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.
With cancellations for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, it’s a relatively quiet week for meetings. Some things that stick out to us this week include:
- A continuing call for donations and volunteers to help the unhoused survive the cold and snow.
- Al French could cement power on the Spokane Transit Authority Board with a series of committee appointments.
- Regional bicycle safety talks.
- We all need more information in public meeting agendas, please.
Important meetings this week:
- Spokane City Council Study Session
- Board of County Commissioners - Briefing Session and Regular Session
- Liberty Lake City Council
- Spokane Public Library Board of Trustees
- Bicycle Advisory Board
- Spokane Transit Authority Board of Directors
- Spokane Airport Board committees
Continuing support during the cold snap
As the region’s cold front continues, service providers, community organizations and mutual aid groups have ongoing volunteer and donation needs.
Compassionate Addiction Treatment Spokane, which is now operating the overnight Cannon Shelter, is searching for folks who can volunteer for a minimum of two hours at a time. Anyone able to help can sign up here. They are also calling for donations of clean blankets and pillows, hand/foot warmers and single serving snacks.
Jewels Helping Hands (JHH) is also calling for volunteers to help run at the church warming shelters, with the highest need being for folks who can volunteer overnight. According to an email sent out by JHH, volunteer duties would include assisting the JHH staff with “keeping and maintaining a quiet, restful space for those who will be staying there, sometimes helping hand out meals or snacks, monitoring restrooms, basic clean up, etc.” Anyone who is interested can sign up to volunteer by contacting them at jewels.donation.volunteer@gmail.com or by calling 509-992-2239.
Spokane Reimagined Info Sessions continue
Spokane Reimagined, a citizen proposal to “repurpose existing rights of way to improve Spokane's connectivity, increase density and spur economic development,” is continuing to host public information sessions at local libraries in the next few weeks. The next of those sessions is scheduled for today and is free to attend. More information on the Spokane Reimagined proposal can found here.
Tuesday, January 16 from 6 - 7 pm
Indian Trail Library
4909 W Barnes Rd.
Spokane, WA 99208
Spokane City Council Study Sessions
Agenda here when available.
Thursday, January 18 at 11 am
City Council Chambers – Lower Level of City Hall
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Board of Spokane County Commissioners Briefing Session
Agenda here
Tuesday, January 16 at 9 am
Public Works Building Lower Level, Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane, WA 99260
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Board of Spokane County Commissioners Legislative Session
The commissioners will vote whether to approve a bid from Wendell Motors to buy 39 Sheriff’s patrol cars for nearly $2.2 million. Wendell Motors was the only dealership that responded to a bid the county issued to seven in the area.
Agenda here
Tuesday, January 16 at 2 pm
Public Works Building Lower Level, Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane, WA 99260
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Liberty Lake City Council
Mayoral appointments continue
It’s a relatively quiet week over at the Liberty Lake City Council meeting, but there is one more mayoral appointment on the docket. After their last meeting saw former city council member Tom Sahlberg unanimously confirmed as a voting member of the Planning Commission, this week will have another former council member appointed to that same commission.
Phil Folyer, a major proponent of the library control ordinance who lost his seat to Linda Ball, could serve alongside Salhlberg on the Planning Commission, if his appointment also passes. Though Folyer and Sahlberg found themselves at odds last year during a couple of heated meetings where the library ordinance discourse dominated the airwaves, Folyer’s allies, who ultimately voted to approve the library ordinance, make up a majority of the council, so it is likely he will be confirmed to the commission tonight.
Agenda here
Tuesday, January 16 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
Agenda here
Tuesday, January 16 at 4:30 pm
Shadle Park Library
2111 W. Wellesley Ave, Spokane, Washington, 99205
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Bicycle Advisory Board
Regional safety plan
There’s not a lot of information for the bicycle board agenda, but there are two items that might be of interest. In the first, the board will get a presentation on the Spokane Regional Transportation Council Safety Action Plan for the region. And later on in the meeting, they’ll also get an update and give feedback on the Bicycle Priority Network.
Agenda here
Tuesday, January 16 at 6 pm
City Council Briefing Center
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Transit Authority Board of Directors
Committee recommendation conflict?
