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:
- The Spokane County Commission is announcing a public hearing on October 13 for a new .1% sales tax to pay for policing and law enforcement costs, which takes up nearly three-quarters of the general fund budget.
- The city of Spokane could pass a special budget ordinance to allow unplanned spending to repair damage at the Northside Landfill caused by the Spokane Complex fires.
- Your waste disposal bill could be going up by about $3 a month as the city’s Waste-to-Energy plant prepares to bid on carbon offset credits under the Climate Commitment Act, up for discussion at the Finance and Administration Committee.
- The Spokane (city) Plan Commission will discuss development in the Wildland-Urban Interface — the areas where the city meets wildland, which often have increased wildfire risk.
- The Spokane Regional Health District board could cut about $1.7 million in planned spending for opioid treatment, after they received $1,600,000 less than expected in Medicare and Medicaid fees this year.
- As the data center conversation heats up at the Spokane County Planning Commission, the Spokane County Commission will appoint a new person to the body.
- Spokane Valley will hold a public hearing on its budget for next year, which emphasizes fiscal responsibility while pushing for $6 million in new cop funding.
Spokane City Council Agenda Review
Every Tuesday, the council meets to finalize the Wednesday agenda, which now includes items that won’t be up for a vote for 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:
- A resolution to authorize 2027-2028 residential street maintenance projects funded through the Transportation Benefit District fund. Those projects include a slate of chip seal, grind and overlay and sidewalk repairs throughout the city.
- A resolution to officially add the Aurora Center shelter, which serves LGBTQ+ people, to the scatter site shelter network.
- Approval for the police to purchase 18 police vehicles using a Spokane Investment Pool (SIP) loan of about $1.5 million. An amendment filed by Council Member Kate Telis would state the council’s desire for those vehicles to be hybrid and state that pre-purchase approval from the council is necessary.
- Approval of a conditional commercial building conversion contract with Nodo Spokane LLC to create 25 residential units on the property at 126 W Sinto Ave in the Emerson/Garfield neighborhood. At least 10% of these units, which comes out to 2.5 units, will be kept at affordable housing rates for at least 10 years after construction.
- A special budget ordinance to use opioid settlement dollars to pay for a three-month extension to the contract paying Jewels Helping Hands to operate the housing navigation center, which is currently due to expire at the end of March. The contract extension would give the city until the end of June to find new funding.
Up for a vote in two weeks:
- An up to $1 million contract with Catholic Charities and Jewels Helping Hands to operate shelter beds during inclement weather conditions. This will be paid for with 1590 funds. Details on the shelter beds can be found here.
- A resolution to express the city’s support for transit oriented development on the Division Street corridor.
Agenda here.
Tuesday, September 22 at 11 am
Council Chambers
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
Spokane City Council
🌶️🫑/5 peppers
Up for a vote this week:
- Police accountability activist Jim Leighty is set to be appointed to the Police Ombuds Commission.
- The council could pass a special budget ordinance that would allow unplanned spending to repair damage at the Northside Landfill caused by the Spokane Complex fires. The repair work is necessary for “site stabilization, environmental protection, infrastructure repair, erosion control, revegetation, debris-response equipment, and restoration of critical landfill systems,” and must begin this year to keep the landfill in regulatory compliance.
Agenda here.
Wednesday, September 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, September 24 at 11 am
Council Chambers
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Finance and Administration Committee
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers
More fire relief
The Finance and Administration Committee will be discussing two measures to aid in recovery efforts from the Spokane Complex fires.
The first is an ordinance that would give the city the authority to create a Temporary Disaster Housing program for Spokane residents displaced by local and state-declared emergencies — not just the Spokane Complex fires. If approved by the council in a few weeks, it would provide a “a temporary, expedited, and coordinated process for the safe placement and occupancy of Temporary Disaster Housing for residents displaced from their primary residences,” and removing “unnecessary regulatory barriers while preserving minimum requirements for site safety, fire access, potable water, wastewater disposal, electrical safety, weather protection, and protection of neighboring properties.”
The second is an approval to contract with qualified contractors for asbestos surveys of properties impacted by the fires. There are no approved contractors or cost estimates currently included in the agenda.
Climate Commitment compliance costs
Your waste bill could be going up $2.75 a month, or $9 a month for your business, specifically to purchase carbon allowances. In 2026, the WA State Legislature passed a bill supporting the city’s Waste to Energy plant by reducing the costs for the facility to comply with the Climate Commitment Act by about $14 million over the next four years. However, it wasn’t a complete exemption from fees — Spokane will still have to pay about $3 million a year for 2027 and 2028 to bid on offset credits. To pay for that, the Spokane Public Works Division is proposing the new fee.
ARPA dollars?? Again??
Did you think you were done hearing about American Rescue Plan Act dollars? So did we — all of it was supposed to be allocated by the end of 2024. However, December 31, 2026 is the final deadline to actually spend those allocated dollars, and the city has about $170,000 in unspent ARPA funds. All of the currently unspent dollars — formerly allocated to homelessness services, capital spending in West Central, language access, a Wildland-Urban Interface fire contract, multicultural centers, residential street lighting and scattered site shelters — will now be spent on backfilling fire/police overtime bills from 2024 to the end of 2026.
Thorpe Road Property
Instead of being developed into housing, a parcel of wildland on Thorpe Road could be turned into a public conservation area. The Spokane City Council will discuss a resolution to request inclusion of the property, which has been appraised at $3.9 million, in Governor Bob Ferguson’s 2027-2029 biennial budget proposal, and request that the parcel be transferred to Spokane Parks as part of the 2027 Capital Budget.
Related: you can read Yong-Yu’s story on the Thorpe Road property here.
