to vote to end Mayor Brown’s emergency declaration that set a curfew following protests, as well as vote on a slate of new ordinances to change how the city enforced homelessness bans.
On June 30, 2025, they were scheduled to vote on a ban for camping across the whole city, an ordinance banning ICE from most public property and an expansion of the human rights commission.

There are other less controversial amendments on the table, including one from Cathcart that would allow people to sign in with position statements and another from Zappone, Klitzke and Wilkerson that would instead change public testimony to what Dixit called on Instagram a “potluck” style, that would see everyone who wanted to testify once before they could come back and testify again. We’re planning to watch agenda review to see what passes.

(A small editorial note: if council actually wants to make these meetings more accessible, hopefully they won’t suspend the rules to pass a bunch of amendments and then vote on the package tonight before the public has really had a chance to understand or comment on what’s actually up for a vote.)

Changing the meeting day

After more than a century of meeting on Mondays, Spokane City Council meetings could move to Wednesdays. Originally, the pitch had been to shift meetings to Tuesdays, but tonight, they could instead vote on a package that would set regular legislative meetings for Wednesdays weekly, with Agenda Review on Tuesdays. If passed as is, this would go into effect June 1, however, Wilkerson has an amendment on the table that would start the Wednesday meetings mid-September instead.

Kratom ban is back

After statewide kratom regulation failed to move forward at the state level, the Spokane City Council is bringing back their proposal to ban it in the city. Also on the table for discussion at the 3:30 pm Agenda Review is an amendment from Cathcart that would shift the focus from prohibition to regulation, restricting sales to anyone under 21, banning the sale of adulterated or enhanced kratom and banning kratom products marketed towards children. It’s just up for a first reading tonight, with a vote scheduled for next week.

Immigration enforcement-free zones

The ordinance to bar federal immigration agents from using city-owned property for any immigration enforcement activities without a judicial warrant — including staging and surveillance — will see its first reading tonight. It could also be tweaked via a small technical amendment at the 3:30 pm Agenda Review. We covered this in depth last week here.

Agenda here
Monday, February 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, May 16 at 11 am
Council Chambers
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Finance and Administration Committee

🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

Street meat incoming?

At committee, the city council members will discuss an ordinance that’s shooting to “encourage the activation of public spaces.” It sounds jargon-y, but in reality the proposal is simple: make it easier and cheaper for businesses to take over sidewalk chunks, parking spots or loading zones to use as “parklets,” “streateries,” and “sidewalk cafes,” by putting something else — like seating — in the spot. Here’s photos of a few examples included in the agenda:

While all these uses have technically been allowed since 2017, no parklets have actually been permitted, which the city thinks is due to a high upfront cost to set up the spaces on top of city fees and noticing requirements.

The proposed ordinance would waive two fees until December 31, 2027: the annual $150 licensing fee for sidewalk cafes, parklets and streateries and an annual $100 outdoor alcohol service fee. It also eases the notice requirement, moving it back from a minimum 10-day notice period to a maximum 10-day comment period that just requires a business to post their intent to take over the spot to a visible public area, rather than having to mail it to every property owner, tenant and building manager.

This is the latest in a series of urbanism-flavored ordinances that seem designed to make the city more people-friendly and less car-centric.

Detention centers out of Spo

The interim emergency ordinance to ban the permitting of new detention centers in Spokane has found its council sponsors in Council Members Paul Dillon, Kate Telis and Zack Zappone. We covered this ordinance in depth here, read for the deets!

Affordable Housing spending

Previously known as the 1590 fund — in reference to the state law that allowed the city to collect the sales tax to seed it — the HEART fund spending priorities are going to be discussed today. While there’s no actual draft list of the priorities in the agenda, we do know that by city law, 70% must be spent on things like building affordable housing, supporting or acquiring behavioral health facilities and funding operation of these facilities, while the other 30% can be spent on administration costs and the “Legal Services and Relocation Fund,” which helps tenants relocate if landlords violate habitability requirements.

Consulting on council

The body will also discuss a contract with Matrix Consulting Group, which won the bid to do an organization analysis of the council staff to help the council decide which (if any) council staffers should have their positions cut, after budget negotiations last year. They’re also planning to do other stuff, like create an office handbook that formalizes roles, responsibilities and expectations. The whole process is slated to take 10 weeks, once the $64,500 contract is approved.

Agenda here
Monday, February 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

Housing Voucher standards changing

The Spokane Housing Authority board is considering a resolution to change their voucher payment standards, which would retroactively be in effect January 1, 2026. There’s no additional info in the agenda as to what they’re considering changing the standards to.

Agenda here
Monday, February 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, February 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

Drug deaths in county leveling off

Deaths due to drug-related causes seem to be slowing, according to a presentation the BOCC will hear from the Spokane County medical examiner Veena Singh. As Singh will present to the board, the levels of those deaths is still very high, but they are “leveling off.” They continue to be largely concentrated among males who are not unhoused and occur in rooms that are shared between multiple people, not on the streets. They typically involve multiple drugs, but fentanyl remains a serious contributor, though that drug has seen a serious decline in use.

