Language access for Spokane meetings on the horizon

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 of the items that stick out to us this week include:

Language access may be on the horizon for Spokane city meetings
Spokane County wants to make it easier for recent fire victims to rebuild
Spokane City Council members want to oppose jail tax measure
Spokane Police Department looking to renew contract with phone-cracking company

This week, these groups will be meeting:

This is East Central

For the last few months, RANGE has been contributing storytelling and audio expertise to the This is East Central project, and this weekend, it will be officially unveiled. Led by local arts non-profit Terrain (co-founded by our very own Luke Baumgarten), This is East Central features a mural installation on the Carl Maxey Center and an accompanying website with interactive stories. The unveiling will have food (while supplies last), tunes by rosethrow and a brief ribbon cutting ceremony.

Saturday, September 23, noon to 3 pm
Carl Maxey Center
3114 E 5th Ave

Hillyard Subarea planning process

The city of Spokane is beginning its Hillyard Subarea planning process, which intends to address future housing needs, infrastructure deficiencies and quality of life in the Hillyard neighborhood. As part of the planning, the city wants residents from the area to participate in the community feedback process. There are two opportunities this week to engage in the process: a walking tour and a community workshop.

Discover Walking Tour
Wednesday, September 20th, 4 pm
Hillyard Heritage Museum
5104 N. Market St

Community Workshop
Wednesday, September 20th, 6 pm
Northeast Youth Center
3004 E. Queen Ave

Shaping Spokane housing open house

With proposed amendments of housing and residential codes on the table for Spokane, the city needs public comment. The purpose of the amendments is to increase housing choice and feasibility throughout Spokane while ensuring compatibility within existing neighborhoods and the community’s vision. There will be two public open houses this week to answer community questions about the project.

Public Open House
Tuesday, September 19 at noon
Central Library, Events Room B
906 W. Main Ave.

Virtual Open House
Thursday, September 21 at 5:30 pm
Attend virtually here.

Spokane City Council

Phone-cracking tech continues at SPD

Spokane Police Department is seeking approval to renew its contract for Cellebrite software for the next five years. The software assists SPD in unlocking and pulling data from most modern iOS and Android phones and will cost the city about $160,000 every year. Cellebrite has been criticized by watchdog groups for the sheer amount of information it allows police to access once it cracks your phone, including minute-by-minute location data and facial and tattoo recognition.

Agenda here
Monday, September 18 at 6 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.

Finance and Administration Committee

Spokane City Council wants to oppose the jail tax measure

Council Members Betsy Wilkerson and Zack Zappone are leading the charge for city council to oppose the $1.7 billion sales tax measure that will go before voters in November, citing the lack of a comprehensive enough plan for spending money for the measure. The resolution goes on to say that while the council believes the current county jails are inadequate and they need to invest in public safety, they have not yet had a public meeting on how Spokane city would spend its share of the funds — about $680 million.

This comes after members of the council and the corrections officer union sent a letter to the county commissioners asking to defer the ballot measure to develop a plan on how to spend the funds that would include:

Expanding therapeutic courts
Expanding the crisis stabilization center
Adding capacity to the court system to make processing cases faster
Assessing the equity of criminal justice policies
Expanding co-deployed teams and including mental health responders
Create an intake and release center to reduce short jail stays
Making a court rides and supported release program
Re-entry support

The measure would add a 0.2% sales tax on purchases beginning April 1, 2024 through the end of 2054. The letter sent to the County Commission was ignored, but a judge recently ruled that while the measure would be on the ballot, the county had to add language to make it clear that the tax increase would be spent on new correctional facilities, among other public safety spending.

Language access program coming to a municipal meeting near you?

The council will soon be considering an ordinance that would establish a language access program for Spokane to help residents with limited English skills get city services. This follows a 2022 resolution that encouraged the city to make a language access plan, but there hasn’t been much progress since, so now they’ll impose requirements and timelines for departments to follow.

The ordinance first would require all city departments to start budgeting for language access planning in 2024 and to have plans fully implemented by the end of 2025. The council itself would also start planning for translation of council documents and interpretation of meetings. It would exempt internal operations of the mayor, city attorney, city engineer, city clerk and documents produced in response to public records requests.

The Office Of Civil Rights, Equity and Inclusion will be responsible for hiring and designating a language access coordinator and overseeing the language access program.

The issue of language access is also prevalent in the local court system and advocates are pushing for change there. According to a 2020 community survey, there are 16,732 Spokane residents who speak a language other than English.

Agenda here
Monday, September 18 at 1:15 pm
Council Briefing Center in the Lower Level of City Hall.
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane VALLEY City Council

Sorry Spo-Val … we’ll be discovering THE VALLEY

Val will be staying the sole Spo-Val in our area, as Spokane Valley looks to approve the slogan “Discover THE VALLEY” (all caps mandatory). Along with the slogan, they’re also looking to approve a contract with local marketing agency 116 & West for $813,500 to provide destination marketing services with the aim of increasing tourism revenue. Gotta spend money to make money, right?