Equitable budgeting
City Council Member Sarah Dixit’s equitable budgeting proposal is back before the committee for discussion. If passed, it would “expand the authority of the Office of Civil Rights Equity and Inclusion (OCREI), require every department to assess and report equity impacts, mandates training, and establish a multi-year planning and reporting structure to reduce disparities and improve outcomes for historically underserved communities.”
A section has been added to the ordinance that would transition the budget from a line-item budget to one that includes performance metrics in an effort to increase accountability and efficiency.
Agenda here.
Tuesday, September 22 at 12 pm
Council Chambers
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Plan Commission
🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers
Land Use and Wildfire
The Spokane Plan Commission will continue a discussion on “WUI/Fire Policy.” For anyone who isn’t absolutely mired in land use terminology, “WUI” stands for Wildland-Urban Interface, and it’s the acronym for “the line, area or zone where structures and other human development meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland or vegetative fuels,” according to the US Fire Administration. Essentially, it’s where wildland meets developed city land — like the areas most impacted by the Spokane Complex fires. How that land should be developed is a critical conversation as fires and fire severity worsens.
Agenda here
Wednesday, September 23 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
Dump fees increasing
The BOCC is considering increasing fees for certain types of waste delivered to waste transfer stations in Spokane County. Under the fee increase proposal, municipal solid waste, the type of trash generated by normal household and business activity, will cost people 3% more; organic waste 5%. Currently, a ton of municipal solid waste costs $135.63 to deliver; the new fee would be $139.70. For organics, one ton costs $73.31 per ton; the new fee would be $76.98.
Agenda here.
Tuesday, September 22 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
New sales tax for cops
Last year, the state legislature began allowing local governments to tax goods at .1% to pay for policing, and Spokane County is looking to take advantage of that. The BOCC will host a public hearing October 13 on implementing that tax in Spokane County. The agenda item emphasizes that a vast majority — between 70% and 75% — of the county’s general fund budget goes to law enforcement. Unlike a ballot item on which voters would weigh in, the commission can simply impose this tax.
As planning commish agonizes over data centers, BOCC to appoint new member
The county Planning Commission has for months been overseeing the long-term plan that will govern business, transportation and housing development for the next 20 years. Late last month, the BOCC threw a new, very stressful big task onto its already overloaded plate: figure out how to responsibly regulate hyperscale data centers and other large industrial facilities — and do it by December 15. Against that backdrop, Planning Commissioner Wayne Brokaw resigned, opening a position on the seven-member board. The BOCC is considering five applicants to replace Brokaw during this high-profile time for the board. They are not named in the agenda.
Agenda here
Tuesday, September 22 at 2 pm
Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Airport Board
🫑/5 peppers
Agenda here.
Thursday, September 24 at 9 am
9211 W. McFarlane Road, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Regional Health District Board
🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers
Cutting opioid treatment spending
The Spokane Regional Health District received $1,600,000 less than expected in Medicare and Medicaid fees this year, and $150,000 less than expected in Public Health Fees/Permits. To align their actual expenses and revenue in their 2026 budget, the health board is proposing a budget amendment to cut $1,750,000 from the budget of the Treatment Services division, which treats people for opioid addictions.
Agenda here
Thursday, September 24 at 1:30 pm
Auditorium, First Floor
1101 West College Avenue, Spokane
East Valley School District Board of Directors
🌶️/5 peppers
Collective bargaining for staff
There’s no additional details on this item, but the East Valley School Board is set to, “aApprove the language changes in the collective bargaining agreement between the Public School Employees Association and the East Valley School District.” This agreement would cover custodians, paraeducators, secretaries and clerks, and workers in food service, maintenance, transportation, security, health services and the district’s preschool.
Agenda here.
Tuesday, September 22 at 6 pm
3830 N Sullivan Rd, Bldg 1
Spokane Valley
West Valley School District Board of Directors
🌶️/5 peppers
Schools targeted for improvement
Washington state's Office of System and School Improvement (OSSI) has identified three schools within the district that need “intensified support” for several student groups. Spokane Valley High School was identified as having a low graduation rate and will receive $50,000 from the office to support its improvement plan. Centennial Middle School was identified as struggling with low-income and disabled students and will receive $20,000 in funding for its plan. The state also found that West Valley City School was struggling to support Hispanic and disabled students and will also receive $20,000 for its plan. The school board is set to approve the funding Wednesday.
Agenda here.
Wednesday, September 23 at 6:30 pm
District Conference Center
8818 E. Grace, Spokane
Watch via Zoom here.
Spokane School District Board of Directors
🫑/5 peppers
Special Meetings
The SPS board will be meeting a lot this week to conduct interviews for the student advisor position for this school year. Additionally, at the Wednesday special meeting, they’ll be going into executive session to discuss potential real estate acquisitions for purchase or lease. (There are no additional details on that item).
Agenda here.
Wednesday, September 23 at 6 pm (regular meeting)
September 21, 22, and 23 at 4 pm (special meetings)
200 N. Bernard, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Valley City Council
🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
Budget public hearing
The council will host a public hearing on the city budget for 2027, which could total $148 million, depending on police spending. City Council members, including Jessica Yaeger and Laura Padden, have emphasized that the city wants to continue “prioritizing low taxes and efficient government.” In a press release the city published during the budget workshopping process earlier this summer, the city noted that it has not taken advantage of state laws allowing it to increase property taxes since 2009.
Neither the press release nor the agenda item mention 2025’s voter-approved a .1% sales tax to increase funding for city police that will allow the city to spend $6 million on new police officers. That measure pays to hire more police officers, some of whom the city will share with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department, under which the Spokane Valley Police Department is organized.
Agenda here.
Tuesday, September 22 at 6 pm
10210 E Sprague Ave, Spokane Valley
Virtual attendance here.