At a meeting of the Spokane Transit Authority’s (STA) Board Operations Committee last Wednesday — which had no representatives from the City of Spokane — Board Chair Al French proposed a list of 2024 committee recommendations that seems sure to spark conflict at Thursday’s full STA board meeting.
The STA board meets as a full body once a month and is made up of 14 people, nine of whom are voting members. It houses three committees: the Performance Monitoring & External Relations (PMER) Committee, the Planning & Development (P&D) Committee and the Board Operations Committee, which functions kind of like an executive committee. The Board Operations Committee is automatically made up of the chair of the STA Board, the chair of the PMER Committee, the chair of the P&D committee and the chair pro-tempore of the board.
If those automatic appointments don’t create a composition that includes a representative from each of the groups of government represented by the STA Board — currently, that’s the City of Spokane, the City of Spokane Valley, Spokane County and the small surrounding cities, which are represented by one voting member — additional appointments must be made to make sure every group is represented on the board. However, only four members of the committee can hold voting positions.
Though his proposed appointments will have to be approved by a five-vote majority of the full board on Thursday, French’s draft lists of committee members include appointing Pam Haley, mayor of Spokane Valley as the P&D chair and County Commissioner Josh Kerns as the PMER chair, ensuring them both seats on the coveted Board Operations Committee. To meet that representation requirement, Dan Dunne, the Liberty Lake City Council member representing the region’s small cities and Kitty Klitzke — who has not officially been confirmed to the board but will likely be one of the four Spokane City representatives pending a vote at January 22’s Spokane City Council meeting — were also on the draft list.
But, because only four members can vote on this committee, one person has to be designated non-voting. French proposed that that nonvoting member be Klitzke, the only Spokane City representative, leaving two votes with county commissioners, one with Spokane Valley and one with the small cities.
Another wrinkle in the committee appointment list is item number 12 on the Board Governing Committee Operating Guidelines, which states “It is recommended that Committee chairs and members be rotated annually when feasible, and that no Committee chair or member serve a term of more than 2 consecutive years.”
French and Haley both served on the Board Operations Committee last year, and according to a grab of the website from the WayBack Machine, they also served on the committee in 2022. That would make 2024 their third consecutive year on the committee, a move that seems to be against the committee operating guidelines.
As accusations of partisan politicking, specifically by French, Haley and STA CEO Susan Meyer, continue to plague the STA board and the question of representation on the board has been a hot button topic at the Spokane city level, Thursday’s full board vote to approve, deny or amend French’s draft committee appointment lists will likely be complicated.
Though the City of Spokane has not officially appointed the four city council members which will represent the city’s interests on the STA board (those appointments will happen at the January 22 City Council meeting), they still hold four of the nine voting seats on the STA board and will send “alternates” to the meeting that will likely be the same four Spokane City Council members listed on the draft version of the city’s committee assignment list: Betsy Wilkerson, Zack Zappone, Paul Dillon and Klitzke.
Dunne and Tim Hattenburg, the sole Democrat on Spokane Valley’s City Council, are positioned to be swing votes with the four-person Spokane City bloc on one side and Haley, French and Kerns on the other.
Decisions about representation on the board and the committees could impact riders as one of the central debates splitting the board has been about free fares for low-income riders and accessibility to free fares for youth riders.
Agenda here
Thursday, January 18 at 1:30 pm
STA Boardroom
1230 W Boone Avenue, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Airport Board committees
The Airport Board’s agendas are very light on details, so we’re pulling the items that look interesting at face value with no additional context available.
Engineering Committee procuring body cameras
The Airport Board’s Engineering Committee will be discussing and possibly voting on procuring Police Axon Body Worn Cameras for the airport, Business Park and Felts Field.
Finance Committee to discuss financing for expansion
Another item that piqued our interest is the finance committee discussing “Interim Financing with Spokane County for Concourse C Terminal Renovation and Expansion (TREX) Project.”
In another item, the committee will be discussing the lease agreement for Geiger Correctional Facility, which is in the Airport Business Park and is owned by the Airport Board.
Agenda here.
Wednesday, January 17 at 9 am (Engineering Committee) and 10:30 am (Finance Committee)
Airport Event Center
9211 W. McFarlane Road, Spokane, WA 99224
The meeting is also live streamed here.
This story has been edited to clarify that youth riders already have free fares, but there have been debates around how they can and should access free fares.