Run, don’t walk, to THE VALLEY

With tourism dollars on the brain, the Valley is teaming up with Spokane Sports, Tourism Promotion Area Commission and marketing agency 116 & West to create a cross country course. The VALLEY’s city council is voting on authorizing an application for a $4.4 million lodging tax grant from the Lodging Tax Facilities Fund #104. This would partially pay for the construction of the 2-kilometer course, which would be built on 46.13 acres of city-owned park property and 15.98 acres of adjacent Washington State Parks-owned property at Flora Road on the north side of the Spokane River.

Agenda here
Tuesday, September 19 at 6 pm.
CenterPlace Great Room
2426 N Discovery Place, Spokane Valley, WA 99216
Virtual attendance here.

Board of Spokane County Commissioners

Making it easier for fire victims to rebuild

The commissioners will be holding a public hearing for an ordinance that aims to make it faster for victims of the recent Gray and Oregon Road Fires to rebuild their homes. The August fires killed two people, destroyed 21,000 acres of land, at least 366 homes, plus numerous outbuildings and other property. Those homes will all need to be rebuilt, and as our region already faces shortages of home builders, the rebuilding process will likely take years. This ordinance would create an “additional mechanism for vesting” which basically means that the homeowners’ demolition and building permitting process will be less time-consuming.

Public hearing on hotel fees

The Spokane County Commissioners will be holding a public hearing on October 3 at 2 pm about raising the fees that hotels, motels and other lodging providers have to pay the county by $1. The change was recommended by the Tourism Promotion Association (TPA) and will go toward marketing tourism in the Spokane area. The TPA also recommended that the Hotel and Motel TPA Commission add two voting members to the three already there. The new members would be appointed from the Spokane City Council and the County Commissioners.

Agenda here
Tuesday, September 19 at 2 pm.
Commissioners’ Hearing Room, Public Works Building lower level.
1026 W Broadway Ave, Spokane, WA 99201
View livestream here.

Liberty Lake City Council

Comment on Capital Facilities Plan

The working draft of Liberty Lake’s Capital Facilities Plan, which outlines project priorities and funding sources for transportation, public facilities and utilities projects from 2024-2029, is ready for comment. There will be a workshop of this plan at the city council meeting where public discussion and input is invited. If you’re passionate about Liberty Lake public transportation priorities, this might be the meeting for you.

Agenda here
Tuesday, September 19 at 6 pm.
Liberty Lake City Hall
22710 E Country Vista Drive
Virtual attendance here.

Spokane Public Library Board of Trustees

Thin agenda, but property for sale?

While the agenda for the library board is always thin, there are a few line items that caught our eye as potentially being interesting including “Sale of Nevada Street Property” and “StartUp Spokane Rebrand.” Public comment is not allowed at these meetings, but public attendance in-person or virtually is, so if either of these things pique your interest, check out the meeting info below.

Agenda here
Tuesday, September 19 at 4:30 pm.
Hillyard Library
4110 N. Cook, Spokane, Washington, 99207
Virtual attendance here.

Spokane School District Board of Directors

Final read of isolation and restraint policy

The school board agenda has a final reading of an amendment to policy No. 3246 that would ensure students remain free from isolation, impermissible restraint and restraint devices during disciplinary action. This amendment is intended to prioritize deescalation and protect students from use of restraint or isolation as punishment, though there is still a safety provision that allows for restraint if a student poses imminent danger to themselves or others.

Agenda here
Wednesday, September 20 at 6 pm.
Spokane Public Schools Administration Building
200 N. Bernard
Virtual attendance here.

Special Meeting

Agenda here
Wednesday, September 20 at 4:30 pm.
Spokane Public Schools Administration Building
200 N. Bernard
Virtual attendance here.

Housing Action Subcommittee

Bylaw clean-up

The Housing Action Subcommittee is looking to operationalize its processes by clarifying and editing their bylaws. At this meeting, they’ll be reviewing a draft of proposed changes and holding discussion. Agreed-upon edits would streamline the group’s meetings.

Agenda here
Thursday, September 21 at 9:30 am.
City Council Briefing Center
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.
Virtual attendance here.

Bicycle Advisory Board

Agenda here
Tuesday, September 19 at 6 pm.
City Council Briefing Center, Spokane City Hall - Basement
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.
Virtual attendance here.

City Council Study Sessions

Agenda here once posted
Thursday, September 21 at 11 am.
City Council Chambers in the Lower Level of City Hall.
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane Airport Board

Agenda here
Thursday, September 21 at 9 am
Airport Event Center
9211 W. McFarlane Road, Spokane, WA 99224
Virtual attendance here.

Spokane Transit Authority Board of Directors

Agenda here
Thursday, September 21 at 1:30 pm.
STA Boardroom
1230 West Boone Avenue, Spokane, WA
Virtual attendance here.