Agenda here
Tuesday, February 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

Agenda here
Tuesday, February 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

‘Natural Environment’

There’s no additional information, but the commission will host a discussion about how the state’s Growth Management Act deals with the natural environment.

Agenda here
Thursday, February 26 at 12:15 pm
Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Mead School District Board of Directors

🌶️/5 peppers

Updating the non-discrimination policy

The board will have a second reading on updates to the district’s non-discrimination policy and procedure. The policy revisions include:

Defining the “Protected Status” classification and adding ethnicity, homelessness, neurodivergence and immigration or citizenship status to existing protected classes
What the district’s responsibility is when a complaint is received or in the case of suspected discriminatory conduct

Procedural revisions include:

The superintendent has 30 calendar days to respond to a complaint
The board no longer needs to meet with the person who filed a complaint

Real-time crime for schools

The board will also look at a 10-year contract with technology company Axon Fuses that would allow for real-time video sharing and coordination with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office Real Time Crime Center, which the Sheriff’s Office recommended. The contract will cost just over $256,000 for the entire length.

The data sharing is meant to reduce confusion, delays, and duplicated responses, according to the district’s agenda materials. It also enables law enforcement to access live external camera feeds, but the district can control access through methods like sharing specific incidents and placing time-bound permissions.

Agenda here
Monday, February 23 at 6 pm
12509 N. Market St. Bldg. D, Mead
Watch via Zoom here.

Central Valley School District Board of Directors

🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

Board to weigh in on limiting girls sports to cisgender players

The CVSD board will review proposed changes for the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association policies, one of which is an advisory vote on allowing transgender girls to participate in girls sports. Modeled after an Alaska's program, the proposal is to change sports to an "Open Category" for all students and a "Girls Category" for cisgender girls. Mead School District in North Spokane is one of the districts that submitted the amendment. The proposed policy changes are are somewhat confusing. It reads: “All Students are encouraged to participate in WIAA athletics and/or activities” before going on to say, “participation in the ‘Girls Category’ is limited to students whose biological sex is female.” It does not say anything about transgender boys.

The policy change isn't allowed under state law, but the move is part of a longstanding campaign among the more conservative school districts in Eastern Washington to eliminate queer representation in the schools. The districts have broadly sought to bar trans girls from sports and queer literature from school libraries.

CVSD board has until mid-March to weigh in on all the proposed amendments before district representatives go on to vote on them.

(Editor's note: this item has been updated to clarify the nature of the agenda item.)

Agenda here
Monday, February 24 at 6 pm
Board Room at 2218 N Molter Rd
Liberty Lake
Watch via Zoom here.

East Valley School District Board of Directors

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

New school bond may be incoming

The board could adopt a resolution to send over a bond proposition for voters to consider during an April 28 special election. The bond would be capped at $220 million and is meant to pay for:

A new high school that would replace East Valley High School
A new middle school to replace East Valley Middle School
Necessary security, safety and infrastructure improvements throughout the district, and other costs

No more Affirmative Action?

The board will also hold a first reading of a revised board policy that would eliminate the district’s Affirmative Action Program. The section cut from the board’s Nondiscrimination and Affirmative Action Policy reads:

“The district will develop an affirmative action employment plan or program that includes appropriate provisions designed to eliminate discrimination based on protected status. Regarding sex discrimination, the district’s affirmative action employment plan or program must include the requirements to maintain credential requirements for all personnel without regard to sex; make no differentiation in pay scale based on sex; make no differentiation in the assignment of school duties based on sex except where an assignment would involve duty areas or situations such as, but not limited to, a shower room, where persons might be disrobed; provide the same opportunities for advancement for males and females; and make no differentiation in conditions of employment based on sex, including, but not limited to, hiring practices, leaves of absence, hours of employment, and assignment of or payment for instructional or noninstructional duties.”

It does not appear that the section is being moved to a separate policy.

Agenda here
Tuesday, February 24 at 6 pm
3830 N Sullivan Rd, Bldg 1
Spokane Valley

West Valley School District Board of Directors

🫑/5 peppers

Changes to sexual harassment policy

The district’s sexual harassment policy is also being expanded to specify a list of types of discrimination that must be referred to the district’s civil rights compliance coordinator, including discrimination based on gender identity and expression, among many others.

Agenda here
Wednesday, February 25 at 6:30 pm
District Conference Center
8818 E. Grace, Spokane
Watch via Zoom here.

Spokane Valley City Council (winter workshop)

🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

‘City Vision Statement’

There’s very little information in the city description of the vision statement, but it has been a topic of recent discussion, notably brought to the fore by Council Member Al Merkel who made some interesting statements at a council meeting late last year. He said he had sat next to former state Representative Matt Shea — now a Spokane pastor after having been forced out of the state House Republican caucus over domestic terror allegations — on a plane ride. Shea encouraged Merkel to advance a longer-term vision to better define the public square in the city between Spokane and Liberty Lake, which both have defined city centers that Spokane Valley lacks.