At a special meeting on Wednesday that took no public comment, the Spokane Transit Authority board of directors chose to ask voters within their service area to approve the renewal of the two-tenths of one percent sales tax through 2048. The addition of the expiration date was a last-minute change that came after eleventh-hour private lobbying efforts from business interest groups.
For weeks, members of the public lobbied the Spokane Transit Authority (STA) board of directors. They all wanted one thing: renew the sales tax supporting transit operations as soon as possible, and do it without a sunset clause. Every single piece of feedback the board received, from more than 80 different people, asked the agency to renew the tax, according to meeting minutes from March 19.
Not one person was opposed, a rarity in local government.
At a meeting on April 16 it seemed like the majority of the board was on the same page, too. At least five of the nine voting members voiced support for asking voters to renew the existing two-tenths of one percent sales tax they currently pay — which amounts to 2 cents for every $10 spent — on the August primary ballot. As written that day, the sales tax would have no expiration date (sunset clause, in legalese) and would continue in perpetuity without needing voter reapproval.
The importance of being able to promise a guaranteed funding stream on federal grant applications was impressed upon a few of the board members who had been able to attend the recent American Public Transit Association conference in Washington, DC. Because STA’s current sales tax has a sunset clause, the agency can’t promise state or federal partners that they have funding secured for the lifespan of longterm projects they’re asking for support on, like the upcoming Division Street Bus Rapid Transit. Most of the board members agreed that removing the sunset clause was the right move forward, making the organization a more attractive candidate for grant dollars.
For most of the meeting, it appeared transit advocates were going to get most of what they fought for (some of them had asked the agency to actually increase the tax and with it, services.)
Enter exactly one business organization.
A representative from Greater Spokane Incorporated, the region’s Chamber of Commerce, had testified virtually at the beginning of the meeting asking the board to defer the vote — which had been very publicly in the works for months — to one of the last days possible before the deadline to get a tax on the August ballot. He offered no criticisms of the tax, and no concrete opposition from the business community, just a request for the agency to delay and meet with GSI members to discuss the tax renewal.
Airway Heights council member Bill Campbell, a nonvoting member of the board, called GSI’s last–minute request “a delaying action,” and said they could have talked to STA anytime during the tax renewal discussions, rather than waiting until the last minute.
But after a lengthy discussion, the board deferred, agreeing to wait to vote on running the tax renewal in August until after some of their board members could have a private conversation with representatives from GSI, which represents businesses in the region. Because no media members were allowed, and the STA board sent just three electeds to avoid a quorum that would create the need for a public meeting, the details of that conversation are not available.
Something that happened behind those closed doors shifted the board’s position, because at the top of Wednesday’s special meeting, Spokane Valley City Council Member Pam Haley proposed adding a 20-year sunset clause. This would require STA to go back to voters in 2048, two decades after the expiration of the current sales tax.
Her motion wasn’t immediately supported. Five of the nine voting members said they’d prefer to see the tax renewal on the ballot without an expiration date at all, while Spokane City Council Member Michael Cathcart said he wanted a shorter sunset to hold STA accountable and keep it from turning into a “billion dollar boondoggle,” like other agencies — see Sound Transit.
Spokane City Council Member Zack Zappone, who co-sponsored a resolution passed by the city council this week asking the STA board to put the tax on the ballot in August without a sunset, was opposed to any expiration date at all. He said it left transit, a necessity for many working people, at the “political whims” of a future body.
His fellow council member Sarah Dixit was also in strong opposition to adding a sunset, expressing frustration that the business community “held this vote hostage.” She said most of the feedback she’d gotten from transit-riders wanted the tax renewed without a sunset.
Ultimately, though, a compromise coalition won out, and the sunset was added to the ballot measure by a vote of 5-4, with Zappone and Dixit joined on the “nay” side by County Commissioners Josh Kerns and Al French, who didn’t offer any reason behind their vote.
STA board vice chair and Spokane City Council Member Kitty Klitzke told RANGE that her vote for the sunset, despite repeatedly saying she’d prefer the measure without, was to ensure that the tax renewal goes before voters as soon as possible.
“I’ve put too much into this to let it fall apart over a 20-year sunset,” Klitzke said. “In the [Public Transportation Benefit Area], there is no straightforward political lean so you really do have to build a broad coalition to feel good about things passing. Overconfidence isn’t something I wanted to risk to do something that would be really good for the community.”
After agreeing to add the sunset clause, the board then voted on adding the tax renewal to the August ballot, which passed 7-2. Kerns and French voted no, again offering no reasoning as to why.
But when the board turned to the last thing they needed to do before the May 1 deadline to get information to the county auditor — appointing the committees that will write “Pro” and “Con” statements for the Voter’s Guide — French gave a hint of his position:
“Can a member of the board be part of the con committee?” he asked.
STA’s lawyer Megan Clark said it was not advisable. French said, “Kay,” then moved to add former STA board member Mike Allen to the “Con” committee. He also moved to add one more name: former director of utilities and strategic planning for the city of Spokane Rick Romero, though French hadn’t yet gotten confirmation that Romero actually wanted to be on the committee.
Clark asked if Romero actually lived within the boundaries of the PTBA, a necessity for anyone serving on the ballot measure committees and French replied that he didn’t know, but would check.
According to his 2024 voter registration and an op-ed he penned with the Spokane Business Association’s Gavin Cooley for The Spokesman in 2025, Romero lives in Newport, Washington, which is outside the boundaries of the PTBA. Klitzke told RANGE on Thursday that Clark was already working on striking Romero from the “Con” committee due to his ineligibility.
Members of the “Pro” committee will be former state senator Andy Billig, confirmed in advance by Klitzke, and co-executive director of transit advocacy organization Spokane Reimagined Erik Lowe, who was in the room at the time and nominated in the spur-of-the-moment by Dixit.
There is a launch party for the sales tax renewal campaign tonight at 5:30 pm at Brick West Brewing.
